Fix Windows Vista Errors

Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook suffered attacks on Thursday from a hacker who temporarily shut down both sites. They are both believed to be all OK now and up and running.

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If you are unsure what a notification balloon is then look at this image and I’m sure you have seen it a bunch of times before on your Vista desktop;

To disable these notification balloons you need to perform a basic registry edit;

• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
• Now create a new 32-bit DWORD and name it
  • EnableBalloonTips
• Set the value to 0
• Reboot your computer

The Data Execution Prevention (DEP) feature on Windows Vista helps to prevent dangerous external threats from running themselves on your PC, this should help stop things like viruses and other threats.

Some people do not like DEP running on their system but personally I would just leave it enabled. If you do want to disable it or just want to let DEP run just on the programs you want then just follow these tweaks.

Disable Data Execution Prevention

• Click start
• Type CMD in the start bar
• Type in the following command
  • bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
• You will now need to reboot
• To turn DEP back on type the following command in CMD
• bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOn

Edit Data Execution Prevention

• Open control panel
• Click system and maintenance
• Click system
• Click advanced system settings
• Click the advanced tab
• Under performance click settings
• Click the Data Execution Prevention tab
• Turn on Turn on DEP for all programs and services except for those I select
• Now click add and select the applications you want DEP turned off on
• Click apply and OK
• You will need to reboot to see the effects

Whenever you save an Office document the saved file also keeps information about your computer, this can include things like your name.

If you want to remove this information on files you may be emailing out then you can do this easy tweak that will remove all personal information;

• Navigate to your Office file
• Right click on it
• Select properties
• Select the details tab
• Click on remove properties and personal information
• Select remove the following properties from this file
• Select the items you want removed
• Done

Here is a simple but effective security measure you can activate that will prevent people from ‘guessing’ your password to open up your PC. You can set Vista so that if someone attempts to enter your password more than a set amount the PC will shutdown for a certain amount of time.

Hopefully by activating this it will annoy any potential ‘other’ user so much that they will just give up on trying to access your computer. To set up the Vista lockout policy just do this;

• Click start then all programs
• Click administrative tools
  • If administrative tools is not there you can add it by right clicking on your start button, click properties, click customize on the start menu tab and activating it.
• Select local security policy
• Select account policies
• Select account lockout policy

Now you will have three options in the right column to select and change the settings;

• Account lockout duration - You can set the amount of time your PC will lockout after unsuccessful password attempts
• Account lockout threshold - Here you set the number of times you can try the password until your PC lockouts (I suggest 3-4)
• Reset account lockout counter - Here you can reset your account lockout counter after a set number of minutes

Well according to recent data, Windows Vista is more secure than Windows XP and according to Microsoft statistics, Vista is actually more resilient to exploits than Windows XP.

Windows XP also has many more vulnerabilities within its own code. Almost half of the vulnerabilities attacked in XP were due to code within the OS itself. Whereas Vista code only accounted for 6% of the vulnerabilities attacked, the rest of the attacks were on third party software exploits.

So one good reason to upgrade to Vista is for clearly increased security. Microsoft has worked hard to release a secure OS and it looks like they have met those goals so far. Microsoft is also improving their own Malware removal tools, specifically the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), which is currently a free download.

However, there are currently less users on Vista, so as it gains momentum, we can expect increased attacks and vulnerabilities. Will Vista security hold up in the future? Time will tell. But for now, it is a safe bet.

You can always further increase security of both Vista and XP by keeping automatic updates turned on, using anti-spyware/virus software and regularly cleaning the registry. Try the free registry cleaner below to fix errors and improve your PC performance.

Registry Cleaner Download - Fix errors and improve performance for Vista and XP

According to the latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report malware attacks on PC’s worldwide are becomming fewer. Could this be an indication that modern security measures are starting to beat the hackers?

“The total number of unique vulnerability disclosures across the industry again decreased during the first half of 2008, down 4% from the second half of 2007 and down 19% from the first half of 2007.

In contrast to the decrease in total disclosures, vulnerabilities rated as High severity increased 13% with respect to the second half of 2007, with roughly 48% of all vulnerabilities receiving a rating of High severity. This is still a 28% decline from the first half of 2007.” Microsoft said.

You can read more on the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report here or you can click the link below to run anti-malware product designed to be used with Windows Vista.

Run a Windows Vista anti-malware scan

Microsoft today released the remaining 31 language editions of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows Update.

Microsoft released SP1 last month in English, Spanish, German, French and Japanese. Now it’s available in lots more languages. Users can manually install SP1 (x86 and x64) versions of SP1 either manually via Windows Update or by downloading the standalone installer from the Microsoft Download Center.

On top of English, Spanish, German, French, and Japanese, users can now install Vista SP1 in 31 additional languages: Danish, Finnish, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (Hong Kong S.A.R.), Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Greek, Estonian, Hebrew, Croatian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian (Latin), Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

The company also plans to release Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP in two waves defined by language support, according to a report last month. That account listed Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish versions as in the first wave.

Microsoft has stated that they have fixed a major bug in Windows Vista Service Pack 1. The Vista SP1 bug caused computers to go into a never-ending reboot cycle.

The fix applies to Microsoft’s Servicing Stack Update for Vista SP1. Users need to install the update before downloading SP1. “This fixes an issue that a small number of customers experienced when we first issued the SSU in February,” said a Microsoft spokesman.

An update for the SSU will stop this annoying little behavior from happening for Vista customers, to allow them to proceed with the Vista SP1 installation via Windows Update. Vista users who opt for the standalone download of Vista SP1 will avoid the whole SSU prerequisite check entirely.

In the first month following the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft is already serving up a number of fixes for both operating systems, as it has issued eight security bulletins covering a total of 10 vulnerabilities.

The critical fixes remediated flaws in Microsoft Office, Windows and Internet Explorer (IE) that could allow remote attackers to install malicious code on a user’s machine.

Regarding the Windows desktop and server platforms, the critical vulnerability involving GDI — MS08-021 — will affect Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Professional x64 SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and 2 plus the x64-bit edition, Vista and Vista SP1, plus Windows Server 2008.

Alongside the security related patches, Microsoft also released Service Pack 1 for the US and UK versions of Office Accounting 2008, and updates for Microsoft Office Genuine Advantage Notifications, the Outlook 2003 and 2007 junk email filters, Office 2007 (to fix an issue that could arise when installing SP1), and Windows Live Writer.