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2 questions and 2 gifts
Hi gang,
As one or two of you who remember me from an occasional previous appearance may know, I have been using 98SELite for about 3 or 4 or 5 years. Before that, I used 95B and was perfectly happy with it. But 95B does not do ethernet properly. (Or at all, whatever.) So I switched to 98SELite. (IMHO, 98SE without the Lite is unusable, but that's another subject that no one in an XP group would care about. Still, FYI, there /is/ Lite for XP: www.litepc.com, and there are other customizers out there as well.) Alas, I was hit by a harmless-yet-infuriating joke virus, AGAIN, in fact for the 4th time in about 11 years, and *I have had enough*. Neither MBAM, ESET, Avira nor BitDefender could find it, identify it or get rid of it, nor did a full reformat and Acronis image restore do anything. I am too old for this. So I have switched to XP. I figure once MS considers an OS dead, it's a good time to start using it. Anyway: QUESTION 1 Intro: As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet from an administrator account, so, after searching long and hard for a way to do it, I cloned my admin account, since cloning is supposed to preserve all the settings. Then I was going to make it a limited account, but I hoped not to have to set everything up from scratch. Perhaps I was stupid enough to think "settings" meant user and user interface settings, or maybe I did something wrong, but NOTHING was "cloned", I ***DID*** have to set everything up from scratch. Since all I was setting up were 5 programs I use on the internet, it was not a big deal, but I also have certain "problems" with the default XP interface so I had to spend some time tweaking that as well. Anyway, it's done. Question: WHY does cloning an account create a directory about 2/3rds the size of the admin's, but NOTHING is actually "cloned" - nothing that a user can see or gives a FF about, anyway? QUESTION 2 Intro: The account IS limited, the main symptoms of which are being unable to look at my firewalls' status window, being unable to turn my AV on or off (for reasons someone may be able to explain, now I can, although I did not change anything), and the task manager showing about ten processes instead of 50 (or whatever). Whoopsie do. I LIKE to see the firewall status window, because I want to see where I am connected and what is going on. The FW is the free Agnitum Outpost Firewall 1.0.242 from 2002. I tried a few of the current ones, but not only are they 150MBs or more instead of 3MB, they are totally demented and could drive anyone crazy with their constant and idiotic questions and nags. With Agnitum you just tell the machine what /can/ get on the internet, and what can /NOT/. That's it. Question: Are the AV (ESET NOD32, all paid for) and firewall working EXACTLY as I had them set up as admin, and I don't have to worry about ANYTHING? (Those DO sound like "famous last words"...) And IS there ANY way to see the FW status window? GIFT 1 After making this second account, I found it annoying to have to click on a stupid MS taskbar thing to switch users. So, after about 2 minutes in Google, I found a solution. Some of you may find it useful as well (AFA the English, it's pasted here as found in some forum): +++++ Shortcut for Switch users in Windows XP Windows XP, fast user switching allows multiple users to be logged into a computer at once. Fast user switching has been a very useful feature of Windows for multi-user computers. This is very useful. Fast user switching will allow the other user to log in while still retaining the other user's session. To Create the Shorcut follow the following steps: 1. Right click the desktop and select New and then Shortcut from the menu that appear. 2. Type "X:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe" into the location box and Click Next. (Where X:\ is the drive letter where XP is installed.) 3. As per your wish give it a name and click on Finish. +++++ I'd give credit but I just saved the info. So, thanks, whoever you are, you rule. thanatoid's additional ideas for those who are a little "fastidious": Idea 1 This doesn't have to be a /desktop/ shortcut, although that is probably the best place to put it since ALL you have to do is double-click it. You can put it in the start menu or wherever (see gift #2). And of course, you can assign any icon you want. I gave it one with two arrows in a sort of a circle. Idea 2 This happens as a command, so a cmd window will flash on the screen before you see the normal logon screen. If you right- click and go to properties, you can make it full screen (not much of an improvement) or you can do what I did, make it the smallest cmd window possible (by choosing the smallest fonts), and maybe even give it some colors. I find it less offensive that way, personally. Real hardcore tweakers could make it flash a picture of their choice by adding an argument or putting it inside a tiny batch file, I suppose. I am not /quite/ there yet. GIFT 2 Intro: What do you consider the ***BIGGEST*** XP (and after) annoyance? Ahh, there are SO many to choose from, aren't there... Well, for me it's the demented minimum of 3 user(s) directories even if you are the ONLY person who ever touches the computer. Of course, you can pretend they don't exist, and just NEVER go into the Doc&Set directory, but I feel ill just knowing it's all in there. And I thought the Registry was bad! At least one could edit the registry! Of course, if it only stopped there... But no, every one of those 3 directories has completely different subdirectories and EVEN BETTER, 3 different start menus. Fubar help you if you want to guess where a program and its settings are going to end up. And there is nothing as charming and user-friendly as the XP start menu after you've been using the machine for a while, with its 200 or more main levels, sublevels, sub-sublevels, sub-sub-sublevels, etc. Gift: