Bugs and lack of apps plague 64-bit users

Fred Langa 'un-retires' to fix your problems

By Brian Livingston

When life throws you a curve ball, you should try to hit a home run — and that’s what Fred Langa is doing by re-committing himself to help his loyal readers.

Fred wrote for Windows Secrets off and on from November 2006 to May 2008, but the retirement he announced at the end of that period didn’t work out, so he’s back, starting today.

As you may know, after years of yeoman’s duty at Byte Magazine and CMP Publications, Fred wrote his own e-mail newsletter, the LangaList, twice a week for almost 10 years. His newsletter and ours merged in 2006, and he became the editor of Windows Secrets, continuing to write a column nearly every week.

Fred’s devotion to his readers is legendary. Even when he went on his dream summer hiatus in 2007, riding his motorcycle in a big loop around the U.S. and Canada, he spent time helping others. He chose four Windows Secrets readers around the continent to receive a full day of his personal help, free of charge. (His eight-part series documenting these Langa Housecalls is on our site.)

Fred, at left in motorcycle helmet, found that retirement wasn’t in the cards this year, however. As he’s written in several blog posts, around the time of his 35th wedding anniversary he was hit with an unexpected divorce. He attributed the split to the LangaList’s “insane workload” of “60–80 hours of work per week.” But, whatever the reason, retirement was no longer a financial option.

So Fred has rejoined the rest of us in the working class. Everyone at Windows Secrets is celebrating that he’s with us again. But our excitement is nothing compared with the outpouring we received from subscribers when they heard the news. I think Phil Waddle of Tavistock, England, said it best:

• “I really cannot tell you how pleased I am that Fred is returning. Without any disrespect to your current columnists, who produce great articles, Fred felt like ‘one of the family.’ Many people like me who subscribed to the LangaList over the years felt the same, no doubt. It is difficult to explain, but it was almost as if Fred knew you personally and his articles were ‘right on the button’ of what you wanted to know about — and written so well. I have immediately renewed my subscription and look forward to Fred’s first column.”

Fred has committed himself to bring you a full blast of information each week for more than a year to come — and much longer, if I have anything to say about it. As our new editor-at-large, he’s once again solving several dilemmas per article in his trademark Q-and-A style: often imitated, never duplicated.

His columns will appear in Windows Secrets’ paid content, where he can share in the financial contributions that our paying subscribers kick in to keep us wretched scribblers alive. I hope you’ll enjoy Fred’s all-new material.

If you’re a free subscriber, you can support Fred’s work — and get 12 months of all our paid content — with no fixed fee. We accept any contribution, whatever it’s worth to you. We simply want as many people as possible to have access to our columnists’ great advice on Windows. Please use the following link for details:

If you’re a paying subscriber, you can support Fred’s work — and get another 12 months of all our paid content — by renewing your subcription now. You no longer have to wait until your last week. For a limited time, if you’re within one year of your paid expiry date, you can renew now. Please use the following link for details:

More info

Don’t miss out on this free bonus download

All of our subscribers, free and paid, can download a helpful e-book, Converting Vinyl LPs and Cassettes to CDs and MP3s by Jake Ludington. In this tutorial, you get straightforward solutions to preserve your fast-fading albums and tapes using the playback equipment you probably already own. Jake rates free and low-cost software that makes it easy for you to convert your priceless recordings. This e-book sells on the Web for $10, but we’ve licensed the content so all Windows Secrets subscribers can get it for free. This offer is only available until Nov. 5, 2008. To take advantage of this freebie, simply visit your preferences page, make sure your information is correct, and click the Save button. You’ll then see a download link. Enjoy! All subscribers: Set your preferences and download your bonus

Norton gives Windows Secrets a false positive

WindowsSecrets.com received a big, fat rating of “red” (warning) on Oct. 6 from Symantec’s Norton Safe Web. This browser plug-in is an optional component of Norton Internet Security 2009. The service attempts to alert users to Web sites that use drive-by downloads and other hacker exploits.

Safe Web claimed that our site contained a security threat by the name of:

c:windowssystem32woauolt.exe

Our site never tried to download any such file to anyone. We found that an old Support Alert Newsletter article that’s in our searchable library linked to a site that once linked to another site that once might have had a copy of this file.

We removed the clickable hyperlink (without deleting any text from the article) and reported the error to Norton. The false positive was corrected in under 24 hours. Our site gained a “green” (safe) rating once again, as you can see from Norton’s Windows Secrets rating page. Thanks to sharp-eyed reader Jeff Raff for his help. We apologize to anyone who was temporarily unable to visit our site.

Brian Livingston is editorial director of WindowsSecrets.com and co-author of Windows Vista Secrets and 10 other books.

Bugs and lack of apps plague 64-bit users

By Stuart J. Johnston

Vista boosters say that the 64-bit edition of the operating system runs applications faster and can address a lot more system memory than its 32-bit counterpart.

Just don’t tell that to Vince Heiker, a retired IT executive in the Dallas area who has used 64-bit Vista for some time — and hates the OS.

All versions of Vista have serious compatibility glitches, including problems with Office 2007, but the 64-bit release also suffers from a lack of applications written to take advantage of that version’s ability to address more than 4GB of RAM.

