Posted in Windows XP

What’s a rootkit, and how can I check for rootkits installed on my machine?

A rootkit is a term used to describe mechanisms that allow malware such as viruses and spyware to hide their existence from tools that are designed to eradicate them. Rootkits commonly open back doors to systems so that malicious intruders can access the system with administrative credentials or intruders use them on the machine to […]

How do I disable Internet Explorer password caching?

When you are prompted to type your security credentials into the Enter Network Password dialog and you check Save this password in your password list, you have cached your password. To disable password caching: 1. Open a CMD.EXE window. 2. Type the following command and press Enter: REG ADD “HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings” /V DisablePasswordCaching /T REG_DWORD […]

How do I disable the Windows XP balloon tips?

To disable the Windows XP Notification Area balloon tips: 1. Use the registry editor to navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced. 2. on the Edit menu, press New and DWORD value. 3. Type a Value Name of EnableBalloonTips. 4. Double-click EnableBalloonTips and type 0. Alternately, open a CMD.EXE window and type: REG ADD “HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced” /V EnableBalloonTips /T REG_DWORD […]

How can I determine which groups I’m a member of for my current logon session?

You can use the whoami command with the /groups switch to display all the groups in the currently logged on user token as the following command and output show: whoami /groups C:Documents and Settingsali>whoami /groups [Group 1] = “UKDomain Users” [Group 2] = “Everyone” [Group 3] = “MERCURYDebugger Users” [Group 4] = “BUILTINAdministrators” [Group 5] […]

Why do 10 million people play World Of Warcraft ?

A friend of mine recently sent me this email and I believe it answers the title of this post perfectly:

I guess it’s a combination of things. Work was taking up more of my time and WOW felt like a second job when just one job was already enough for me. But ultimately it came down to this. If I put in 10 hours pumping out presentations for my boss, reading about mutual funds online, etc. I came out the better for it. However, if I spent the same 10 hours playing, maybe I’d get a level up out of it but when I log off the game, what do I have to show for the last 10 hours of my life. Not much.

Import / Export IP Settings Using Netsh

To quickly export your IP (inc dns / wins) settings to a text file, use the following command: netsh -c interface dump > c:\work-net.txt When you connect to another LAN netsh -c interface dump > c:\home.txt Once you have everything in a text file, you can use this command to import the settings depending on […]

Un-hide Components from Add/Remove List

Most Windows components can be uninstalled by going to Add/Remove Windows Components in the Control Panel. But what about ones that you don’t find? You know that they’re on there somewhere, so how do you get rid of them? Well, it’s actually not too hard to bring these out of hiding. Hidden in the C:WINNTINF […]

Windows update gives a 80246005 error

To fix this error, try: Click start-run type services.msc then press enter Look for the Automatic Updates Service, right click it and choose to stop Click start->run type %windir%SoftwareDistribution then press enter Open the DataStorage folder and delete its contents. Click start->run type services.msc right click the Automatic Update Service and choose to start Now […]

How can I hide the drop-down list of domains that appears on the logon screen of Windows XP and later machines?

To remove the domain drop-down list from the logon screen and force users to use their full user principal name (UPN), perform these steps: 1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon registry subkey. 3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD value. 4. Enter a name of NoDomainUI and press […]

What’s Windows XP N?

As part of the European Union (EU) and Microsoft antitrust settlement, Microsoft had to create versions of Windows XP Professional Edition and Windows XP Home Edition that don’t include Windows Media Player (WMP). These versions are called XP Professional Edition N and XP Home Edition N and are available only in Europe.