Well, there is a solution. A free one. What kills me is I have had an early version of it on a software CDR (I archive all software I run across which looks interesting) for about 8 years, but I never tried it. And I could have been using it with 95, because, like all well-written software, it works on everything from 95 to 7. The free solution is called FastLauncher, and this is where you get it: http://www.dvasoft.com Depending on the resolution of your desktop, you can configure 250 programs or more to start with just two separate mouse clicks (not a double click). For me, this is better than spending 3 minutes searching for your program in the "normal" XP start menu only to find it is not there because it ended up in a different user account's startmenu group. You can assign icons, arguments, runs as admin, etc. You can even make it transparent per your preference. Some of you may prefer to stick to the MS start menu which you have suffered with for perhaps a decade or longer, and you are certainly most welcome to do so. I hear wearing a hair-shirt gets to be quite enjoyable after a while. I have also read that on occasion, people released from prison commit a crime just so they can go back, and it's not just for the free food and laundry service. It's safe and comfortable - well, within reason, but apparently still better than the very scary *freedom*. Afterword: Replies to either of my questions, and any other comments, will be most welcome. Especially if someone who really knows their stuff realizes the "user switch" shortcut is NFG and leaves you exposed. This has occurred to me but I don't know enough about the XP user system to know for sure. Regards, t. |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"thanatoid" wrote in message
... As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet from an administrator account , so, after searching long and hard for a way to do it, I cloned my admin account, since cloning is supposed to preserve all the settings. . . . WHY does cloning an account create a directory about 2/3rds the size of the admin's, but NOTHING is actually "cloned" - nothing that a user can see or gives a FF about, anyway? WinXP has no "clone" function. Duplication of a User is usually done by the Documents and Settings Wizard. You can create a new User2 and then import into it the Documents and Settings (in whole or part) of User1. The FW is the free Agnitum Outpost Firewall 1.0.242 from 2002. This seems unusual. The firewall component of WinXP was updated years later than 2002 supposedly to resist penetrations not known in 2002. -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) |
#3
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"thanatoid" wrote in message ... Hi gang, snip background So I have switched to XP. I figure once MS considers an OS dead, it's a good time to start using it. That gave me a chuckle. Nice. QUESTION 1 snip intro Question: WHY does cloning an account create a directory about 2/3rds the size of the admin's, but NOTHING is actually "cloned" - nothing that a user can see or gives a FF about, anyway? Sorry, no help here. QUESTION 2 snip intro Question: Are the AV (ESET NOD32, all paid for) and firewall working EXACTLY as I had them set up as admin, and I don't have to worry about ANYTHING? (Those DO sound like "famous last words"...) Since they are system-level services, they should be set up and working exactly as you left them under the admin account. And IS there ANY way to see the FW status window? Probably a number of ways, but one way would be to set up a shortcut to the program that displays your firewall status window with the "runas" comamnd. For example, say your firewall status window was launched with FW.EXE, you would make the shortcut comamnd line something like this: RUNAS /USER:administrator FW.EXE When you launch the shortcut, it will prompt for the administrator password and then run FW.EXE as the administrator. You can also access the RUNAS functionality by shift+right-click on an arbitrary shortcut and pick Run As from the context menu. You'll have to click the radio button beside "The following user:" in the window that pops up, then pick the username fromt eh dropdown and type the password. That works fine for one-off uses, but for things you need to run as admin frequently the shortcut is the way to go, in my opinion. And before you ask, no, there is no way to build the admin password into the command, but I seem to recall that there are third-party utilities that can automate that. snip gift 1 Idea 2 This happens as a command, so a cmd window will flash on the screen before you see the normal logon screen. If you right- click and go to properties, you can make it full screen (not much of an improvement) or you can do what I did, make it the smallest cmd window possible (by choosing the smallest fonts), and maybe even give it some colors. I find it less offensive that way, personally. Real hardcore tweakers could make it flash a picture of their choice by adding an argument or putting it inside a tiny batch file, I suppose. I am not /quite/ there yet. Set the shortcut to Run Minimized instead of Normal Window, then it only flashes the icon in the taskbar instead of flashing the window on screen. Also, if you are a keyboard junkie, WinKey+L will get you there without the mouse clicks and without flashing the comamnd window/icon. snip gift 2 Afterword: Replies to either of my questions, and any other comments, will be most welcome. Especially if someone who really knows their stuff realizes the "user switch" shortcut is NFG and leaves you exposed. This has occurred to me but I don't know enough about the XP user system to know for sure. I'm curious how the shortcut could leave you exposed when you can get the same thing from the Start menu or WinKey+L. Just asking, because nothing comes to my mind... -- Zaphod Arthur Dent, speaking to Trillian about Zaphod: "So, two heads is what does it for a girl?" "...Anything else he's got two of?" |