In fact, Heiker and several other Windows Secrets readers begged to differ with my Sept. 25 story, which discussed the transition of desktop computing to 64-bit hardware and software.

“Plain, simple, and clear: Vista-64 is junkware. It is absolutely the worst, the buggiest software Microsoft has ever released,” Heiker tells Windows Secrets.

What’s worse, he said, is that Microsoft has no fixes for the vast majority of Vista’s problems.

Early adopters vent their Vista-64 frustration

Many potential users of the 64-bit version of Vista are reluctant to make any OS changes after getting burned previously by 32-bit Vista.

“We’re not using 64-bit Vista due to all the problems we’ve had with 32-bit Vista,” says J.C. Warren, a systems engineer at a Seattle-based asset-management company.

Other users’ complaints include what they view as important software that doesn’t run under 64-bit Vista.

“ACT, a fairly popular contact-management program, will not work in 64-bit, and currently Sage has no plans to support it,” reader Frank Boecherer said in an e-mail.

Also on the list of software that readers say is missing in action is a 64-bit version of Adobe’s popular Flash player. And don’t forget Office 2007, which comes only in a 32-bit edition.

To be sure, many 32-bit applications that were not written specifically to run on Vista-64 will in fact run on that OS. Microsoft maintains a listing of applications and hardware that are “compatible” with Vista, including 64-bit Vista. This listing consists primarily of 32-bit programs that Vista-64 runs in a 32-bit window.

Many 32-bit Microsoft apps, including Office 2007, are listed as working with 64-bit Windows, but some readers who run Vista-64 complain that bugs and incompatibilities abound. In addition, many popular third-party applications, such as Yahoo Music Jukebox Plus, are labeled with a big red “X,” meaning they have problems with 64-bit Vista.

Heiker’s list of Vista-64 bugs and application incompatibilities is a long one.

Among the problems Heiker cites is “a jerky mouse cursor” that interprets mouse clicks in one spot on the screen as an action on a different spot.

That’s not OK, particularly if you’re a day trader like those Heiker supports for TradeStation.com, where a click on the wrong spot can cost serious money. Heiker says he’s experienced the mouse-location problem with three different mice, all relatively new purchases.

Heiker finally isolated the cause: the 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate failed to remove old device drivers. He discussed the problem with Microsoft support staff, but he says they could provide no solution. Heiker finally resorted to his time-tested standby.

“The only way to get rid of the hardware drivers was to reinstall Vista,” Heiker said.

A second problem Heiker points out involves Outlook 2007, which fails to shut down properly. Other Outlook 2007 problems include unexplained freezes and the mysterious disappearance of the preview pane.

Did you say ‘millions’ of Registry entries?

Another glitch Heiker continues to confront is a real doozy: with no explanation in sight, his 64-bit Vista PC has accumulated some 23 million Registry entries. No, that’s not a typo — 23 million.

“I brought this to Microsoft’s attention and there’s no solution to it,” he said. “Apparently, a Registry entry is made each time a 32-bit application tries to update the Vista-64 Registry … duplicating Registry entries a huge number of times.”

Despite Heiker’s long list of complaints and multiple contacts with Microsoft support, little has changed. “They haven’t fixed a single problem that I’ve reported,” he adds.

Complaints such as those of early Vista-64 users don’t bode well for the OS in general or 64-bit editions specifically. Still, 64-bit PCs are in the cards for many current Windows users a year or two down the road. By then, the smattering of 64-bit PCs now appearing on the market will likely become a groundswell.

Today, there are 64-bit editions of both Windows XP and Vista — and there will also be 64-bit editions of Windows 7 when it ships in 2009 or 2010. The question is: When 64-bit computers become the norm for desktops, will all the software pieces be in place?

Many people are waiting for Windows 7’s debut

It’s looking more and more likely that 64-bit desktop computing won’t go mainstream until long after Windows 7 ships.

Unfortunately, there’s no information on how well 64-bit Vista is doing in the marketplace. The overall figures for Vista are less than stellar: Microsoft claims it has sold 180 million licenses for all versions of Vista, but take that number with a grain of salt — or perhaps the whole shaker.

Many of those licenses can be deployed as either Vista or XP; analysts state that many of these “Vista” licenses are actually being used for XP.

In fact, according to a Gartner report issued last spring, fewer than 1% of PCs in the U.S. and Europe were running Vista by the end of 2007 — a full year into Vista’s lifecycle. Compare that figure with the 80% that, according to the report, are running XP.

Confirming the molasses-in-January adoption rate of Vista is the Gartner study’s finding that 55% of European companies and 40% of U.S. firms aren’t planning to begin serious Vista deployments (whether the 32- or 64-bit edition) until the first quarter of 2009 or later.

That’s awfully close to Microsoft’s planned delivery date for Windows 7, which is expected to be significantly faster and more svelte than Vista. Indeed, a Sept. 12 report by Andy Patrizio of Internet News.com states that Microsoft is shooting to ship Windows 7 in time for the 2009 holiday season.

Microsoft wouldn’t comment on when it will release a 64-bit version of Office, although analysts predict the next major Office release — code-named “Office 14” — will ship in late 2009 or early 2010. That puts it on a similar track to Windows 7.

