Get what you DON’T pay for!  PC Mag reports on 196 programs that cost nothing but will make your computing life richer while keeping your wallet fat!

PC Mag recently put 12 anti-virus suites to the test to see who really give the best all around protection.  Remember, these are suites: they are like Swiss Army Knives with lots of functions, all of which take up Ram but just might offer some pretty comprehensive protection.  Full Story

Computer crashes happen to all of us and usually at the worst possible time.

You guessed it, my computer crashed and now I have to deal with picking up the pieces.  My job is to provide technical assistance and instill confidence into others whose computer have failed.  This isn’t suppose to happen to me.

Ironically, when this terrible event happened, I was attempting to recover someone else’s data from a failed laptop hard drive.  I plugged their 2 and a half inch hard drive into my Laptop computers trusty drive tray (like I have done dozens of times before).  I waited for Windows XP to automatically discover the new disk drive so that I could backup the data.  But their drive did not spin up and my computer hanged and became unresponsive.  Knowing that something went south with my computer, I reboot it.  Windows appeared to come up normally but I was unable to log into it with my user ID and password.

The portion of the Windows registry that stores user IDs and passwords was corrupted and I knew I was in deep doo-doo.

How am I going to fix my computer?  A corrupted registry is “Bad”.  I knew that my data was safe and that I could recover the data from the hard drive or from a backup.  What I wanted to avoid was some serious down time and the 4-6 hours to reload Windows, install all of the applications, and configure all of the email accounts, Printers, and utilities.

I tried all of the basics and they took about 15 minutes.

1. I tried to log in using the administrator account instead of my own.  It was corrupted as well.  So much for using the “System Restore” utility.
2. I tried to force Windows XP into “Safe Mode” and “Safe Mode Command Prompt” by pressing the F8 key when powering up the computer. This failed as well as I was still unable to log into the computer.
3. I tried to use the F8 key startup menu and selected to start the computer with the “Last known working configuration”.  Failed
4. I tried to use the Windows XP install CD and try to use the “Recovery Console” and perform a check-disk (CHKDSK) hoping a disk error could be discovered and repaired.  Nope.
5. I used my trusted bootable flash drive (bootable linux with a password cracker), and allow me to change the administrator password in the  hope that this would somehow fix the user-id.  Nope.

It was time for me to pull out the big guns.

The “Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows”.  www.ubcd4win.com by Benjamin Burrows.  The UBCD4win is a bootable CD that run WindowsPE (XP Post Environment) and is stuffed with useful utilities specifically selected to diagnose and test hardware, recover data, backup, scan for viruses-adware-spyware, and fix computers problems.

The utility I had specifically in mind was the Registry restore utility.  This would scan the C-Drive for the Windows XP registry files and for the “System Restore” files.  The utility then provides the ability to restore the Windows registry to a previous data and Time.  After booting my computer with Benjamin Burrows UBCD4win CD and running the registry restore utility, I was up and running inside another 10 minutes.

We interviewed Ben on the Internet Advisor last year and I can tell you that he has greatly improved the collection of utilities.  His web site provides the downloads and instructions so that you can create your own Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows.

Thanks Ben.

Ctrl-Alt-Del – Items in Task Manager

Have you ever pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del on your PC, looked in the Task Manager Processes tab and wondered what all those programs currently running were?

• You may have pressed those three keys because your computer was hung and you wanted to reboot your computer.
• Maybe you have wanted to end some of those programs because the Microsoft Scan Disk or Defrag utilities are not completing or because your PC is running very slowly and you want to find out “who” is responsible.
• Or maybe, your like me and wonder – How did all this junk get loaded, what is it, and is it safe to end it or stop it from running?

Well, I have found a couple of sites that attempt to identify all those application running in the background.  These should help you identify applications or services and give you clues as to if it is part of the operating system, a device connected to your computer, or installed software.  After you identify it, then you can make a decision on if you need to uninstall and reinstall some software, update or reinstall a devices software driver, or prevent the software from loading when Windows boots up.

• WindowsStartup.com
• Process List.com
• Program Checker
• Windows Process and Application lookup by UniBlue Systems.
• Download and install the free process explorer by SYSinternals [Version 8 published October 23, 2003].

First, a little detail on the three-finger salute.

When you press the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys, the Windows Task Manager will appear and let you view all the application and processes that are currently running and a percentage of how much each line is using of the computer resources.  Task Manager gives you the ability to select any of these and stop them dead. That is, until the next time you restart your computer. Windows 2000/XP, depending on user account privileges, will prevent you from stopping some of the critical processes.

Task Manager can list these application and processes.  Some of the programs listed are application that are currently running. The others processes listed are much harder to identify and those I like to classify into four groups.

Mandatory Processes – These applications must be running for Windows to run (Example – Explorer is your Windows interface and gives you your desktop, icons, and Start button). In the case of 2000/XP many of the process running are required for networking or some other critical function.

Service Oriented Processes – Applications that are loaded by Windows for devices connected to your computer or an application you installed.  Examples – scanners, video cards, mouse, wireless stuff, anti-virus, firewall, or the software driver for a cheap WinModem (the list is endless).  These tasks can be ended temporarily but some device or service isn’t going to work until you reboot the computer.

Convenience Processes – These are the little programs for a software or hardware product installed on your computer.  These can typically be removed and you can launch the application when you need it.  This category would include all those task bar icons at the bottom right of the start bar (next to the clock). Some are little programs that monitor your printer ink level, let you change your video card settings, get quick access to Quicken, NetMeeting, Real Player, Instant Messaging, AOL,…..

Orphans Processes – These are software drivers or services for stuff you no longer need, have uninstalled, or are no longer connected to your computer.  This can be a program or service that was uninstalled but for some reason a little piece of software was left behind (orphaned). Maybe a scanner or printer that is no longer connected and this utility is still running, searching endlessly for its long lost parent device.  You’ll know one of these when you identify the process name and say to yourself, “What is that still doing here”.

Viruses or Spyware – Most virus programs and spyware will show up in the list of processes.  Processes with names like fzxwed.exe, yx3jr4.exe or tryme.exe are pretty good candidates for elimination.  Recently, unwanted programs are using names that have reasonable names (office.exe or windows.exe) and without intimate knowledge of Windows programs and the names of common application, it can be difficult isolating good programs from bad.  Keep your anti-virus software up to date and use a spyware removal utility.

When I use the three-finger salute and review the list of application currently running, it is usually because a computer is running slow or appears to be hung-up.   I do not know what all the processes are, but if I see a process using 50% or 100% of the computers resources then I need to find out what it is.  Sometimes, the problem is not a single application or process that is hanging the computer but just that there are just to many of them.  I would identify each process and selectively end those tasks identified as not critical and observe how the computers performs.  I can then ask the owner of the PC if and how they are using such-and-such and application, or if they still have a specific scanner or a printer.

Depending on what I discovered I would:

1. Uninstall the software.
2. Uninstall and re-install the software.
3. Try to find a software update for the software on the manufacture’s Website.
4. Use either Microsoft’s MSCONFIG for Windows 98/ME or XP and look for the process or application name on the “startup tab”. I would then remove the “Check” from the box, disabling the software from starting up when the PC re-boots.  Additional MSCONFIG information can be found at Netsquirrel.com.
5. The following can be dangerous for novice users.  The Microsoft registry editor can be used to permanently delete a program entry in the locations specified below, thus permanently disabling the process or application from loading when Windows boots up.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunHKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run