#4
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2 questions and 2 gifts
| As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet | from an administrator account, Do we all know that? I always install XP to FAT32 to avoid the permissions complications. If I had to use NTFS I'd always run as Admin. To my mind the trouble of NTFS is not worth the benefit.The idea of different types of accounts originates from corporate PCs, where the intranet is trusted but the employee is not. So all the hallways are open but every cabinet and door is locked. With SOHo PCs it's the opposite: the person using the PC is generally trusted but the Internet is not. So in that case a good front door lock is more appropriate. But Microsoft wants to reduce support costs, and most people offering advice have a business IT background. As a result "we all know" that one should always run with restricted rights and should never venture outside of one's Documents folder. Each version of Windows is more adamant than the last with that guidance. It certainly doesn't hurt to run in "lackey mode" while online, but it does create hassles, as you detailed in your post. If you're going to lock all of your draws and cabinets in order to avoid thieves then you're going to have to reach for your keys every time you want something. Meanwhile, exploits that bypass such restrictions are common. By far a better method is to stop the leak in the first place: Don't enable Jave or script. Remove flash player and PDF browser plugins. Unfortunately, most people are not willing to do that because their Facebook page and favorite online shopping sites simply won't function with safe settings. | | The FW is the free Agnitum Outpost Firewall 1.0.242 | from 2002. I tried a few of the current ones, but not | only are they 150MBs or more instead of 3MB, they | are totally demented | I did a lot of research, too, and never came up with an ideal choice. Most of the popular ones have become extremely bloated. I've settled on Online Armor 4.0.0.15 Free. It's not perfect. It has a problematic behavior of accessing the disk every few seconds, checking for a file that never existed in the first place. Unfortunately, the company was sold to another company called Emsisoft. The installer went from an already bloated 11 MB to a ridiculous 21 MB. (Probably over 50 MB installed!) The free version became a sort-of-free-but- you-have-to-sign-up version. (Perhaps ad-supported. I'm not sure.) So I've stuck with v. 4.0.0.15. I also downloaded the free pcTools firewall, which was well-rated, but never got around to trying that one. I'd be willing to pay for a good firewall, but I just haven't found the ideal product that provides full, informative control over all in/out activity, without also trying to be 5 other programs that I don't want. (Anti-malware, anti-phishing, email filter, running program monitor, etc.) It'd be interesting to hear from others about their experiences with firewalls. (Other than the Windows firewall, that is.) The best firewall I ever used was AtGuard, which was way ahead of it's time. But it was only written for Win95/98, and they sold out to Symantec. Symantec then rebranded it, doubled the price, reduced the functionality, and set 800+- programs to be able to go through the firewall by default! | | And there is nothing as charming and user-friendly as the XP | start menu after you've been using the machine for a while, | with its 200 or more main levels, sublevels, sub-sublevels, | sub-sub-sublevels, etc. | The XP Start Menu is not really different from the Win9x Start Menu. If you use Classic View it's basically the same thing. Right-click Start, click Explore, and you can clean house, just like in Win9x. The real problem is software that installs with a half dozen pointless links, to help file, uninstall, website, etc. The dual folders -- user and all users -- are a bit of a hassle. That existed in Win9x but the All Users folder was almost never used, so it didn't matter. Win9x was set up to default to an "I'm the only user" setting. WinNT is designed with the pretense that there's no such thing as a single-user, stand- alone PC. I just move everything to the All Users Start Menu folder, so that it's effectively a single Start Menu. And I group things into folders: Office, Utilities, Graphics, etc. I don't install software on a regular basis, so I don't mind too much doing that reorganization. For most things I'm just using Quick Launch, anyway. (Unfortunately, that's one of the things that Microsoft broke in Vista/7. One can put shortcuts on Quick Launch, but software installers can't put them there.) |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"Don Phillipson" wrote in
: "thanatoid" wrote in message ... As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet from an administrator account , so, after searching long and hard for a way to do it, I cloned my admin account, since cloning is supposed to preserve all the settings. . . . WHY does cloning an account create a directory about 2/3rds the size of the admin's, but NOTHING is actually "cloned" - nothing that a user can see or gives a FF about, anyway? WinXP has no "clone" function. Duplication of a User is usually done by the Documents and Settings Wizard. You can create a new User2 and then import into it the Documents and Settings (in whole or part) of User1. OK. Since it's done, it was sort of "WHY????" question, but I will save this for future reference. The FW is the free Agnitum Outpost Firewall 1.0.242 from 2002. This seems unusual. The firewall component of WinXP was updated years later than 2002 supposedly to resist penetrations not known in 2002. I prefer to use Windows security products. Thanks for the reply. -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"Zaphod Beeblebrox"
