nLite and MicroXP

[m99]

Woke up, and couldn't sleep :-(

Tried removing absolute everything i could from MicroXP with nLite and deletet the $OEM$-directory, filesize was 59 MB. This "distro" is probably useless so I haven't tried it, just wanted to see how small I could get it.

[Ponch]

and wiped the hard disk (several times, for good measure ).

This actually saddens me (ONLY the several times ):

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=2683&st=6

jaclaz

I like that one: "Like chaos, it perpetuates itself until everyone believes it. Lots of good, usable hard drives are ruined in the process."

Wiping a hard disk with the good tool takes 5 seconds. No OS ever checks further "if there ever was something on the disk" when it's told there was not. Further work is only wasting time, HD life, and ruining your own chances of recovering something if ever you wanted to. Triple whammy (however you might spell it ).

[jaclaz]

Wiping a hard disk with the good tool takes 5 seconds. No OS ever checks further "if there ever was something on the disk" when it's told there was not. Further work is only wasting time, HD life, and ruining your own chances of recovering something if ever you wanted to. Triple whammy (however you might spell it ).

Well, NO.

5 seconds is formatting, NOT wiping.

If you do not have security concerns it's allright to simply formatting.

Wiping with a SINGLE 00 pass will take some time.

Point is that one single pass with 00's is ENOUGH for ANY security requirement.

Multiple passes are just a form of unneeded "voodoo".

jaclaz

[TranceEnergy]

How effective wiping is depends much on the program and method used. I wouldnt trust any form of wiping 100% regardless. Normally wiping just a single pass is useless. Also wiping with single symbols cant either be recommended. Better to just insert a whole lot of random bytes, making recovery a headache for anyone wanting to recover your data, say for whatever reason you dont want them to.

[Ponch]

What I meant is, in most cases on these forums (like here), security is not the matter, but rather start from a completely clean HDD (no ill effect from former install), in which case, erasing the MBR and the beginning of the first bites from the 1st partition is enough.

[GrofLuigi]

OK, since the OT doesn't stop...

Guys, I wrote that in a (semi) joking way. I didn't wipe it with zeroes or any other number, didn't wait hours, just wiped the partitions with a couple of tools cause:

1. I wasn't sure if Vista's new partitioning scheme would interfere later.

2. And I didn't know whether the tools work properly with Vista, so I used a couple of them.

3. I wrote short because I thought it wasn't important/wouldn't be picked on.

I know about the challenge and don't have anything to hide anyway, so stop teasing me!

GL

[jaclaz]

@GrofLuigi

Sure, just joking.

How effective wiping is depends much on the program and method used. I wouldnt trust any form of wiping 100% regardless. Normally wiping just a single pass is useless. Also wiping with single symbols cant either be recommended. Better to just insert a whole lot of random bytes, making recovery a headache for anyone wanting to recover your data, say for whatever reason you dont want them to.

Did you read the linked thread (and the links therein?

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=2683&st=6

Or can you give me (as always for free ) the evidence I am seeking?

@All

Just in case, this method (the non-secure but "OS effective" way Ponch describes ) takes actually a few seconds and it is recommended to start from scratch:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=4015&st=21

jaclaz

Edited October 31, 2008 by jaclaz

[m99]

Just downloaded the latest version of MicroXP (0.83), it's several MB bigger than the previous version, both before and after stripping it. Haven't read the info-files so I don't exactly know why.

BTW! Could you please keep your trolling somewhere else.

[TranceEnergy]

jaclaz: In a previous job of mine i worked with restoring data and also destroying. Very fun job actually. The people i worked for had over 30 years experience in the field. I trust that of their word experience far more then anything else i read on the occasional website/forum.

And also because i am capable of recovering harddrive even after zeroing it out. How? Well i¨d have to kill you if i told you =)

[jaclaz]

jaclaz: In a previous job of mine i worked with restoring data and also destroying. Very fun job actually. The people i worked for had over 30 years experience in the field. I trust that of their word experience far more then anything else i read on the occasional website/forum.

And also because i am capable of recovering harddrive even after zeroing it out. How? Well i¨d have to kill you if i told you =)

I hope you are not offended if I do not trust you on this particular claim.

After all I am not asking that much : ANY evidence but hearsay or apodictical claims.

jaclaz

[TranceEnergy]

Absolutely not. I thought a bit how to write it, but i can at least say it's all in the magnetic field =) I'm confident you will find answears and ways if you really want to. Rest assured, it's not the easiest feat, therefore leaving it "impossible" is fine by me. It's not for the faint of heart.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Hmmmmm seems to me like there is waaaaaay to much talk of plain warez in this thread and too much bullchitting going on.

My personal vote is that this thread needs to be closed and the OPEN talkers of using "MicroXP" need to keep their mouths shut because it is WAREZ and mods are supposed to warn and ban for the discussion and use of it!

Edit = Please note this is only my personal opinion and in no way resembles or speaks for the forum MSFN.

Edited November 3, 2008 by Kelsenellenelvian

[TranceEnergy]

I for one can honestly say i have no idea what microxp exactly is and have not used it nor seen the software myself. I thought it was a chinese update pack or something.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

A simple google search reveals hundreds of links and topics of it. It is a heavily modified pre-activated small copy of windows.

It is one of the most major warez releases out there.

[TranceEnergy]

Sounds like s*** to me =)

I did a google myself, i found that it has

RAM Usage On First Installation ........... 39 Mb

Handles ................................... 2229

Threads ................................... 157

Processes ................................. 15

i dont know about first installation, but my ram usage is much higher, but reasonably so, because i disable pagefile and cache everything, all loaded in memory=most responsive system.

Handles right now is 2590,say 2600, processes is 12, thats 3 less, and ooh threads are 166.

Taking into consideration i run xp x64bit (vs xp 32bit sp3 i think), which by nature comes with more files. I dare say it's better to make one's own nlited install. Instead of some noob deploying his install image for everyone else. Which can never work as it is truly each to his own what one needs.

That it's popular im sure, who doesnt want "free" stuff.

And btw: I did a few tests, and to the best i could see, the difference between nliting my install to fullblown unnlited install, was a memory latency difference of 1 ns. =) Not much at all is it? Of course, there other factors, install time, ram/threads usage etc. But really to me its just showing computers are finally going somewhere.

Edited November 4, 2008 by TranceEnergy