atomizer

silly! that makes the whole machine run twice as fast, not just the HD

from what i understand, any port over 10000 is a good rule for all P2P apps. ISP's and whoever else sometimes block traffic on lower ports, or throttle bandwidth.

Tux, thanks a lot for the info. I just tried MPlayer with the MPUI and was pretty disappointed as there's very little configuring that can be done from the UI. It worked fine however for the few tests i did. I also just tried the k-lite mega pack with the update (i chose MPC as the player). Did a completely default install. Wow -- what a disappointment! exceptions, exceptions, exceptions. Could not render WMV. When uninstalling, the installer left behind several reg entries and several files and directories. I used to use these packs before, but never again. I know K-Sphere's pack is well regarded and i've used that before (though i can't remember if it has encoders), but there's another highly regarded pack that is mentioned often here. Might you know what it is? However, i'm really tempted to do a little more work and forget about these codec packs and just install only what i need.

But the codecs are not of use to anything but MPlayer, right? From their website:

That looks good. My problem is encoding though. I need the codecs installed and available for encoding. That's why i'm stepping away from VLC. But for someone who doesn't encode or only wants one media player, that looks pretty spiffy! Even if you do encode, you could still install additional codes i suppose, but i like to keep things clean.

HAHAHA! I can see the guy on the other end hitting his mouse button to close the drive as soon as you open it and cramping up in hysterics Seriously, i don't know. Could be trojan or other malicious s/w. I suppose it could even be a defective drive. Try this: Reboot the machine and pause it right before windows loads. Open the drive and see what happens. If it works before windows loads, then i'd suggest doing some major scanning for malicious s/w. Might also try updating the firmware and drivers for the drive.

I have. I don't know anything about it, though the name sounds like an obvious rip from Notron and it they're trying to be like them, well, heh.

Man-oh-man!!! I did it AGAIN! My fault -- i keep confusing NOD with NORTON! Far as i know, NOD is a very good product. Sorry about that.

Used to use the k-lite packs a lot, then i switched to VLC which has it's own, and now i'm getting tired of VLC and looking to go back to MPC. Thanks for pointing out the update

i prefer intelligent comments from knowledgeable people who've done their research. oh well, guess i'm out of luck. i knew it was portable, but didn't see that page. good catch

Glad this topic was started. I started getting tired of Kerio (now Sunbelt Kerio, as it was acquired recently), though i still think it's a fine firewall. I just started evaluating a new s/w firewall called Filseclab Personal Firewall Professional Edition. It's an open source project, though the source is not freely available ($480 US). The firewall application is free however. Technically, i would have to consider it 'nagware' as it displays links to their other products in the 'status' window of the firewall UI, however it's not really annoying and that's coming from someone who detests 'nagware'. The UI is a bit rough around the edges perhaps, but nothing to really complain about. For the most part, i think it leaves Kerio in the dust. The logging, which was never a strong point with Kerio, is much better in Filseclab. From their website (their english is not very good): # It can block the most attacks from worm viruses and trojans. # It can block some main Adware and Spyware, the definition supports live update and you may also define it yourself. # Double filter system provides double-layer protection. # Digital signature verification can automatically trust the well-known program. # Built-in 7 big modes can apply for all kinds of requirements. # Advanced realtime monitor lets the network activities be clear. # Interactive rules creator is very easy to create the rules. # Password protection can protect the rules and configurations. # It is very easy to backup and restore the rules. # It can control the websites easily. # It supports two logfile types, ascii and binary. # It also supports live update for rule-definition, traffic graph, privacy protection, Windows Security Center, balloon message alert and more unique features. UPDATE: Filseclab gets it's advertising from a static HTML document in its program directory, '/online/default.htm'. I simply edited it by replacing the contents with the following which makes it completely invisible: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <title></title> <style type="text/css"> body { background-color: #666699; } body.c1 {border: none;overflow:hidden} </style> </head> <body class="c1" oncontextmenu="return false"> </body> </html>

