Thank you for the useful information about your experience, GraveDigger. Your example with the 1-click function shows again why it is always necessary to go through all the settings first before using this type of program. Even CCleaner or Glary will remove things I don't want them to if I don't configure them first.
Dangerous they are, but this type of program is very popular and we cannot ignore them. It seems better to try to inform people and point out all the problems. Comments like yours and others here may be just the thing to keep some less-experienced people from blindly using a cleaner. The site also mentions Registry cleaners, which is another category of very dangerous (and IMO almost useless) software. Just because a piece of software is mentioned here doesn't mean it is recommended.
@MikeR: I appreciate and understand your points. Thanks for your interest in the integrity of TSA and your suggestions. What gets included here is an individual editorial decision and in borderline cases reasonable people can sometimes come down on different sides. This program is new, in a popular category, and has been mentioned in various places on the Internet and that is why it is in Hot Finds. Your concern about newbies is shared by us all and was one of the reasons I wrote about it. Several well-known sources have given this program good reviews and I thought it should be mentioned here so that people would get another point of view. This is not the venue for full reviews but I tried to indicate that it was not a top pick.
I'm not quite sure what you did. Are you saying that there is no folder "\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts". You say "Network was not there" but the folder you want is "Network Shortcuts".
Any PDF reader with JavaScript enabled might be vulnerable, There are also other possibilities. Several years ago Foxit had a stack overflow problem. Only read PDFs from known sources and scan them with your anti-malware software first.
Because its software is very widely used, Adobe is a particular target for hackers but any reader can have a security flaw. Alternate readers (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-non-adobe-pdf-reader.htm) are probably attacked less often but I would disable JavaScript on any reader unless I specifically needed it. As one commenter suggests, taking precautions before opening any PDF is always called for.
Scripting will be controlled by your browser settings. If you want to disable the Chrome reader, enter "chrome://plugins" in the address bar, find the entry for Chrome PDF viewer, and click "Disable". There might also be an entry for an Adobe or Foxit plug-in. That can also be disabled if you choose.
This turns off one particular tracking function. You are correct that there are other tracking methods that may be at work even when you are not logged in to Google.
Look, you can't go on the Internet without some sort of risk. Nor can you use your phone, your charge card, or drive a car totally risk-free. If you are really concerned, maybe you should try anonymizer services. (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anonymous-surfing-service.htm) But then you have to trust the service.
It would be nice if life were that simple. Hwinfo monitors a lot of different hardware and I don't think we have a category of software that can correct all hardware problems.
Actually,there is still something called "System image backup" but it has been moved to a location different from Windows 8. What with travel and the holidays, I haven't gotten around to updating the article.
I am puzzled. I have no trouble with this in Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I just tried it again. Went into safe mode and uninstalled a program. The msiserver was already running. Here is the REG file exported from my Registry:
----------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\MSIServer]
@="Service"
----------------------------------------------
I don't have an enterprise system to check. Are you in an environment where there might be a policy setting? Or maybe you are using safe mode with network? If you are using the safe mode with network, there is another Registry key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Network\MSIServer
Both keys can coexist in the Registry, Because there seems to be interest in safe mode with networking, I have added the registry edit to the tip.
Can't you run SFC in safe mode? Just use the command prompt with elevated privileges.
There is the obvious suggestion that maybe you accidentally clicked the wrong thing.Take a look at your flags again. If anybody has any other possible ideas, let us know.
Disk cleanup is not supposed to remove files you might need. As I understand it, only older update files that have been superseded by newer update files are removed. Updates from the most recent batch should still be there. If you go into Control Panel you can find a list of updates that have been installed together with an option to uninstall them.
One way or the other, I think everyone with any Google account should check their account settings after Nov. 11 to make sure what it is they are agreeing to.
It looks like anytime you are logged in to any Google account, Gmail or otherwise, your +1 endorsements can be used unless you follow the opt-out procedure given in the tip. Be sure to check the settings in your account on November 11.
There are several points to make.
First, before any upgrade, you should always make a backup of the whole system. So I would hope you already have a backup. However, if you have plenty of disk space, there is no particular need to delete the file. People with an SSD or a small C: partition are the ones most likely to need the space.
As to copying the file to another location, it is a hidden system file and copying such files and then reading them, if necessary, can be tricky. I have not tried doing that. If anybody has experience with that, let us know.
I have also had times when a non-responsive mouse or keyboard could be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting but this has not always worked. Then I had to restart to get it to work.