wrote in : "thanatoid" wrote in message ... snip Are the AV (ESET NOD32, all paid for) and firewall working EXACTLY as I had them set up as admin, and I don't have to worry about ANYTHING? (Those DO sound like "famous last words"...) Since they are system-level services, they should be set up and working exactly as you left them under the admin account. OK, that's reassuring. And IS there ANY way to see the FW status window? Probably a number of ways, but one way would be to set up a shortcut to the program that displays your firewall status window with the "runas" comamnd. For example, say your firewall status window was launched with FW.EXE, you would make the shortcut comamnd line something like this: RUNAS /USER:administrator FW.EXE When you launch the shortcut, it will prompt for the administrator password and then run FW.EXE as the administrator. You can also access the RUNAS functionality by shift+right-click on an arbitrary shortcut and pick Run As from the context menu. You'll have to click the radio button beside "The following user:" in the window that pops up, then pick the username fromt eh dropdown and type the password. That works fine for one-off uses, but for things you need to run as admin frequently the shortcut is the way to go, in my opinion. And before you ask, no, there is no way to build the admin password into the command, but I seem to recall that there are third-party utilities that can automate that. I will look into this. snip Set the shortcut to Run Minimized instead of Normal Window, then it only flashes the icon in the taskbar instead of flashing the window on screen. Also, if you are a keyboard junkie, WinKey+L will get you there without the mouse clicks and without flashing the comamnd window/icon. I'll try this. snip I'm curious how the shortcut could leave you exposed when you can get the same thing from the Start menu or WinKey+L. Just asking, because nothing comes to my mind... If nothing occurs to an obviously knowledgeable person like you, then it should be fine. Thanks for your reply. -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"thanatoid" wrote in message ... "Zaphod Beeblebrox" wrote in : "thanatoid" wrote in message ... snip And IS there ANY way to see the FW status window? Probably a number of ways, but one way would be to set up a shortcut to the program that displays your firewall status window with the "runas" comamnd. For example, say your firewall status window was launched with FW.EXE, you would make the shortcut comamnd line something like this: RUNAS /USER:administrator FW.EXE When you launch the shortcut, it will prompt for the administrator password and then run FW.EXE as the administrator. You can also access the RUNAS functionality by shift+right-click on an arbitrary shortcut and pick Run As from the context menu. You'll have to click the radio button beside "The following user:" in the window that pops up, then pick the username fromt eh dropdown and type the password. That works fine for one-off uses, but for things you need to run as admin frequently the shortcut is the way to go, in my opinion. And before you ask, no, there is no way to build the admin password into the command, but I seem to recall that there are third-party utilities that can automate that. I will look into this. By the way, if you are running the firewall status window in your startup so that it launches each time you log in, there may be a better way that does not involve typing the password every time. Let me know if this would be helpful. snip Set the shortcut to Run Minimized instead of Normal Window, then it only flashes the icon in the taskbar instead of flashing the window on screen. Also, if you are a keyboard junkie, WinKey+L will get you there without the mouse clicks and without flashing the comamnd window/icon. I'll try this. I seem to recall that there are third-party utilities that can hide the taskbar icon so if this isn't unobtrusive enough, that might be another approach. snip I'm curious how the shortcut could leave you exposed when you can get the same thing from the Start menu or WinKey+L. Just asking, because nothing comes to my mind... If nothing occurs to an obviously knowledgeable person like you, then it should be fine. Ah, I read your comment to mean you had something specific in mind you were concerned about. Thanks for your reply. You are quite welcome. -- Zaphod Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, ya know? - Gag Halfrunt |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"Mayayana" wrote in
: | As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the | internet from an administrator account, Do we all know that? Hee hee. Well, it seems to be mentioned on every advanced setup/usage site I've ever been to. "All" people, of course, don't even know what it means, let alone whether it is true or not. I always install XP to FAT32 to avoid the permissions complications. I don't fully understand (nor want to unless it is imperative) what permissions are, I always use FAT32 because I see no point whatsoever in using NTFS. I have NEVER had any trouble with it since I got my 95B machine in 1997. Nor has anyone I know, in fact I can't even remember reading about any ACTUAL trouble with it, except all the innumerable warnings about how "dangerous" it is compared to NTFS. Probably just MS PR. How does using FAT32 prevent NTFS "permissions complications" though? It's just a different file structure, isn't it? How can it affect software "as used daily" in such a major fashion? If I had to use NTFS I'd always run as Admin. To my mind the trouble of NTFS is not worth the benefit. The idea of different types of accounts originates from corporate PCs, where the intranet is trusted but the employee is not. So all the hallways are open but every cabinet and door is locked. Yes, corporate is so much fun. With SOHo PCs it's the opposite: the person using the PC is generally trusted but the Internet