Microsoft’s impending delivery of Windows 7 and Office 14 could further undercut Vista’s viability in the marketplace.

Reader Roger Shuttleworth summed it up in an e-mail:

• “For me, and I suspect for many readers, the major question is not ‘Do I want this hardware, increased speed, yadda yadda?’ It’s ‘Will my existing software run on Vista-64, or will I have to fork out huge amounts of cash for new editions?’

  “If the answer is, ‘Yes, I will have to buy all new software,’ then I’m sticking with XP until my machine dies and I can’t find something else to run it.”

The uncertainty of Microsoft’s plans has left more than a few Windows users waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I’ve been involved with OS migrations since Windows 95. None of them was as difficult as Vista to deal with,” Warren said. “I can’t wait to get my hands on an early beta version of Windows 7.”

Stuart Johnston is associate editor of WindowsSecrets.com. He has written about technology for InfoWorld, Computerworld, InformationWeek, and InternetNews.com.

Find out who's doing what on your computer

By Scott Dunn Are your kids visiting sites you disapprove of, or is your schnauzer making unauthorized purchases of doggie biscuits on eBay? To answer these and other questions about the activity on your PC, keyloggers provide a silent way of monitoring and capturing information about a computer’s use.

Keylogger programs sit quietly and invisibly in the background of the system you install them on. The software records all the keystrokes — and, in some cases, mouse clicks — users make. They also monitor the programs those keys are typed into, along with other information about the machine’s activity. Table 1 shows the most important features and which programs support them.

Table 1. Keyloggers vary in crucial features. (• = yes)

All the keyloggers I examined (except Keylogger Spy Monitor and the free version of Perfect Keylogger) let you capture screens at designated intervals. This means you can see whatever the user was seeing on the screen at that moment.

The products vary in their ability to hide themselves. Many keyloggers give you the option to keep them off your list of Start menu shortcuts and out of Windows’ Add or Remove Programs list (Vista calls this Control Panel applet Programs and Settings.) Unfortunately, this usually makes it difficult to uninstall the application.

You can still find the program in Windows Explorer and run its uninstaller there — provided you choose the option to include an uninstaller during the program’s installation. In theory, keeping an uninstaller off your disk makes it harder for the target user to eliminate the keylogger.

None of products I reviewed has a foolproof solution for hiding its files in Windows Explorer. Perfect Keylogger’s installation routine, however, does let you rename the executables to any name you want, so they’ll be harder for users to spot.

Most keyloggers also hide themselves from the list of applications in Windows’ Task Manager. Keylogger Pro and both the free and paid versions of Perfect Keylogger also keep the executable from appearing under Task Manager’s Processes tab.

If you’re concerned that your PC might be spied on, you can use the fact that none of these programs successfully hide their running executables from Microsoft’s free Process Explorer utility. Unfortunately, the correct company name or description seldom appears in the Process Explorer listing, so to spot one of these spies in Process Explorer, you may need to know the name of the keylogger’s executable.

I expected the programs’ logs to be easy to decipher, but this wasn’t always the case. Each keylogger seems to take its own approach to logging the activity it records. All of the programs except the free version of Perfect Keylogger show system (non-character) keys in their logs. This is useful if you want to see whether the user typed the Backspace key a few times to delete something in a chat window before actually sending it along, for example. Unfortunately, recording all such keys makes the logs tough to read.

As a solution, Perfect Keylogger lets you choose whether to include non-character keys in its logs. Keylogger Pro’s approach to system keys is less elegant: you have to toggle the display based on the log selection, so it’s not permanently on or off. Oddly, Keylogger Pro has no option to include system keys when exporting the entire log to HTML.

Perfect Keylogger’s free version doesn’t include system keys in its activity logs; the remaining programs I tested always include non-character keys in their logs.

In addition to capturing outgoing keystrokes, Perfect Keylogger and Silent Logger record both sides of chats conducted in popular IM clients. Keylogger Spy Monitor does not record chats, but the developer sells other products designed for this purpose.

#1: BLAZINGTOOLS PERFECT KEYLOGGER

Feature-rich keystroke recorder spots passwords

Perfect Keylogger lives up to its name by offering a bevy of useful features that you won’t find in other such programs. For example, Perfect Keylogger is the only program I tested that automatically zips and password-protects logs that it sends to you via e-mail. You can also choose to encrypt the log so that it’s viewable only via the program’s built-in log viewer.

This is also the only keylogger I tried that you can install remotely, unless you’re willing to spring for the U.S. $83 Silent Logger Plus Remote-Install Edition, which I didn’t test.

Figure 1. Perfect Keylogger lets you choose whether to include non-character keys in its logs.

While all of the keyloggers I tried are adept at capturing passwords, Perfect Keylogger goes them one better by identifying and labeling the passwords it records. Without such labels, it’s difficult to know whether a random word or phrase typed in a given window is actually a password.

Perfect Keylogger’s free Lite version lacks most of the paid edition’s features. The company sells an intermediate $25 version, whose feature set falls somewhere in the middle; I didn’t test that version. A table on the company’s site lists differences among the three releases.

Despite the claims at the Perfect Keylogger site, I was unable to find a link to the free version there. Fortunately, you can still download it from a Tucows page.