I guess you'll have to balance the possibility that .NET might have security problems unknown to Microsoft against the protection that EMET provides. There are, of course, a variety of approaches to security. For example, many alternatives are discussed at http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-stay-safe-while-online.htm-0
The system has a record of the path to the refresh image. If you put the image on a removable external drive, be sure that the drive assignment is the same if you plug the drive back in to use the image. Or you can use the command line to reset the default refresh image to a new location. Personally, I maintain a variety of backups with several on external removable drives but I have kept this particular refresh image on a second internal drive with a copy of the image file CustomRefresh.wim on an external drive.
I would add that some malware infections will seek out any connected external drives and could possibly infect your backups. That is why I keep a backup drive that I disconnect except when backing up. Some people even keep a backup in a distinct geographical location in case of fire or other disaster. I even have a friend who takes a backup drive to his bank vault.
The image can be pretty big, depending on what you have on your computer. I do not recommend placing the new image on your main hard drive. Put it on an external drive. As the tip says, create a folder to hold it. Also, as the tip says, make sure you have room on the drive where you are putting it. The recovery partition on most PCs is really only big enough to hold the original image. Once you start adding your own programs and files it is going to be too small.
The command is "recimg" whch I presume comes from "recovery image".
The PC users group I went to back in those days had a lending library of shareware on 360 KB 5 1/4" floppy disks. Those were the days when people really knew how to code and you could get a surprising number of programs even in such a small capacity. Of course, DOS itself only had 512 KB of memory to work with.
Although there is some overlap between the freemium and crippleware categories, they differ in how useful the free software is. The free software in the freemium model provides substantial value and is sometimes almost the same as the paid version. Crippleware is generally not all that useful and often has the best features missing.
The developer's download link says, "Current Version: 1.6.1, Released: 05/12/2010". That is over three and a half years ago. The date you give seems to refer to when the web page was updated. Note that the phrase "Universal Extractor" is all the way on the left side of the page and "Last Modified: Fri, 10/25/2013 - 08:57" is all the way on the right side of the page. The two phrases are not written together as you indicate.
Hackers do not always lock the legitimate owner out of a compromised account. That warns the owner that something is wrong. The hacker may prefer to quietly use the account and keep the legitimate owner unaware.
Thanks for your advice to look into Control Panel. All I can say is that it is usually thought that Mobility Center is disabled on desktops. It was missing on my Windows 7 Pro 64-bit system and several other desktops that I took a quick look at. Microsoft says "Windows Mobility Center—included on laptops running the Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7—puts commonly used laptop settings in one spot so you can access them easily on the go." (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-mo...)
Several of the Nirsoft utilities are known to trigger false positives from antimalware programs. However, these programs are perfectly safe. The ones you mention are password revealers and some antivirus programs see password activity as malware. Just skip the flagged utilities if you prefer.
I am afraid I am not sure exactly what you are describing. Do you mean that you scanned three different exe files from other programs with this utility and it indicated they were trojans? Or do you mean you sent the files to VirusTotal using PeStudio and got a trojan report? PeStudio itself does not report trojans per se.
As indicated in the article, PeStudio has an option to send files to VirusTotal that can be turned on or off. If a file is flagged by VirusTotal, you have to look further to see if it is a false indication by a few of the many programs that VirusTotal uses or a real indication. See this article for more information: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-tell-if-file-malicious.htm
You have hit on one of the problems with any malware detection method. All detection schemes have grey areas. This software provides warnings but not decisions. There will always be times when additional information, judgment, and experience is required. This program is only one security tool and has to be used in conjunction with others. I wish there were a black and white procedure but security isn't that simple. Maybe this reference will help:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-tell-if-file-malicious.htm
You could also go to one of the security forums like Wilder's and ask for help in interpreting the kind of warnings you got: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php
There are several ways to make use of File History. On all my laptops I have a slot for an SD flash card. There are 32 GB SD flash cards for sale for less than $20. If you aren't backing up videos or thousands of pictures, an inexpensive SD card or USB flash drive can be used. Also, you don't have to always have the backup device connected. The File History function detects when you attach a drive.
If you mean doing a clean install of Windows 7 on an existing Windows XP setup, that is not what this tool is for. It is for transferring settings and files from an XP machine to a separate Windows 7 machine.
What hard links are you referring to? As far as I know, none of the items in the article involves hard links. Windows uses "junctions" for some things but these are not hard links and anyway are not involved in this article's discussion. See http://windows7tips.com/symlinks-definition.html
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