How do I disable IE in XP?

[Thommo]

I can't find the spyware in IE so now use Mozilla but the invader starts up IE itself. How do I uninstall Explorer? (XP Pro)

Thommo

[duncan_m]

Thommo,

Despite what MS say.. you can't really uninstall Internet Exploder.. get rid of the spyware properly then continue with Mozilla..

There's a few tools around to help...

Here's one ( http://www.lavasoft.nu/software/adaware/)

[GreatPig]

And here's another (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html).

GP

[Thommo]

Thanks Guys. I had tried Spybot and the prob persisted but I've just run AdAware and it found a few nasties. Let's see what happens now.

Thommo

[GreatPig]

Thommo,

If you still have problems, try CWShredder (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4086.html). It removes CoolWebSearch variants that Spybot and AdAware often don't.

GP

[ger]

Try Webroot Spysweeper
I have personally found this the best
set it to automatically detect and delete
while you are browsing

[superted]

I have always found spybot very good. Its just that being freeware it doesnt get updated as often (about every 3 months or so by the german developer).

[Thommo]

Being on broadband I never disconnect my modem. Can the baddies find an open port while I'm not active? My nerd son has closed "port 9" I think it is.

Saw a bumper sticker today "I might be a nerd, but my PC works!"

Thommo

[duncan_m]

Being on broadband I never disconnect my modem. Can the baddies find an open port while I'm not active? My nerd son has closed "port 9" I think it is.

Saw a bumper sticker today "I might be a nerd, but my PC works!"

Thommo


Thommo,

You certainly like living dangerously when it comes to the internet dont you :)

You MUST install a Firewall. XP has one built in, but its turned off my default (go figure).. but I much prefer the free Kerio Personal Firewall (http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html).

There's others like ZoneAlarm, but I've found Kerio to be superior. The firewall will tell you exactly what's going OUT of your PC and whats coming in.. You selectively open it up to allow certain applications access to the internet under your control. It will also warn you of Applications launching other applications and it will warn you if applications change..

[Thommo]

Thommo,

You certainly like living dangerously when it comes to the internet dont you :)

You MUST install a Firewall. XP has one built in.. but I much prefer the free Kerio Personal Firewall (http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html).

There's others like ZoneAlarm, but I've found Kerio to be superior. The firewall will tell you exactly what's going OUT of your PC and whats coming in.. You selectively open it up to allow certain applications access to the internet under your control. It will also warn you of Applications launching other applications and it will warn you if applications change..
We're networked with a hardware firewall in the modem.

T

[duncan_m]

We're networked with a hardware firewall in the modem.

T


Oh goodo!

I also have a hardware firewall but actually still run Kerio anyhow.. it's good for tracking whats going OUT of your machine and provides a second level of defence.

[Baloo]

When it comes to Spybot, make sure you have the real Spybot. There are many sites advertising Spybot downloads but they are nothing but trojans, spyware and other ugly stuff in disguise. http://security.kolla.de is the home of the real SpyBot

I agree with Duncan, having a SW based firewall as well as the one in your router is the way to go.

Last but not least. Please don't confuse Nerds with Geeks. They are two very distinct breeds.

[thefirstbruce]

I'd agree that Kerio and Zone Alarm are good choices. Have used both and don't have a preference. However, some websites need certain ports open and permissions to work.
I'd also recommend you get the paid version of either. They allow you to block most ads, thus conserving bandwidth and monthly download limits. Zone Alarm Pro also filters incoming and outgoing email.

With one of these installed, the only way to inadvertantly muff your PC is to visit some dubious website which asks to install a piece of software when accessing a certain page. Porno and warez sites are notorious for this sort of thing....not that I'd know first hand. New viruses can also get around the virus software when they first come out, but the software firewalls will alert you when they activate.

For general housekeeping, set XP to auto update, run adaware once every few weeks, keep Norton antivirus or similar uptodate, do a defrag every month if your data is on the same partition as your OS......and you should be trouble free. You could also do a partition backup or copy every couple of months.

I have't done a reinstall for about 2 years.

Of course the alternative is to treat your home computer like it was in a public library, and just have it restored to pristine state at reboot or logon. I've used a beautiful piece of software called deepfreeze for this purpose. there's another piece of software called clean slate that does the same thing. Remember to keep your data on a separate drive though.

Sorry for the ramble. I was a nerd for a decade there....but got over it.