#2: EXPLOREANYWHERE KEYLOGGER PRO

Key flaws prevent a good product from being great

Keylogger Pro is an impressive keylogging tool that offers lots of options in its easy-to-use tabbed dialog box. The program even sports a few features not found in other keylogging apps.

For example, Keylogger Pro is the only program I looked at that lets you designate which user accounts to monitor. In addition, you can disable Task Manager, Safe Mode, Startup programs, and other Windows components that could interfere with the tool’s operations.

This is also the only keylogger in this bunch that lets you set the priority for use of processor time, so the program doesn’t slow down the apps being monitored.

Keylogger Pro’s logs are easy to read, although they have a couple of quirks. For example, when you select individual log items, you can export to the text format only. If you export the entire log, however, you’re forced to export to the HTML format.

Even though I like this program a lot, it suffers from some serious problems. Although Keylogger Pro supports e-mailing of logs, I couldn’t get this feature to work.

Another problem is that the utility has not been updated to work with Vista. It appears to run under Vista, but in my testing, the OS repeatedly warned me that a suspect program was running, which ruins any chance of operating Keylogger Pro in secrecy. In addition, I consistently got an error message (“Win32cfg has stopped working”) each time I shut down the program in Vista.

#3: EMATRIXSOFT KEYLOGGER SPY MONITOR

A so-so keylogger offers little to recommend

Another keylogging contender is Keylogger Spy Monitor from eMatrixSoft, a company that sells many other monitoring products intended to satisfy all your spying needs. Keylogger Spy Monitor is a competent performer that offers nothing in particular to recommend it over the two top-rated products.

Keylogger Spy Monitor joins Keylogger Pro as the only two programs in this roundup that include their own built-in scheduling. It’s easy to set up the program, and its monitoring capabilities are on par with the other keylogging apps I tested.

Like most of the programs in this group, Keylogger Spy Monitor’s log is reasonably well organized. The log presents information in a table that notes the time, user, and window in which the data was captured. There’s no option for filtering out system keys, so IM chats and e-mails are difficult to spot due to the numerous Shift, Backspace, and other non-character keys that are mixed in with the text.

While there’s nothing wrong with this product, it’s no better than its competitors and priced about the same. That’s why you’re better off with a product such as my top choice, Perfect Keylogger.

#4: SILENT LOGGER

This keylogger is silent in all the wrong ways

Of the keylogging programs I tested, Silent Logger was the most frustrating. By default, the program is installed without telling you its default password or the hotkeys that will display its otherwise-hidden settings. Silent Logger also ships without any information about its user manual, which is available online only.

To find the password and other settings, I had to contact the company’s tech support by e-mail. Fortunately, the support staffers were prompt in providing the information I needed, including a link to the program’s online manual.

This is a decidedly odd and frustrating way to get started. Other programs simply ask you to assign a password and hotkey during installation or initial setup.

Before it will run on your PC, Silent Logger must register itself at the company’s site. In theory, this happens with no user interaction. For some reason, my purchased copy failed to register even though I tried to install it on two different machines and turned off my firewall in each case. I contacted tech support about the problem but never received a reply.

As a result, I was not able to test the program’s main function of keylogging nor see what kind of log it produced.

I was able to try out the settings dialog box. There I tried to set up Silent Logger to e-mail its logs to me. But like Keylogger Pro, the test message from the e-mail setup dialog reported failure, so this feature was a bust as well.

Like the other keyloggers I tried, Silent Logger has some features for hiding itself from the subject of your spying. However, the program failed to hide its executable from Task Manager’s Processes tab.

Silent Logger was the most expensive and least usable program of those I tested. If you need a good keylogger, I recommend you go with the $35 version of Perfect Keylogger.

Scott Dunn is associate editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He has been a contributing editor of PC World since 1992 and currently writes for the Here’s How section of that magazine.

Forget Freddy, it's a nightmare on Windows Street!

By Katy Abby Everything seemed to be going so well. The sun was shining and the fish were schooling as the seaweed drifted lazily through the waves. It was altogether reminiscent of the loveliest underwater desktop environment… Watch what happens next in the spoof saga of an underwater scuba diver who comes face-to-face with the consequences of a system error. Although you may find the final moments to be terrifyingly evocative of your last computer crash, don’t let it keep you up at night. It’s just a commercial… right? Play the video

Find the perfect Web/e-mail hosting service

By Fred Langa Which of the many thousands of Web and e-mail hosting services is right for you? If you work the problem two ways, you can find a good answer in just a few minutes.

Cut through the crowd of hosting alternatives

Ever get frustrated with your ISP’s e-mail or Web hosting services? Reader Ray Dicks sure did!

• “I am in need of offsite hosting of e-mail and possibly Web-site hosting, too. Do you have a suggestion of where I can look? The need is urgent.”

Sure, Ray! Here’s a two-pronged approach that can get you a good answer in a very short time.

First, use any of the several online host-selection “wizards” to help you winnow the choices to a reasonable handful. Sites such as HostSearch and FindMyHosting let you select from a host of hosting options and then suggest the services that meet those criteria.