EDIT: I removed some content from my post because, like the idot i am, i was confusing NOD with Norton!!! Two WAY different products and as far as i know, NOD is a very good A/V. When you read published results of how 'good' an A/V tool is, you have to take that information with a grain of salt. Often they don't include information like how well it gets along with your system or how many problems people have had with it. I've reason to believe that some A/V vendors tailor their s/w just to secure a good score and some of the criteria that the reviewers set is rather stupid. I've used several products in the past, including AVG and Avast!. I've probably used the latter for the longest period of time. I think i used some sort of Norton security suite WAY back when. Avast! is really good and it doesn't infect and bog down your system. They also seem like an ethical bunch. Once when i scanned a file which i thought was a known trojan and Avast! didn't alert, i emailed them about it. They explained exactly why it wasn't in their definitions and i agreed that they were right not to include it. I also asked them why they didn't make the VB 100% score on Virus Bulletin (http://www.virusbtn.com/index) (they are probably considered thee authority on A/V stuff) one time and they also explained that in detail. That's when i started to learn about the screwy criteria that some A/V reviewers set. As Avast! progressed, it also got a little too bloated for my taste (been using it since early beta), so i started looking for alternatives. I found ClamWin and it was exactly what i wanted! -- no bLOAt, no hogging resources, no slowing down of my system, powerful command line options, a super clean GUI, completely free and, to top it off, open source. Updates are pumped out faster than some major vendors (Clam is set to check it's database hourly by default) and background scanning isn't even an option. Right now it's an on-demand scanner only, so i'd suggest noobs stay away. As an open source product, i think that would take the pressure off the developers to advertise useless statistics like "we detect 49,0000 known viruses". They also don't have to compromise their product to get a "good score" with any reviewers.

Hopefully someone will come along with a better idea, but did you try extracting a new copy of ipconfig from an installation? Also could try Filemon.

not. a. chance. always keeping on eye on the *nix fellas and even ReactOS.

maybe it's a holiday and they're closed

the best? i don't know good? http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/ also WarFTP, but i couldn't connect to his website just now.

Nice find. You like that better than CCleaner?

Nobody except the self-proclaimed "security expert" Steve Gibson that is. And according to him, "raw sockets" was supposed to bring down the entire internet by now, no? Here's the other side of the story. More reading. And some more. And more still. A quote from another article, emphisis is mine...

To those who dislike NAV, i think you have a **** good reason to. NAV is a virus IMO. Somebody said they'd rather have a virus than NAV. I agree; at least most viruses can be removed Anyway... Are you a nOOb or a semi-experienced user, fairly well versed in the dangers that lurk as well as the configuration of your OS? If the former, then you might be better off with a full-blown AV, like avast!. It's a quality product that scores well in the Virus Bullition tests. Free version available last i checked. As of the last time i used it, it worked very well and was highly configurable. It didn't bog down my system at all, at least not to any noticeable degree (with default background scanning on). If the latter, then i would argue that you really do not need a full-blown AV at all. Since you're at least somewhat familiar with viruses, trojans, rootkits and other malware, and you know better than to download files from shady sites, AND you know how to harden your OS a bit, then why do you need an AV sucking up resources? For you i highly recommend ClamWin. ClamWin is an upcoming product, still in beta, that is FOSS (free, open source). I've read that the database updates occur more frequently than some popular commercial products. I've never experienced a problem with it. However, as of this point, it does not do background scanning. That's one of the reasons i like it so much though. It's strictly an on-demand scanner, so you have to manually invoke it (from an explorer context menu for instance) to scan something. It's small, fast and devoid of all the bLOAt so common in the popular commercial products. If you want, it will run a service at logon, and an associated tray icon, that keeps the def's updated an allows easy access to the UI. Does scheduling also, without relying on Task Scheduler.

might want to check the defanition of F/OSS @DigeratiPrime - the differance between IrfanView and XnView is that the latter is primarily geared toward graphics only, where Irfan does audio and video as well.

i don't think IrfanView is OSS

it sounds to me like your pretty inexpierenced. if you don't need PHP/SQL for anything else, then i would highly suggest you bypass any forum s/w that uses a database. do a search for forum s/w that uses a "flat file", as you won't need PHP/SQL. there are plenty of free ones.

yeah, stop making multiple requests for help

nice job!!! little update: .DOT NET is not required for CD burner xp pro. see here. enough people complained about their switch to DOT NET that they decided to offer an alternitive. also very worthy of mention is ClamWin, a FOSS and *very* good, very light anti-virus. note that isn't for newbs however, as it does not do real-time scanning (which is one of it's better assets IMO). ClamMail is the counterpart for e-mail. PopTray is, by far, the very best e-mail checking util i've ever found. very simple, yet LOADED with useful features. FOSS, but it's Delphi. KeyPass Password Safe, FOSS, and the best PWD manager i've yet come accross. Filezilla, one of the better FOSS FTP clients/servers.

just a word of caution about disabling the start menu MRU file list: i just caused a 2 day headache for the developer of FreePCB (circut board design s/w) because i disabled the startmenu MRU list. he changed his his code to make it work with it disabled however (available later tonight or tomorrow). the problem was 'exceptions' when trying to open or save a document. since i also removed dr. watson, it only made things that much more difficult for the poor fella i won't be removing either in future builds.