Technology – Page 37

Turning Off the Useless Services In Windows XP

November 18, 2008 by Raj Agrawal 4 Comments

Improve the system performance significantly

Tuning your PC to this!

Source: http://www.dannelsonfineart.com — Speed!

Let us face it. Windows XP is far the only best thing that Microsoft could do till date. Windows Vista is pure BS. Only the Future Man (an imaginary character created by me who often travels in time) is aware of how well will Windows 7 do.

A good thing is that a lot tweaking tips for Win XP are available on the web which has made easy for all to squeeze out the every bit of the performance from this MS product. A very old, safe and effective tweak is to turn of the useless services which helps improving the boot/shutdown time and it also improves the overall browsing speed. Here is the list of services that can be safely ditched from running in the background. TheElderGeek has shared this wonderful list to sort out the crappy services.

But first, follow these steps to find where can you actually see these services listed:

Open the Start Menu
Go to Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Run the program “Services”
A window will now open up giving you access to the list of services you can enable/ disable.

Here is the list of unnecessary services:

AdobeLM Service: Not all computers have this service, still it is useless, just disable it if you have it.

Alerter: Disable this one if you are not on a network because you will not receive alerts.

Application Management: Set this to manual.

Automatic Updates: Disable it if you don’t require auto updating and patching of Windows. It is pretty useless if you use auto-patcher by NeoWin to update your Windows OS. Thus, you will save bandwidth.

ClipBook: Disable this if you are not on a network, since you don’t need to share anything.

Computer Browser: Disable this too if you are not on a network, as you don’t need to browse and monitor connected computers.

Cryptographic Services: Set this to manual if you are not sure you need it.

Distributed Transaction Service: Set this to manual.

DNS Client: Set this to manual if you are not on a network.

Error Reporting Service: Disable this useless service for reporting errors to Microsoft, because they will hardly even reply to you for any error you get. Also saves lots of bandwidth.

Fast User Switching Compatibility: Disable it if you have only a single.user on your computer, or if you do not use fast user switching feature much. That is, if you completely log-off and then allow other users to use your computer, then you do not need this. Note that this service is completely useless for low memory computers.

FTP Publishing: Disable this if you do not use FTP.

Help and Support: Set it to manual or turn it off if you do not use the help feature often. You can turn it on again when you want help.

HTTP SSL: Set it to manual.

Human Interface Device Access: Turn it off if you do not use hot-keys or remote systems on your computer; if you use them sometimes, it is better turn it to manual.

IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service: Set this to manual to save memory and time. Do not turn it off if you have a CD writer or a DVD writer attached to your computer.

Indexing Service: Turn it off, it uses lots of CPU. If you are an avid searcher, like a maniac, on your computer, leave it on since it will help you. If you know where your files are and do not use search that often, then disable it for your good.

InstallDriver Table Manager: Disable it, it does no harm in doing so.

IPSEC Services: Set this to manual.

Windows Messenger: Disable this if you are not on a network, it.uses too much memory and it is a hog. Also, it does no good and sometimes it is likely to become a security threat.

MS Software Shadow Copy Provider: Set this to manual.

Net Logon: Disable if you are not on a network.

NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing: Disable this if you do not use Remote Desktop feature; in my opinion, it is a pretty useless feature.

Network Provisioning Service: Disable this, it is useless if you are not on a network.

NT LM Security Support Provider: Disable this, its useless too.

NVIDIA Display Driver Service: If you do not use the features of nVidia Desktop, this service just be disabled; it is a big hog of memory.

Office Source Engine: Disable it if you have a MS Office CD handy always, its helpful if your installation goes corrupt.

Portable Media Serial Number Service: Set it to manual if you connect portable media to your computer, otherwise disable it.

Print Spooler: Disable it if you don’t have a printer.

Protected Storage: Disable it if you don’t allow strangers to sit on your encrypted storage computer.

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager: Disable it if you don’t use Remote Desktop feature for help and support from Microsoft which most probably is a “Yes”.

Remote Procedure Call Locator: Set it to manual.

Remote Registry: Serious security threat if turned on, disable it no matter what.

Removable Storage: Disable it if you don’t use removable storage drives, else turn it manual.

Routing and Remote Access: Set it to manual.

Secondary Logon: Useless feature for most, disable it or turn it manual.

Security Accounts Manager: Disable it, it’s pretty useless, unless you use NTFS Encryption.

Security Center: Damn useless and irritating feature. Disable it.

Server: Set it to manual or disable it if you are not on network.

Smart Card: Disable it if you don’t use smart cards on your computer.

SSDP Discovery Service: Disable it of not on network or don’t have UPnP devices on home networks.

Task Scheduler: Disable it if you don’t schedule tasks like defragmentation, error scans etc… and plan to do it your self instead.

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper: Set it to manual if on network, otherwise disable it.

Telnet: Set it to manual if you use this feature, otherwise disable it, especially if you are home users.

Terminal Services: Since you aren’t using Remote Desktop etc… disable it for good.

Uninterrupted Power Supply: Disable it if you don’t have an UPS attached to the serial port of your computer.