You can help ensure you get good results by thinking about not only what you need from a hosting service right now, but also what you might want and need in the future. It certainly isn’t fatal if you choose a host that turns out to be a dud — domains and sites can be moved to a different host later — but the closer you get to the optimum with your first choice, the better.

For example, might you one day want to create online catalogs or e-stores, enable shopping carts, take credit-card orders, and perform other e-commerce operations? Might your site one day grow quite large or generate a lot of traffic? Will your site be essential to the success of your business or avocation?

Thinking about future-oriented issues such as these can help ensure that you don’t get locked into a Web host or service plan you’ll quickly outgrow.

Be sure to try more than one online hosting selection tool. You can’t really know how impartial or thorough these tools are, so it makes sense to use several of them to determine where their suggestions overlap. That overlap is likely to be the sweet spot where your odds of hosting success are best.

Once you’ve gleaned the suggestions of several host-selection wizards, it’s time to work the problem from the other end: find a site that’s similar to what you’re looking for, and then figure out which company is hosting it.

Your target could be a business site — even a competitor’s, if you’re looking for a business host — or, if you’re planning a personal site, one you like that’s run by a friend or acquaintance. Once you’ve found a site that has the features and “feel” you’d like to imitate, call or e-mail the site’s webmaster or other contact person and simply ask where their site is hosted — this information is rarely a secret.

If asking isn’t an option, you can search the site’s public records. For the latter, you can use any of the free whois domain-name lookup tools, such as those at Whois.net or Network Solutions. These tools aren’t likely to tell you the site’s hosting location automatically, but they can certainly point you in a useful direction.

For example, let’s say you make widgets and your main competitor is Widget.com (yes, there really is such a company). Any good whois tool, such as the ones mentioned above, will show you that Widget.com uses UKfast.net for its domain registration. If you then click to UKfast.net, you’ll see that the company also offers Web-hosting services.

It’s very common for a site’s domain host to be its Web host as well, so if you want your site to be something like Widget.com’s, UKfast.net might be a very good place to start your host search.

If you don’t want a U.K.-based host, you could see what options and services UKfast.net offers. Then use one of the wizards mentioned above — or other online selection tools — to find a host with similar offerings in a location you prefer. (Please note that the companies I refer to here are almost-random examples and are not meant to promote any particular site or host.)

The whole host-search process — from launching a whois query to finding which services are offered by the site’s domain registrar and/or hosting company — takes only a minute or two and works for just about any site on the planet.

So, either by working through the hosting options via a wizard or online selection tool or by using a whois service to learn where sites you admire are hosted, you can narrow your options to hosts that are likely to meet your needs now and in the future. Good luck in your search!

Avoiding the need for password-recovery tools

Reader Tom Mousseau is having trouble with Cain & Abel, the excellent password-recovery tool discussed by Ryan Russell in his Sept. 25 Perimeter Scan column.

• “I tend to forget even the low-grade passwords on my computers. I do run a hardware firewall, SpyBot, and Avast, but my password discipline is weak due to unreliable memory (mine, not the machine’s). But Avast flagged the download of the Cain & Abel password scanner as a Trojan. And what about the dangers involved in my use of a password cracker?”

Cain & Abel is a powerful and useful password-recovery utility, but as you correctly surmise, it can also be used for illicit purposes, including cracking someone else’s passwords. Security tools such as Avast generally flag password-cracking utilities as dangerous because of this potential for abuse.

When you need them, password-recovery tools are great. But you can pretty much eliminate the need to use such tools with a good password manager — software that remembers all your logins and passwords for you. Scott Dunn’s excellent roundup of password managers appeared in the Sept. 18 Insider Tricks column.

Scott’s top-rated password manager is RoboForm, a tool I’ve used myself for many years. The program is currently remembering over 600 different logins and passwords for me, along with lots of other data such as software license (unlock) keys, serial numbers, wireless network access keys, and more.

I need to remember only RoboForm’s one master password, and the utility remembers all the rest, storing the data in encrypted files on my hard drive. RoboForm can be set to learn and remember new passwords as they’re created and offers to fill out many Web forms as they pop up.

With a password manager like RoboForm doing the heavy lifting, it’s also easier to use long, totally random, and hard-to-crack passwords. No matter how long or complicated a password is or how many of them you have, you need to remember just that one master password; the software does the rest.

Let a password manager remember your passwords for you, and you may never have to deal with password-recovery tools again.

Get the lowdown on Windows Updates

Reader Ted Huffaker has a number of questions about Windows Update:

• “We are using three computers at our home and do not always receive the same Microsoft Updates each month for each computer. One is a laptop with MSN Office installed. Which brings me to the question about [Scott Dunn’s Aug. 14 column] on upgrades.

  “First, some of the upgrades in your articles do not say that it is okay to install them on our systems. Second, for some of the upgrades, Knowledge Base numbers are not listed. How do we know if it is okay to install them?

  “Third, when we install a new upgrade from Microsoft, does it add additional … files, or are the updates replacing files already installed?”

Because they can include hardware drivers, updates offered from Microsoft can vary, depending on your PC’s hardware. Drivers from third-party hardware companies seldom have a Microsoft KB number.

Each month, Susan Bradley’s Patch Watch column (paid content) reviews the patches released from Microsoft. However, Susan’s column can’t cover every possible driver update.