is not. So in that case a good front door lock is more appropriate. But Microsoft wants to reduce support costs, and most people offering advice have a business IT background. As a result "we all know" that one should always run with restricted rights and should never venture outside of one's Documents folder. Each version of Windows is more adamant than the last with that guidance. This isn't even a soho, it's just a bored and useless thanatoid. So, are you saying that as the sole user with FAT32 I don't have to worry about limited accounts for the internet? It certainly doesn't hurt to run in "lackey mode" while online, but it does create hassles, as you detailed in your post. It's not that bad, it's just that I like to know what is happening. I am using something called netstat (not the MS one, it came with some program whose name I don't recall and was the only good thing about it, a separate exe, so I kept it). If you're going to lock all of your draws and cabinets in order to avoid thieves then you're going to have to reach for your keys every time you want something. Meanwhile, exploits that bypass such restrictions are common. By far a better method is to stop the leak in the first place: Don't enable Jave or script. I don't have Java at all, but I can't use my bank's site without javascript. I use OffByOne for 99% of my browsing. It is 100% safe, until someone proves otherwise. Remove flash player and PDF browser plugins. PDF plugins, of course. But do you mean flash player plugins or flash player altogether? Unfortunately, most people are not willing to do that because their Facebook page and favorite online shopping sites simply won't function with safe settings. You will have to KILL ME to have me use facebook. In fact, I am putting ALL facebook URL's I can establish the existence of in my HOSTS file. (It should only take about 2 hrs.) Ah, the good old days when only Google (and MS) tracked your every move... | The FW is the free Agnitum Outpost Firewall 1.0.242 | from 2002. I tried a few of the current ones, but not | only are they 150MBs or more instead of 3MB, they | are totally demented I did a lot of research, too, and never came up with an ideal choice. Most of the popular ones have become extremely bloated. I've settled on Online Armor 4 snip without also trying to be 5 other programs that I don't want. (Anti-malware, anti-phishing, email filter, running program monitor, etc.) You might want to take a look at the one I use. I can post it for you somewhere if you can't find it. (Since it's not ZoneAlarm, the older versions are not easily found.) I don't see how "block most/stealth" mode can be any less efective now than it was in 2002. It'd be interesting to hear from others about their experiences with firewalls. (Other than the Windows firewall, that is.) That goes without saying. An "MS security product" is an oxymoron. The best firewall I ever used was AtGuard, which was way ahead of it's time. But it was only written for Win95/98, and they sold out to Symantec. Symantec then rebranded it, doubled the price, reduced the functionality, and set 800+- programs to be able to go through the firewall by default! Typical. | And there is nothing as charming and user-friendly as the | XP start menu after you've been using the machine for a | while, with its 200 or more main levels, sublevels, | sub-sublevels, sub-sub-sublevels, etc. The XP Start Menu is not really different from the Win9x Start Menu. If you use Classic View it's basically the same thing. Win 9x did not have 3 (or 10) different user directories. Right-click Start, click Explore, and you can clean house, just like in Win9x. The real problem is software that installs with a half dozen pointless links, to help file, uninstall, website, etc. Well, that's just part of the problem. The dual folders -- user and all users -- are a bit of a hassle. Don't forget the 3rd, default user. The whole thing drives anal-retentives like me insane. That existed in Win9x but the All Users folder was almost never used, so it didn't matter. I didn't even KNOW it existed, and I've been using 9x since 1995 until a week ago. Win9x was set up to default to an "I'm the only user" setting. WinNT is designed with the pretense that there's no such thing as a single-user, stand- alone PC. One of the truly wonderful gifts from MS. I just move everything to the All Users Start Menu folder, so that it's effectively a single Start Menu. And I group things into folders: Office, Utilities, Graphics, etc. So do I. But I still had VERY annoying probolems. That's why I now use FL. I don't install software on a regular basis, so I don't mind too much doing that reorganization. For most things I'm just using Quick Launch, anyway. (Unfortunately, that's one of the things that Microsoft broke in Vista/7. One can put shortcuts on Quick Launch, but software installers can't put them there.) I have no idea what that is, but that's OK. I appreciate your reply, especially since I was so nasty to you about your utility. Or did you just forget all about that? ;-) So, again, with FAT32 I don't NEED a limited account? -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
thanatoid wrote in
: snip Of course, I meant I prefer ****NOT**** to use Windows security products. -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
| I don't fully understand (nor want to unless it is imperative)