[Gordon Gekko]

Hi All,

Nothing is for free. Their is a reason these programs are free. The people who write those nasty ads that pop up , are the same people who writes the programs to get rid of them. And when you install these "free" programs, who knows what else it installs.

format your hard drive (save all files first) I format every three months, its a good feeling, clenses the body :)

GG

[GreatPig]

Nothing is for free.
On the contrary, there is a large amount of good free software available on the Internet. Only a relatively small proportion of it has spyware and adware bundled with it (notably file-sharing programs). In fact, there is a whole organisation dedicated to the cause of good free software (called rather predictably the Free Software Foundation).


The people who write those nasty ads that pop up , are the same people who writes the programs to get rid of them.
I don't think so. I haven't yet heard of Lavasoft of Patrick Kolla writing adware.

GP

[superted]

Hi All,

Nothing is for free. Their is a reason these programs are free. The people who write those nasty ads that pop up , are the same people who writes the programs to get rid of them. And when you install these "free" programs, who knows what else it installs.

format your hard drive (save all files first) I format every three months, its a good feeling, clenses the body :)

GG

LoL..Format every three months.

Why would you do that if you dont install that nasty freeware.

Seriously if you are that paranoid then may i suggest running an image program like Ghost it will save you lots of time. Infact if your real keen to format you could run it every night.

[Thommo]

Format every three months????

You should be on a Mac. UNIX based OS which is inherently more secure and for which nobody bothers to write crap anyway. I had intended to change by now and will still do so.

BTW I have just run AdAware for the second time this morning and there were three CoolWeb items there again.

Thommo

[Sim]

I actually try to format every three month or so as a matter of course too - although in practice this somtimes takes longer depending on how busy I am.

For me, it's not about security - it's about keeping a clean, lean machine.

Over time, we all load new programs, upgrade old programs, load utilities, load all sorts of things we try (not just "free" utilities - I'm talking fully paid and "clean" software too). This tends to lead to a lot of junk on the computer, wasting space and affecting performance. We also tend to accumulate old data that is not useful and should be at best deleted and at worst archived.

I treat my quarterly (or so) reformat as a cleansing exercise, kind of like Gordon mentioned. Exactly the same thing you would do as cleaning out the filing cabinet or your office - archive the stuff you must keep, and trash the stuff you really don't need.

At the moment, I'm waiting for my new laptop to arrive, I'll spend my time building that up rather than rebuilding my current laptop. Once the new one is ready and all data I'm going to keep is transferred across, I'll be able to blat the current machine and rebuild it ready to use as a demo machine.

I consider ghost to be an evil tool for data. It's great for keeping images of operating system installs where you want to be able to take it back to a known state. But for data, it is very dangerous - restoring a ghost image will destroy all data on the machine that was created after the ghost image was created. Sure, you could store your data on a secondary drive or on a network (but how many people have a secondary drive on their laptops - I have 6, but that's not the point).

I much prefer to rebuild stuff by hand - lets me keep control of the process and make sure things are done cleanly - and allows me to reconsider the stuff I want to load on and work out whether I really want to do it, or whether I want to change the way its loaded.

There's one thing I really really hate doing, and that's trying to troubleshoot problems with a machine that has not been blatted in several years - especially from a non-techo user when they load all sorts of crap onto it. There's so many problems that can be introduced by the software people load - and uninstall or adaware won't necessarily fix it, that it's much easier to me to blat it and start again - but I do understand that most users won't feel confident in doing that. *sigh*

[Jas]

The only problem I have with that is software legacy issues. I use a great deal of shareware/freeware stuff and as you'd expect, I review a great deal more. Formating is a big issue for me as I have to download/get new installion codes each time.

I set up a testing machine... but then Acey took it. I set up another... the one kid took it. I set up a third... the other kid took it.

I have plans for another... Acey has plans for PCs in other rooms...

So, I'm back to testing on my machine.

Jas

[GreatPig]

I have just run AdAware for the second time this morning and there were three CoolWeb items there again.
The CWShredder program I mentioned before is supposed to be the best for removing CoolWeb stuff.

GP

[Fester]

Actually, talking about backup programs. I have used Ghost and Drive Image but I have now found Acronis True Image I wouldn't go back. Beautiful piece of software I reckon! I use a 160GB USB portable hard drive, True Image will image the drive from within Windows (even open files it claims), but I still prefer to do it raw from the boot CD. And the boot CD is excellent!

[Sim]

I don't back up my whole machine - just the data (http://www.datasafety.com.au/), even when on the road (which I am a lot).