To get information about updates such as these, follow these steps in Windows XP:

Step 1: In Internet Explorer, navigate to Microsoft’s Windows Update site.

Step 2: Click Express or Custom to have Windows Update display the updates that are available for you.

Step 3: Click the plus sign next to an update you need information on. If the information displayed there is too general, click the Details link. In the window that opens, click the link under More Information.

In Windows Vista, follow these steps:

Step 1: Click Start, type wuapp (or windows update), and press Enter.

Step 2: In the Windows Update control panel, click View available updates.

Step 3: Right-click an update and choose View details. If that information doesn’t tell you what you need to know, click the link under More information.

Windows should automatically create a restore point when it installs an update. If you have problems with an update, you may be able to undo the effect by choosing the appropriate restore point in System Restore. (To do this, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore.)

If that’s not an option, you may be able to remove an undesirable update using Add or Remove Programs in XP or Programs and Features in Vista. To see updates there, check Show Updates in XP or click View installed updates in Vista. Select an update and click either Remove or Uninstall. Note that not all updates can be uninstalled.

In addition, you can sometimes undo a driver update using Windows’ driver-rollback feature:

Step 1: In XP, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. Click the Hardware tab and then Device Manager. In Vista, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. Click Device Manager in the upper-left corner.

Step 2: In the Device Manager window, click the plus-sign icons as needed to expand branches until you locate the device with the problem driver. Double-click the device icon.

Step 3: In the Properties dialog for the device, click the Driver tab.

Step 4: Click the Roll Back Driver button.

Keep in mind that updating usually leaves you with less free hard-disk space than you had before the update. In part, that’s because Windows stores information and old files for you to use if you decide to uninstall the update.

Save keystrokes by using Vista’s Command Prompt

Fred Linton is flummoxed over an XP feature that has disappeared from Vista:

• “In XP, one can drag a file from the Explorer window and drop it in a Command Prompt window, making the full drive:pathname of the file appear at the cursor location. The file path is even enclosed in quotes, if the path or file name include spaces.

  “In Vista, this seems no longer to be possible — at least in my Vista Home Premium SP1 — even running as an Administrator with UAC turned off.

  “Why is that? And more importantly, how can one restore the pre-Vista XP behavior in Vista?”

Unfortunately, this feature — beloved by some XP users — was deliberately removed by Microsoft in Vista. The reasons aren’t clear, but some sources, such as Microsoft program manager Paul Stubbs, claim the change was made for security reasons.

Fortunately, Microsoft did include an alternative. If you hold down the Shift key as you right-click a file or folder, you’ll see a command to Copy as Path. Choosing that command adds the complete path (including quotation marks) to the Clipboard. Now you can just right-click in your Command Prompt window and choose Paste to transfer the path information there.

Note that if you use the Windows Run box (press the Windows key plus the letter R), you can still drag files, folders, and shortcuts there to see the full path appear at the cursor.

Fred Langa is editor-at-large of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of Byte Magazine (1987–91), editorial director of CMP Media (1991–97), and editor of the LangaList e-mail newsletter from its origin in 1997 until its merger with Windows Secrets in November 2006. Associate editor Scott Dunn contributed research to this article.

Slimmed-down Windows XP delivers big benefits

By Woody Leonhard I used to think of “slimming” Windows XP as an interesting hobby like, oh, collecting edible bugs or cataloging campaign promises: sure, you can do it, but why bother? Then I bought a small-footprint netbook and my perspective changed overnight.

‘Tis a gift to be simple — and small

For years and years, I’ve been a Big Iron kinda guy. My work PC sports all the bells and whistles: a honkin’ video card, giant monitor, mouse with a tail, and an OmniKey keyboard that’s the size of the grill on a ’56 Buick. Whenever I hit the road, I always packed as much electronic heat as I could haul, including a wide screen, big keyboard, and as many peripheral amenities as my poor aching back could tolerate.

How that has changed. A friend recently talked me into buying a netbook — an MSI Wind running Windows XP Home, to be precise. The thing is tiny. Its screen is cool but supports only a resolution of 1024 by 600. The keyboard rates as pretty good for a netbook — a perfect illustration of the phrase “damning with faint praise.” Heck, the whole computer, including the charger, weighs less than the OmniKey at my office.

I expected to hate the netbook. Instead, I’ve become attached to the little critter. While the netbook won’t replace the mammoth PC workhorse in my office anytime soon, the mini-machine is perfect for the TV room, a run down to the beach, or a short weekend adventure. Sometimes I surprise myself!

The machine comes with an 80GB hard drive. Windows XP Home occupies about 2GB all by itself. In exchange for all of that disk real estate, you get Internet Explorer 6, Outlook Express, Windows Messenger, Windows Movie Maker 2, and Windows Media Player 9. I figure this collection of outdated apps gathers in one place more security holes and heart-stopping bugs than just about any assembly of Microsoft products ever.

Some netbooks come with no hard drive at all. As long as you have a legitimate copy of Windows XP and 4GB or so of bootable disk space, there’s nothing in the world to prevent you from running XP on your netbook, hard drive or no hard drive. For people who store all their files on an SD card, XP’s 2GB girth looks positively gluttonous when placed on a 4GB SD drive.