| what permissions are, I always use FAT32 because I see no | point whatsoever in using | NTFS. Permissions/restrictions is the operation of limited functionality for different user categories. Are you sure you're not on NTFS? If you're on FAT32 the restrictions don't function. (Right-click - Properties on a file will not have a tab for adjusting restrictions.) | But do you mean flash player plugins or flash player | altogether? | As long as it's not connected to the browser it doesn't really matter whether the library is present. If the browser can play flash content you're at risk. | You might want to take a look at the one I use. I can post it | for you somewhere if you can't find it. (Since it's not | ZoneAlarm, the older versions are not easily found.) I don't | see how "block most/stealth" mode can be any less efective now | than it was in 2002. | Maybe I will check that out. But why did you choose v. 1? The old version websites seem to have several, up to 3.5. | I appreciate your reply, especially since I was so nasty to | you about your utility. Or did you just forget all about that? | ;-) | Not a big deal. | So, again, with FAT32 I don't NEED a limited account? | With FAT32 you can't have a limited account. |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
thanatoid wrote:
"Mayayana" wrote in : As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet from an administrator account, Do we all know that? Hee hee. Well, it seems to be mentioned on every advanced setup/usage site I've ever been to. "All" people, of course, don't even know what it means, let alone whether it is true or not. I always install XP to FAT32 to avoid the permissions complications. I don't fully understand (nor want to unless it is imperative) what permissions are, I always use FAT32 because I see no point whatsoever in using NTFS. I have NEVER had any trouble with it since I got my 95B machine in 1997. Nor has anyone I know, in fact I can't even remember reading about any ACTUAL trouble with it, except all the innumerable warnings about how "dangerous" it is compared to NTFS. Probably just MS PR. How does using FAT32 prevent NTFS "permissions complications" though? It's just a different file structure, isn't it? How can it affect software "as used daily" in such a major fashion? I thought if you installed XP on a FAT32 partition you eliminated all those other accounts. ???? (Admin, Default User, etc) And that there would only be one - you. But I don't know, since I've never done it. Plus I need NTFS, on occasion, to be able to occasionally handle processing some large video files w/o ever worrying about exceeding a predetermined FAT32 limit (of 2 or 4 GB). And ditto for storing my system drive backup images, which are close to 20 GB in size. And with NTFS, that's a non-issue. If I had to use NTFS I'd always run as Admin. To my mind the trouble of NTFS is not worth the benefit. Well, it's really not THAT big of a deal!! But you ideally shouldn't run as Admin, as already mentioned. The idea of different types of accounts originates from corporate PCs, where the intranet is trusted but the employee is not. So all the hallways are open but every cabinet and door is locked. Yes, corporate is so much fun. snip So, are you saying that as the sole user with FAT32 I don't have to worry about limited accounts for the internet? I don't have Java at all, but I can't use my bank's site without javascript. THAT, and a host of other web sites (to see anything useful). I use OffByOne for 99% of my browsing. It is 100% safe, until someone proves otherwise. IIRC, I found it useless - too many sites won't work right with it. If you disable javascript it seems you're stuck in the Stone Ages, at least at most sites. snip Typical. And there is nothing as charming and user-friendly as the XP start menu after you've been using the machine for a while, with its 200 or more main levels, sublevels, sub-sublevels, sub-sub-sublevels, etc. Seems fine to me, too. The XP Start Menu is not really different from the Win9x Start Menu. If you use Classic View it's basically the same thing. Right! Win 9x did not have 3 (or 10) different user directories. Right-click Start, click Explore, and you can clean house, just like in Win9x. The real problem is software that installs with a half dozen pointless links, to help file, uninstall, website, etc. Well, that's just part of the problem. The dual folders -- user and all users -- are a bit of a hassle. Yup. Can be. -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche Neither. I'd probably just shoot myself. Forget the "teeth gnashing". And as for being divine, he's GOT to be kidding. :-) |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"Mayayana" wrote in
: | I don't fully understand (nor want to unless it is | imperative) what permissions are, I always use FAT32 | because I see no point whatsoever in using | NTFS. Permissions/restrictions is the operation of limited functionality for different user categories. Are you sure you're not on NTFS? Of course I'm sure. If you're on FAT32 the restrictions don't function. (Right-click - Properties on a file will not have a tab for adjusting restrictions.) Correct. I was wondering what y'all was talking about. So, setting up the limited account was a waste of time, or should I try to understand how you can DL stuff while running all your internet apps in Sandboxie, or... ? | But do you mean flash player plugins or flash player | altogether? | As long as it's not connected to the browser it doesn't really matter whether the library is present. If the browser can play flash content you're at risk. Well, I try to do as little flash as possible. The one thing I don't like about the latest Opera is there is no "flash on/off" box you can put on the toolbar. Although there probably is, I just haven't found it yet - opera config is a little hairy, and I was using 10USB until 10 days ago, all set up nice. Speaking of Flash - are the latest AV programs (like my ESET NOD32) capable of finding malware in them, or do they just skip them, like they skip avi and jpg (and other) files... ? | You might want to take a look at the one I use. I can post | it for you somewhere if you can't find it. (Since it's not | ZoneAlarm, the older versions are not easily found.) I | don't see how "block most/stealth" mode can be any less | efective now than it was in 2002. | Maybe I will check that out. But why did you choose v. 1? The old version websites seem to