[Sim]

So, I'm back to testing on my machine.

Jas, you should consider buying a copy of VMWare Workstation (http://www.vmware.com/) - allows you to set up a virtual machine which works exactly the same way a physical machine would, with the benefit of being able to roll-back changes at any time, or test on multiple operating systems (at once !), it's really cool.

We live on this software at work - all our demo environments, class labs, and testing facilities are set up in VMware. We couldn't do our job anywhere near as effectively without it.

I spend most of my monthly ADSL download quota acquiring VMware images from other people at work :D

VMware is cheap these days too - US$189 ... much cheaper than running dozens of 2.5" laptop drives like we used to.

[thefirstbruce]

Re a need for second hdd in notebooks for data, here's how my laptop is set up.

I have a main working OS partition, that is used for testing new software as well. It eventually becomes dirty and is replaced.
A second backup OS partition which is used to replace the main OS partition when it gets dirty. This partition is updated when new progs are added, tested, and proven stable.
A third OS partition in case the second becomes unstable.

A lot of people might think this is overkill, but i hate reformatting and starting from scratch. Program tweaks, personalizations, patches, and OS updates can chew up weekends and Gigabytes of download.

As I said earlier, I haven't reinstalled in 2 years.

I use a partition manager called Bootit for all this. It allows me to boot into either of the three OSs and is a good partition copier and imager. The data is common to all as it is on a separate partition, even email, favs, IE history etc.

Every so often I copy the OS partition onto an external notebook drive via USB2 port and hdd case.

Data is kept on its own partition. Critical files are scheduled for backup to internet once a day, and onto local hdd backup partition twice a day.
Once a month I copy the data partition onto external drive and archive onto cd probably every 2-3 months.


Re keeping a partition clean, i use kerio or ZAP, adaware, NAV, and a reg cleaner like JV16 powertools.

[Sim]

It does sound like overkill to me. I'd much rather spend a weekend a couple of times a year than have to install everything twice and try and maintain multiple partitions in a complex set up like that (and you can do other useful stuff like cleaning the bathroom while drives are formatting / software installing / patches downloading etc :rolleyes: ).

But that's just my preference - keep it simple. It your set up works for you, then that's cool !

Oh, and reformatting and starting again is much easier when you have:

1. A second computer with oodles of drive space
2. A gigabit ethernet network between the computers
3. A high speed ADSL connection with generous download allowances
4. A systematic way of storing details such as installation keys, passwords, and configuration information

:D

[thefirstbruce]

Sim, I agree it sounds time consuming and complicated. However, it isn't time consuming. Most of the partition operations are one or two clicks before going to bed or off for dinner. The data backup is also auto scheduled except for external copying.

The initial setup of OSs requires some knowledge about multibooting, but it is very common amongst geeks who don't run Linux.

I also think multibooting setups are the only way to go when a family shares a puter. Let the kids have their own OS partition and trash it, but password protect Dad's.

Nevertheless, as you say, it is personal preference.

[Jas]

Ta for that Sim, I'll look into it :)

Jas

[JFEWSTER]

Hi all.

I promised Sim I would never post to somersoft again however he hasnt answered my personal message yet so I think I'll try and sneak one more in (extremely reluctantly and with sincere guilt and only due to the fact that the subject at hand is very relevant to my recent experience).

Everything sim says in the previous posts is correct. I have found out the hard way with corrupt windows files resulting in the need to fully format over the last few weeks. Re-installing windows over the top actually made things worse.

Since the new install the computer runs great - in fact better than new - but nothing works anymore when it comes to transferring from the D (formally C) drive (program and data wise).

I am extremely computer illiterate and its all too hard but fortunately I installed a cd burner (yes cd not dvd) 2 months ago and despite never backing up in 5 years i did back up family photos and data files recently. Thank god!

To give you an idea about how dumb I am with a computer- with the new install all 4 speakers now make noise rather than just 1 plus subbie. The computer boots up in 30 seconds rather than 3 minutes. The other drive is reading again and the TV card is also working reliably. No hardware repairs. All software related. Speed is dramatically faster. Almost unbelievably so. An incredible improvement despite the fact that I am normally very good with defrag, disk clean, adaware, norton utilities, zone alarm and other stuff that made me think I was keeping everything clean and pure.

Take it from me- if you know nothing about computers (affects only 10% of somersoft regulars) then fully format hard drive at least once a year to get rid of all the crap AFTER learning how to back up everything to removable disk- NOT internal harddisk.