Fortunately, it’s easy to get rid of the bloat, reclaim as much as 1GB of disk space, get Windows to boot faster, and create a Windows XP installation CD that runs all by itself. And doing so won’t cost you a penny.

Free tool puts XP on a starvation diet

The trick lies in a small slimming program called nLite. You may have heard of it. NLite has been around since the days of Windows 2000 — back when lopping off unused pieces of Windows could make you a hero or save your job.

NLite is primarily for customization of Windows XP, but its developer also supports a product called vLite, which is used with Windows Vista. Susan Bradley, a Windows Secrets contributing editor, points out that problems have been found with updating Vista after vLite was used. (See a conflict with hotfix 938979 that’s been reported by My Digital Life.)

I’ve also heard that there are occasional problems with Automatic Updates on nLite-treated XP systems. Automatic Updates is one of those things that nLite lets you axe. Another glitch, as best I can tell, affects people who merge IE 7 with XP.

I don’t doubt for a second that some people will have problems with updates after nLite-ifying their systems. It kinda comes with the “slimming” territory, I think. The more customization you plan to do, the more advanced your skills need to be. If you’re OK with this, plunge ahead.

NLite performs several important functions: it scans the contents of a Windows installation CD, optionally integrates (or “slipstreams”) patches, allows you to remove pieces of Windows that you don’t want, and prompts you to specify the language and other Windows-installation defaults. In the end, nLite helps you burn a CD that you can use to install your customized version of Windows XP.

It’s a powerful program that provides all the horsepower you need to shoot yourself in the foot. That’s why you have to use it with caution and common sense. Still, the utility can make a netbook surprisingly svelte and sprightly.

Get ready to create your Windows XP boot CD

Here’s what you’ll need to use nLite:

• A Windows XP installation CD. (Note that a Recovery CD won’t work.) You can use any flavor of Windows, but XP Home has the smallest starting footprint.

• Optionally, XP Service Pack 3. If your installation CD doesn’t include SP3, download the patch compilation from Microsoft’s site. NLite can slipstream SP3 onto the boot CD you’re creating.

• A 25-character activation key that’s valid for the version of Windows on the installation CD.

• A Vista or XP PC with a CD burner and .NET Framework 2.0 or later.

If your netbook doesn’t have a CD drive, you need to be able to boot to an external CD drive to install the customized version of Windows.

One of the goals in running nLite is to remove all the extraneous drivers that you’ll never need or want. Accordingly, it will behoove you to keep an extra copy of the drivers you do want. The easiest way to do so is to visit your netbook manufacturer’s site and download all of the drivers for your particular machine. The most likely sources are the download pages for the Asus Eee PC, Acer Aspire One, and MSI Wind U100.

Putting nLite through its install-CD paces

Now you’re ready to create an nLite-modified XP installation CD:

• Step 1: Copy the contents of the Windows XP installation CD into a new folder.
• Step 2: Download and install nLite. Accept the defaults offered by the program’s simple setup wizard.
• Step 3: Run nLite, and when you get to the screen that says Locating the Windows installation, click the Browse button and find the folder you created in Step 1. Click Next.
• Step 4: A window called Presets appears with nothing listed under Available Presets. Don’t worry, be happy. Click Next.
• Step 5: NLite asks you to choose the tasks you want it to perform. In this case, you want to slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 3, remove Windows components that you don’t like, run an unattended setup with your own setup options, and create a bootable ISO CD (see Figure 1). Click Next.

  
  Figure 1: Tell nLite which boot functions you want it to perform.

• Step 6: If you told nLite that you wanted to slipstream a service pack, point the program to the downloaded .exe file and click Next.
• Step 7: NLite asks you to select “functionality” that you need, so it can prevent you from deleting important parts of Windows. On my netbook, I need DHCP, printer support, Windows Activation, and the Windows Update site, so I check those boxes and leave the rest blank. Click OK.
• Step 8: NLite presents you with a detailed list of Windows programs, inviting you to check the boxes next to the components you want to remove. For example, in the Applications group, you can probably remove Briefcase, Games, and Screensavers.

  I always check the Drivers box and remove all of the drivers. In the Hardware Support category, I remove only the devices that I know I can live without — Firewire and Floppy support, the Iomega Zip Drive, PCMCIA, Sony Memory Stick, and so on.

  In general, if you aren’t sure, don’t remove! Select the Keyboard box and the Language box unless you need support for a specific language. Under Multimedia, you can safely remove the Media Center options and Movie Maker. Under Network, take out Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Windows Messenger, and any other program that deserves to get the ax.

  Under Operating System Options, you can surely give Rover the Search Assistant the heave-ho. In the Services section, you can probably knock out Fax Service, Indexing Service, and Messenger. Finally, check the box next to Directories to zap all of them. Click Next.

• Step 9: If you told nLite that you want to let the installer run unattended, the next step asks you to fill in the Product Key. Click the Users tab and type in the names of the users you want on the PC. Under the Owner and Network ID tab, type in the appropriate names. On the Display tab, select the screen resolution that you would like to use. When you’re done, click Next.
• Step 10: If you told nLite you want to change Setup options, you have a chance to specify your Windows path, temporary files path, and a dozen additional settings. Click Next.
• Step 11: NLite asks if you want to start the process. Click Yes and go grab a latte. Or two.