have several, up to 3.5. I tried a later version and it was considerably more insane, plus it is not free and if I tried to buy it, they would tell me I have to buy the latest 250MB version. I suppose I could just do an Acronis restore every 28 days, but I really like ver 1. All this is sufficiently overwhelming for now. | I appreciate your reply, especially since I was so nasty | to you about your utility. Or did you just forget all | about that? ;-) | Not a big deal. Thank you, and I apologize. I get a little nuts sometimes. Short circuits in the old gulliver. | So, again, with FAT32 I don't NEED a limited account? | With FAT32 you can't have a limited account. Well, I do have it. I can post a grab of the logon screen for you. This is all very confusing. I have 3 accounts: admin, Administrator [I believe this is the hidden super acount](both of these have full control, but only admin shows up in the logon screen), and internet, which /is/ limited. XP Home SP3, BTW. I don't know if this makes any difference. I tried XP Pro but it was too insane for me. Messing with the group policy sort of did me in... It's not avail. in TweakUI running under XPHome, and a good thing, too. Plus, I was silly enough to think Home might NOT have 3 accounts in Doc&Set no matter what. Alas... -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"Bill in Co" wrote in
: snip I thought if you installed XP on a FAT32 partition you eliminated all those other accounts. ???? (Admin, Default User, etc) And that there would only be one - you. But I don't know, since I've never done it. I went with Home because I thought Home did not force 3 accounts on you. I was wrong. Plus I need NTFS, on occasion, to be able to occasionally handle processing some large video files w/o ever worrying about exceeding a predetermined FAT32 limit (of 2 or 4 GB). And ditto for storing my system drive backup images, which are close to 20 GB in size. And with NTFS, that's a non-issue. This is the only valid argument for NTFS, infinite (right?) file sizes. I have never had a file larger than 800MB or so, so... snip I don't have Java at all, but I can't use my bank's site without javascript. THAT, and a host of other web sites (to see anything useful). I use OffByOne for 99% of my browsing. It is 100% safe, until someone proves otherwise. IIRC, I found it useless - too many sites won't work right with it. If you disable javascript it seems you're stuck in the Stone Ages, at least at most sites. All you lose is what passes as "graphic design" on the web, css, etc. And to ME, that is a GOOD thing. I don't care about that stuff. All I need is the content, not bloatware page design. If I /need/ javascript, I use Opera. snip 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche Neither. I'd probably just shoot myself. Forget the "teeth gnashing". And as for being divine, he's GOT to be kidding. :-) Not "being" divine, divine as in "wonderful". -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? Friedrich Nietzsche |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
On Nov 17, 11:42*am, thanatoid wrote:
Hi gang, As one or two of you who remember me from an occasional previous appearance may know, I have been using 98SELite for about 3 or 4 or 5 years. Before that, I used 95B and was perfectly happy with it. But 95B does not do ethernet properly. (Or at all, whatever.) So I switched to 98SELite. (IMHO, 98SE without the Lite is unusable, but that's another subject that no one in an XP group would care about. Still, FYI, there /is/ Lite for XP:www.litepc.com, and there are other customizers out there as well.) Alas, I was hit by a harmless-yet-infuriating joke virus, AGAIN, in fact for the 4th time in about 11 years, and *I have had enough*. Neither MBAM, ESET, Avira nor BitDefender could find it, identify it or get rid of it, nor did a full reformat and Acronis image restore do anything. I am too old for this. So I have switched to XP. I figure once MS considers an OS dead, it's a good time to start using it. Anyway: QUESTION 1 Intro: As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet from an administrator account, so, after searching long and hard for a way to do it, I cloned my admin account, since cloning is supposed to preserve all the settings. Then I was going to make it a limited account, but I hoped not to have to set everything up from scratch. Perhaps I was stupid enough to think "settings" meant user and user interface settings, or maybe I did something wrong, but NOTHING was "cloned", I ***DID*** have to set everything up from scratch. Since all I was setting up were 5 programs I use on the internet, it was not a big deal, but I also have certain "problems" with the default XP interface so I had to spend some time tweaking that as well. Anyway, it's done. Question: WHY does cloning an account create a directory about 2/3rds the size of the admin's, but NOTHING is actually "cloned" - nothing that a user can see or gives a FF about, anyway? QUESTION 2 Intro: The account IS limited, the main symptoms of which are being unable to look at my firewalls' status window, being unable to turn my AV on or off (for reasons someone may be able to explain, now I can, although I did not change anything), and the task manager showing about ten processes instead of 50 (or whatever). Whoopsie do. I LIKE to see the firewall status window, because I want to see where I am connected and what is going on. The FW is the free Agnitum Outpost Firewall 1.0.242 from 2002. I tried a few of the current ones, but not only are they 150MBs or more instead of 3MB, they are totally demented and could drive anyone crazy with their constant and idiotic questions and nags. With Agnitum you just tell the machine what /can/ get on the internet, and what can /NOT/. That's it. Question: Are the AV (ESET NOD32, all paid for) and firewall working EXACTLY as I had them set up as admin, and I don't have to worry about ANYTHING? (Those DO sound like "famous last words"...) And IS there ANY way to see the FW status window? GIFT 1 After making this second account, I found it annoying to have to click on a stupid MS taskbar thing to switch users. So, after about 2 minutes in Google, I found a solution. Some of you may find it useful as well (AFA the English, it's pasted here as found in some forum): +++++ Shortcut for Switch users in Windows XP Windows XP, fast user switching allows multiple users to be logged into a computer at once. Fast user switching has been a very useful feature of Windows for multi-user computers. This is very useful. Fast user switching will allow the other user to log in while still retaining the other user's session. To Create the Shorcut follow the following steps: 1. Right click the desktop and select New and then Shortcut from the menu that appear. 