Universal Plug and Play Device Host: Set it to manual.

User Privilege Service: Set it to manual.

Volume Shadow Copy: Disable it if you don’t backup using System Restore or Windows Backup.

Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS): Disable this if you have another firewall such as Norton or Zone Alarm installed, otherwise let it remain ON for better security.

Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) : If you don’t connect use a camera/scanner with your computer, disable this service, else set it to manual.

Windows Media Connect: Disable this if you don’t use things such as an iPod etc… for your Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Connect (WMC) Helper: Disable this if you disabled the one above or if you don’t need help.

Windows Time: Disable if not on a synchronised network.

Wireless Zero Configuration: Disable if not on a wireless network.

WMI Performance Adapters: Disable it, it’s a useless service for basic usage.

Workstation: Disable if you aren’t on a network. Or simply, if you are a gamer, just shut this one.

Thats it! I guarantee you that your PC will perform a lot better if you’ve optimised the services correctly!

Kicking Out The Autorun Viruses Manually

November 8, 2008 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

It’s not as difficult as it seems

Yesterday, my friend brought a 160GB Portable HD drive to get some good stuff from my HD. I plugged it into the port and what caught my attention was that, in the usual autorun window, there was something very unusual i.e the ‘Open folder to view files’ was mention two times. I ran a quick scan with Avira on the portable drive and “unsurprisingly” it was infected with ‘TR/Crypt.XPACK.Gen’. Again, unsurprisingly, the antivirus failed to disinfect, remove and even quarantine the virus!

A long time ago my OS was infected with a similar Autorun virus and i was forced to find my own way to deal with it and it took me almost 15 minutes to kick it out of my PC, though a short time, it was a real pain in a$$ as the virus was just multiplying!

The way can you deal with such stubborn virus is that if the antivirus fails to fix them, you have to manually remove them so as to avoid the boring procedure of formatting the drives and re-installing the OS.

My solution to deal with Autorun viruses

First of all, NEVER rush toward exploring the portable partitions,
If you find anything suspicious about the portable device, run a through antivirus scan and if still you are not satisfied, unhide all the folders and system files from the toolbar menu and check whether you see any stranger file hidden in the portable drive.
Install the Unlocker app (It helps to stop the active processes from using the drive/folder/file, thus making the drive/folder/file writable)
Right click on the portable drive, click on Unlocker, and kill all the processes using the infected portable drives.
If you are unable to unhide the folders, start the search window and set the options as ‘highlighted’ in the screen shot:

After you’ve selected the correct options, hit the search tab (Remember to set the searcha path to your portable drives).
If infected, you will find some suspicious hidden files like autorun.inf and others that are no supposed to be a part of the drive(beware, do not run the autorun file directly, it’s another way of getting your OS infected). Instead drag the .inf file in the notepad to check it’s contents.
Now, leave the search results window as it is and run the file shredder tool.
Go back to the search results window and drag all the stranger files including the ‘RECYCLER’ and ‘System Volume Information’ folder into the File Shredder window and hit the “Chop it away” button.
This will remove the infection from the portable device and will save your OS from being infected.
If your OS is also infected, follow the same steps but, in the this case the only difference will be that you will be dealing with your local drives (C: D: E: and so on).

Feel free to drop in a comment if you have any questions/suggestions.

Receiving Emails And Feeds On SMS For Free

November 2, 2008 by Raj Agrawal 3 Comments

Nokia 1110i is super cool when it comes to speed and simplicity. Being a Nokia 1110i.user, i’ve always enjoyed the browsing speed and the comfortable keypad. For me, It’s basically a fixed version of Nokia 1100. Even though this black and white phone is stripped to only calling, messaging and with a better version of Snake for entertainment, it doesn’t stop me from receiving my mails and recent feeds on my mobile. The trick is for all who.use a simple phone with no GPRS access and is also.useful for mobiles with GPRS.

There are two services that I am considering, one being only for phone numbers in India and the other one for USA and Canada.

I will start of with the service for phone numbers in India.

For receiving new mails on SMS, you need to free your Gmail feed from the usual authentication (yes, you have a feed for your email account too).

For regular feeds, apart from Freeing your feed, all the steps to be followed are the same.

Google SMS Channels (Currently for India only)

I have tested this trick only on Gmail accounts and works as smooth as whiskey. It should work for other Webmail services too. Though the updates are not in real time, it usually takes 5-10 minutes to arrive as SMS.

Generic Gmail feed link – https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

The feeds for other webmail services can be found with Google search.

Get started:

Go to https://freemyfeed.com
Enter https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom as the input url, followed by your.user id and password. (Is it safe? Of course it is. But still, you should read the privacy policy on the website). Save the output URL.
Log into Google SMS channels,
Settings,
Enter your mobile number and set the other options as per your preferences,
Create a new channel,
Enter the regular details in the form,
In the ‘Source’ section, select RSS/Atom feed and enter the new feed generated from http://freemyfeed.com
‘Allow publishing by’: Only me
‘Who can subscribe’: By invitation only
Click on Create Channel,
And you’re done.

ZapTXT (USA and Canada only):

Follow the easy step by step guide, and you’re done!