It can take 20 minutes or more to complete, but when nLite finishes smashing together your custom installation CD, the program steps you through the process of saving the ISO disk-image file (“Make ISO”) or burning a bootable CD (“Burn Image”). If you decide to save an ISO disk image, you can burn it later using a program such as Alex Feinman’s ISO Recorder.

Wrapping up the creation of your mini-XP disc

With a bootable CD in hand, installation of the new copy of Windows should be fairly straightforward. I say “should” because each PC maker does things slightly differently.

Asus, for example, recommends that you change a BIOS setting prior to installing a new operating system. As best I can tell, the setting doesn’t do anything worthwhile — the installation works whether you’ve changed the BIOS or not — but Asus made the hardware, and the company gets to make the call.

In general, when you put the nLite-generated CD in the drive, start your netbook, and press Esc repeatedly, you should be able to select the CD and boot from it. If you gave nLite instructions for making an unattended installation CD, you can simply come back in 10 or 15 minutes to find Windows staring back at you.

Amazing what a little bit of Windows can do.

Woody Leonhard‘s latest books — Windows Vista All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies and Windows Vista Timesaving Techniques For Dummies — explore what you need to know about Vista in a way that won’t put you to sleep. He and Ed Bott also wrote the encyclopedic Special Edition Using Office 2007.

Free troubleshooting tool adds network tracking

By Ryan Russell The new release of my favorite Windows tool makes it even easier to troubleshoot your PC. Version 2 of Mark Russinovich’s free Process Monitor utility adds network monitoring to its arsenal of system-analysis tools.

Monitor processes and their network activity

Mark Russinovich, the (previously) Sysinternals guy who now works for Microsoft, has released version 2 of one of my all-time favorite Windows freebies, Process Monitor. I wrote a series of columns about this program earlier this year.

The utility supports Windows 2000 SP4 through Vista (but doesn’t list Windows Server 2008, which may have been omitted from the documentation as an oversight). Most importantly, the program now monitors network traffic. My previous columns on Process Monitor listed packet capture as a separate tool. There has been a very useful enhancement in that area in version 2, though it’s not quite a full replacement for a dedicated packet-capture utility yet.

Keeping an eye on your network traffic

After you download and run the new version of Process Monitor, you see the new Show Network Activity option. In the button bar below the menu on the right, there are five Show buttons. If you leave Network Activity on and turn off the other four options, the new feature stands out quickly. You’ll see a send or receive option, as well as the hostnames or IP addresses or port numbers of the Path. (You’re given the option to resolve names.) Under Detail, you see the amount of transferred data.

In terms of having all of your event information in one place, having this network data at hand is huge. You can now use Process Monitor to get a fairly clean log of what each process does to your Registry, file system, and network. So whether you’re watching for suspicious network activity or troubleshooting a balky PC, one utility’s got you covered.

Unfortunately, Process Monitor is not completely wartless. If you’re a packet snob like me, you’ll miss not having the exact packet data and a good decode of it. However, just knowing the IP addresses and ports is sufficient about 80% of the time. Having this information available will save me from opening the Wireshark utility, which I described in my Mar. 20 column.

Process Monitor 2 is also a little buggy. If you ask to see numbers instead of names for network ports, the program will give you the numbers in network order instead of human-readable form — for example, “13568” instead of “53” for DNS.

Perusing the Sysinternals forums, I see a number of other complaints. The program crashed on me once. I anticipate the release of version 2.0.1 very soon.

Antivirus apps don’t like password-cracker tool

I’d like to follow up on my Sept. 25 column on the Cain & Abel password-recovery utility. Windows Secrets technical editor Dennis O’Reilly partially addressed the issue of antivirus apps flagging the program as malware in last week’s Known Issues column.

Still, I want to elaborate here. A number of readers reported that their AV software identified Cain & Abel as something malicious. We heard from users of WinPatrol, McAfee, Avira, and other antivirus tools. The readers wanted to make sure we hadn’t been fooled and that we were aware of the situation.

First off, Cain & Abel is neither a virus nor a Trojan. In fact, by any definition, the program is not malware of any kind. The tool uses all kinds of tricky programming techniques, such as process injection and decryption, to discover the passwords on your PC. Of course, bad guys use these same methods to gain unauthorized access to your system.

So why is Cain & Abel not considered malware? Because the program tells you exactly what it does and does only what it claims to do. In this regard, the utility is no more evil than format.exe, the Windows component that can erase your hard drive.

Then why do anti-malware programs complain so loudly about a “legitimate” tool? Because the apps don’t know whether you intended to download the program. Any tool that helps you find the passwords stored on a PC will attract the attention of data thieves.

A number of such tools get a bad rap because someone uses them for evil. In the future, I’ll be sure to warn you if a program I recommend might set off false positives in your security apps.

The Perimeter Scan column gives you the facts you need to test your systems to prevent weaknesses. Ryan Russell is quality assurance manager at BigFix Inc., a configuration management company. He moderated the vuln-dev mailing list for three years under the alias “Blue Boar.” He was the lead author of Hack-Proofing Your Network, 2nd Ed., and the technical editor of the Stealing the Network book series.