The Un-Official Proxomitron Forum

This might be worth your time to investigate. From the website in question:

A utility that disables the default threats of a windows xp installation. Besides the classic antispy features, XPY closes recent security holes like the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service and the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). Features: disable Windows "calling home," disable questionable services, disarm Internet Explorer, disarm Windows Media Player, remove Windows Messenger, improve security, improve performance, etc.

Even if you've done most or all of these things for yourself, your friends might be able to use it.

XPY


Oddysey

Thanks, Odd, I've been looking into removing Media Player as I've nstalled the "classic" from k-litecodecpack.com

Hope ya don't mind me crashing the thread-my contribution didn't seem worthy of a new topic.This is a new gizmo I became aware of today.It is called "Abtrusion Protector".

What it essentially does is grant permission for all your legitimate,wanted apps-(in other words all the programmes you have installed on your O.S. with consent,being of sound mind and body)-to run.Everything else will be ignored or prevented from running.

Now,it sounds like it'll take some configuring,but I'm giving it a go.There's a free Personal edition available for download here:

http://www.abtrusion.com/Downloads/appersonal.asp

P.S.Oddysey-see ya at shell city,tomorra.

EDIT:I might just be compelled to pen a rave review,here!This is a great piece of kit.Think Javacools Spyware Guard dipped in gold,encrusted with diamonds,fitted with the engine of a Jaguar and you have Abtrusion Protector.
Upon installation,it scans your entire operating system and builds a catalogue of every file.Now,anything that suddenly appears after that point is presumably going to need your say so to run (if you installed some new programmes for example).
Just like Spyware Guard and Spybot's Tea Timer,AP displays a little icon in the system tray-in this instance a padlock.
If anything tries to do anything on the system,AP will alert you-just like TT or JSG.

Now let's talk dirty-CPU and Mem Usage.I'm online CPU hovering between 1% and 3%.ASECMON.exe is using 5,088k of mem and the second AP process ASECSS.exe is using 4,316k.Some folks might find that upsetting...

My only reservation with AP would be the fact that were a malicious unknown already skulking in the shadows of the HD,Abtrusion Protector would just catalogue it and leave it running,believing it to be native to the O.S....
Therefore,I'd say it was best installed after a clean re-install of Windows unless you are 100% certain the platform is infection free.

..::Oddysey::..

I downloaded that proggy. Its pretty neat and has a lot of features. Plus its open source and programmed in NSIS, like some of the programs Kye-U and I have made.

Shea;

Quote:Plus its open source and programmed in NSIS, like some of the programs Kye-U and I have made.

All the more reason to like it, eh? :P If I had known that, I would have mentioned in my first post, just for you.


Oddysey

Hate to say it, but XPY did a real number on my machine. Most notably, it unregistered and removed plenty of those oh-so-vital components windows needs in order to detect my DSL connection. Aside from that it killed almost all of the files of the project I've been working on all week.

Then, when I rebooted and re-ran XPY to undo changes, the changes couldn't be undone. Oh my goodness, what was I to do?

Well, I whipped out Partition Magic 8, moved all my installation .ZIPs and .RARs, and fdisked drive C.

Upon reformatting, reinstalling and reloading, I dared to try XPY again, and it worked. Kinda. It couldn't unregister OCX 16422 so Messager isn't gone, but other than that it worked.

I don't know what the hell was different the second time, but man was I pissed at having to waste five hours recreating my previous program structure. IMHO, not worth the rsk, even if it was once in a lifetime. I was unable to recover a $2000 project I'd put 20 hours of work into. Now I have to start all over

Ah..that error message you get when running the command to purge the beastly Windows Messenger always happens on XP with service pack 1/1a.

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection%windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

(what needs to be entered into the Run box for killing Windows Messenger on XP sans service packs.)

Same thing with XP Anti-Spy,too.It's never had any consequences that I can see-as far as I know,that componant can't be unregistered because it doesn't exist post SP 1.

I must add that I had a similar experience with Safe XP regarding your catastrophic encounter with XPY.Safe XP knackered just about everything,and I reformatted!

AT the risk of having email bombs posted to my home, let me be the first to remind you all that there's a reason why I still use W98SE, and it's only partially because I don't believe in phone_home-ware.

a_s_b, I'm sorry that your work was wiped out. I presume you know by now that old computer user's maxim - "Backup early, and often". That wouldn't have prevented the acid from being poured all over your system, but at least you wouldn't have lost your project.

As Shea and Jaded_Goth point out, not everyone has had this problem, so while I won't be so quick to say "It's great" from now on, I also won't pull it completely off my list of things to suggest to newbies (who are much less likely to have highly customized systems).

Again, my condolences.


Oddysey

Jaded_Goth;

Quote: .... (bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo) ....