2. Type "X:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe" into the location box and Click Next. (Where X:\ is the drive letter where XP is installed.) 3. As per your wish give it a name and click on Finish. +++++ I'd give credit but I just saved the info. So, thanks, whoever you are, you rule. thanatoid's additional ideas for those who are a little "fastidious": Idea 1 This doesn't have to be a /desktop/ shortcut, although that is probably the best place to put it since ALL you have to do is double-click it. You can put it in the start menu or wherever (see gift #2). And of course, you can assign any icon you want. I gave it one with two arrows in a sort of a circle. Idea 2 This happens as a command, so a cmd window will flash on the screen before you see the normal logon screen. If you right- click and go to properties, you can make it full screen (not much of an improvement) or you can do what I did, make it the smallest cmd window possible (by choosing the smallest fonts), and maybe even give it some colors. I find it less offensive that way, personally. Real hardcore tweakers could make it flash a picture of their choice by adding an argument or putting it inside a tiny batch file, I suppose. I am not /quite/ there yet. GIFT 2 Intro: What do you consider the ***BIGGEST*** XP (and after) annoyance? Ahh, there are SO many to choose from, aren't there... Well, for me it's the demented minimum of 3 user(s) directories even if you are the ONLY person who ever touches the computer. Of course, you can pretend they don't exist, and just NEVER go into the Doc&Set directory, but I feel ill just knowing it's all in there. And I thought the Registry was bad! At least one could edit the registry! Of course, if it only stopped there... But no, every one of those 3 directories has completely different subdirectories and EVEN BETTER, 3 different start menus. Fubar help you if you want to guess where a program and its settings are going to end up. And there is nothing as charming and user-friendly as the XP start menu after you've been using the machine for a while, with its 200 or more main levels, sublevels, sub-sublevels, sub-sub-sublevels, etc. Gift: Well, there is a solution. A free one. What kills me is I have had an early version of it on a software CDR (I archive all software I run across which looks interesting) for about 8 years, but I never tried it. And I could have been using it with 95, because, like all well-written software, it works on everything from 95 to 7. The free solution is called FastLauncher, and this is where you get it: http://www.dvasoft.com Depending on the resolution of your desktop, you can configure 250 programs or more to start with just two separate mouse clicks (not a double click). For me, this is better than spending 3 minutes searching for your program in the "normal" XP start menu only to find it is not there because it ended up in a different user account's startmenu group. You can assign icons, arguments, runs as admin, etc. You can even make it transparent per your preference. Some of you may prefer to stick to the MS start menu which you have suffered with for perhaps a decade or longer, and you are certainly most welcome to do so. I hear wearing a hair-shirt gets to be quite enjoyable after a while. I have also read that on occasion, people released from prison commit a crime just so they can go back, and it's not just for the free food and laundry service. It's safe and comfortable - well, within reason, but apparently still better than the very scary *freedom*. Afterword: Replies to either of my questions, and any other comments, will be most welcome. Especially if someone who really knows their stuff realizes the "user switch" shortcut is NFG and leaves you exposed. This has occurred to me but I don't know enough about the XP user system to know for sure. Regards, t. -- What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? * * * * Friedrich Nietzsche The best thing to do when you come across a "bug" (ie: your joke pest) is to find the "removal" for it. Somewhere is the cure for it so if you want it then it's easier if you post the name of it here along with doing a search for it. At least try before you do a wipeout. Good luck. |
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2 questions and 2 gifts
"Mayayana" wrote in message ... | As we all know, it is not a good idea to go on the internet | from an administrator account, Do we all know that? I always install XP to FAT32 to avoid the permissions complications. If I had to use NTFS I'd always run as Admin. To my mind the trouble of NTFS is not worth the benefit. snip I had a very long, detailed reply in progress but decided against it. I'll just say I think you are misguided in your approach to security, and leave it at that. -- Zaphod Arthur: All my life I've had this strange feeling that there's something big and sinister going on in the world. Slartibartfast: No, that's perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that. |
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