Thankyou to everyone for helping me achieve what I have achieved over the last few years. Thanks to my interest in property my family is in a very good position to weather the upcoming unemployment storm that will soon consume me (24 years employed but only 2 different jobs- still under 40 yrs old). Far better off than most of my fellow workmates who are not financially set.

I couldnt have done it without reading Jans first book as well as all YOUR advise and wisdom and I will be eternally gratefull. Thankyou all.

Promise me that in future YOU will go out of your way to encourage ALL VIEWS and OPINIONS on Somersoft. Dont let analytical and academic discussion - nor dominant personalities - confuse good old common sense.

Trust me- from my perspective the majority of people that I know who have bought an investment property in the last year understand nothing about even the basics of investing. Newbies (the future of this forum) deserve better than that- dont let anyone try and scare them away.

Good by and Good luck.

[Olly]

You can check if a programme is spyware here - http://www.spychecker.com/
Also has firewalls and spyware programmes + more for download.

Instructions for uninstalling IE6 is here - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q293907

Cheers
Olly

[Gordon Gekko]

LoL..Format every three months.

Why would you do that if you dont install that nasty freeware.

Seriously if you are that paranoid then may i suggest running an image program like Ghost it will save you lots of time. Infact if your real keen to format you could run it every night.


Ted,

From start to finish, it takes me 45 min to format and reinstall everything. As Sim said, it keeps my PC lean,

cheers,

GG

[thefirstbruce]

Ted,

From start to finish, it takes me 45 min to format and reinstall everything. As Sim said, it keeps my PC lean,

cheers,

GG


Gordon, does that include updates and patches (XPP, Office XP, antivirus, etc), setting up software firewalls, security keys, and personalizations?

[Gordon Gekko]

Gordon, does that include updates and patches (XPP, Office XP, antivirus, etc), setting up software firewalls, security keys, and personalizations?

Yeap, that is everything. After doing it for the past 5 or 6 years, you get good at it. Having broadband heaps too. :)

And when i am finished, i put my kids photo back onto the desk top.

GG

[Sim]

You must have a small hard drive GG - takes me 3 hours just to format mine :D

(I never do quick formats, and I have very large drives)

[Thommo]

My system is beyond repair. I have run all these programs and brought the MS patches up to date, but the moment I try IE I get a promotional video for the Paris Hilton. I have no intention of going to Paris!

I go months without loading anything new and even on this old HDD I've only used 5gig of space with most of that being photos I'd guess. So what do I need?

A boot/partition/back-up manager........ What's the best?
Do I need partitions anyway if I'm dilligent in keeping all data in My Docs?
My only critical programs are Quicken and my spread-sheet. Should they be kept seperate from my web browser?
I'll set up Kerio and I'm using Norton's 2003 Pro.

Anything else?

Thommo

[thefirstbruce]

Thommo, did you reset your home page to what it was before? Even if you cleared all the crap off your puter, you'd still need to do that.

There has been good advice here about staying clean. To reiterate, install a firewall (may as well be Kerio), then use adaware (get the updates), and spybot, and NAV.

[Gordon Gekko]

Hi All,

Why are these spybots, adaware....etc free?? Nothing is free. They want you to install their programs, so they can install other programs at the same time, without you knowing.

That is my opinion. All programs on my computer i have paid for, hoping this and formatting every 3 months or so, will keep my system clean :)

GG

[Sim]

GG - don't discount "open source" software (which is often, but not always, free). With it being open source, and you having the option to examine the code and/or compile it yourself from source, you know exactly what the program does (or at least, you can be sure someone else has checked it out thoroughly - particularly the popular programs).

I, like you, generally only put software I have paid for on my computers, but I do run some select software that was, in fact, free. OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mozilla Firefox are three such examples.

[GreatPig]

Why are these spybots, adaware....etc free?? Nothing is free.
As well as open source and FSF software being free for the principle of it, some commercial software also have free versions, usually with limited but useful features.

The intention there is to get you used to the limited functionality software and then hopefully, once you like it, you'll buy the full version to get all the extra features.

And it does work. For example, numerous people have bought the full version of the ZoneAlarm firewall after having used the free version - myself included, although I use the free version as well. Of course far more people would probably just continue to use the free version, but they'd probably never have bought the other version anyway. And if it's good software, they're likely to spread the word that it's good, prompting other people to try it and possibly buy the full version. Kinda like free advertising.

GP