You never cease to amaze me. Just when I get comfortable with a label for you (I was tentatively going for "not really a newbie" :P), you pop out with something that even I hadn't ever heard of! :o

Not that anyone, least of all myself, considers me to be an All Wise Guru, but most of the time, I'm up on these tweaks. Sigh. I guess I'll have to work up another pigeon hole for you. Howz "netnerd in disguise" sound to you? [unsure] Maybe "claims to made of swiss cheese, but the holes are damned small". that might work, eh? [rolleyes]


Oddysey

Oddysey, I've recently installed Windows 98SE on my spare machine (800mHz), and I've used 98Lite ( http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html ), specifically the 98Micro setting, and it's super fast.

It removed Internet Explorer COMPLETELY. I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser, with WindowBlinds to make the interface more pretty. It's now faster than my computer (1.6 gHz, Windows XP SP1).

Kye-U;

I actually run a bastardized version of W98SE, I admit. It's been so twisted that I'd be hard pressed to ever do it again. But essentially, it's got SP1.5 from the nice folks at WinLite, and a raft of tweaks applied via XTEQ's XSetup. A few "modified" dlls, a bent registry key or two, and I'm hanging pretty far out in the wind, to be sure.

I saw no reason to mess with the browser. It's partially a matter of not running with the Henny Penny crowd, and partially the fact that when I design web pages, I need to make sure they work in the same browser used by 94% of the world. That's a no-brainer, for me anyway.

And speaking of browsers, the current emotional (non-factual) campaign to oust IE over misplaced and ill-thought-out security concerns prompts me to admit the following: my security makes even me shiver, it's so lax. No one in his right mind should be able to do what I'm doing (NOTHING!), and get away with it for more than 5 microseconds. But, my motto is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

No Zone settings
No Hosts file
No Cookie manager
No AV (anti-virus)
No AS (anti-spyware)
No AM (anti mal-ware)
No nuttin', baby!

One hardware firewall that's highly throttled, and one copy of Proxo, that's all. Even my filter set is the Scott-approved default, with 15 or 20 filters that either I wrote myself, or that I scavenged from you or others here. (Thanks, guys! ) And what do I get for problems? Goose egg. I haven't had a crash for more than a year, and that was due to my stupidity. (I shut off the power before the cache had finished flushing - that munched the partition table, big time.) But other than that, I haven't had to re-load the OS in just about three years. When I install an app, I take a snapshot of the registry, and that's it. If I need to, I restore from that snapshot, but otherwise, I do everything by hand and from memory.

It's all manual, with a few batch files to help me out, but for the most part, there are no gotcha's floating around. The machine just keeps on ticking, and that's all I can ask for, right? <_<

Enough bragging, I'm making myself sick. :P


Oddysey

Oddysey Wrote:You never cease to amaze me. Just when I get comfortable with a label for you (I was tentatively going for "not really a newbie"&nbsp; :P)...
Sigh.&nbsp; I guess I'll have to work up another pigeon hole for you.&nbsp; Howz "netnerd in disguise" sound to you?&nbsp; [unsure] Maybe "claims to made of swiss cheese, but the holes are damned small". that might work, eh?&nbsp; [rolleyes]


Oddysey

*blush*

Nah...I've just always hated Windows Messenger.It had to go.

Incase any visitors are following this topic,comprehensive instructions can be found here:

http://www.andyrathbone.com/tips/messenger.html

Since I invested in imaging software,I haven't seen the little git of course.

Kye-U Wrote:Oddysey, I've recently installed Windows 98SE on my spare machine (800mHz), and I've used 98Lite ( http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html ), specifically the 98Micro setting, and it's super fast.

It removed Internet Explorer COMPLETELY. I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser, with WindowBlinds to make the interface more pretty. It's now faster than my computer (1.6 gHz, Windows XP SP1).

That's useful info,Kye-U.

I'm sorely tempted to install 98 SE on the old Pentium II.

Odd;

I generally backup every change every day (to my 120 gig that's just sitting empty as a slave) then once a week, all _those_ changes to CD. I just hadn't had a chance to backup my project beyond double-saving to seperate folders on the C drive. Silly me, in four years since I'd started this process, I just hadn't predicted that day to be the second time I'd suffer from catastrophic data loss.

That's okay, though -- I was able to accomplish the same work in eight (8) hours as I'd pretty much memorized what I'd done. Thanks for the condolencies, though.

a_stupid_box Wrote:... I just hadn't predicted that day to be the second time I'd suffer from catastrophic data loss....

Aint that just how it *always* happens....

Glad to hear you've managed to redo it all from memory.Poor ol' Fing.

What did XPY actually do to those files?Is it worth you mentioning it to the developers?Not everyone would take data-destruction with such good grace.Maybe the writers need to improve XPY incase they git thayr aysses whooped?

BTW-here's the offering of the day from our favourite Extension City.It's called WINDIE.A Romanian device that will shutdown your computer immediately at a specified time,regardless of whether you have saved your work or not!!

It struck me as funny-it's probably a re-worked version of Blaster.I'm not even gonna go there.

http://www.rovatronic.tk/