LewShepherd.com

For immediate release to all LewShepherd.com customers.

For immediate release to all LewShepherd.com customers.

A variant worm (Several versions are in circulation) was discovered by several security firms around 5pm this afternoon. CNN had lost servers across their New York and Atlanta offices, and the NY Times and ABC had other service interruptions as well. The media tends to sensationalize these virus' so I wanted to take a few moments to clear any panic amongst my customers. This worm does not require an E-mail attachment or an executable, it works its way into the computer on it's own. As a courtesy, I've included a set of links to better educate you on this new threat.

More news items on the worm
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx%3Fa%3D13202%26hed%3DZotob%2BVariant%2BHits%2BBig%2BMedia

Microsoft's Official Page on the Zotob Worm. Removal and protection instructions are here.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/zotob.mspx

I will of course be available to any customer that requires a manual walk through to protect them from this virus. Please call me if you need any assistance. Thanks for your business, and I appreciate your referrals.

Lew Shepherd.

Viewing Installed Drivers

If you want to see a list of installed drivers, you can run the driverquery program
There are a lot of available switches to view different types of information.
On use can be to export to a CSV file for viewing in Excel
An example would then be:

Driverquery /v /fo csv > drivers.csv

Autologin to Windows XP

If you are the only person using the computer and what to have it automatically log you on,

Start / Run / "control userpasswords2" - no quotes
Uncheck User must enter a user name and password to use this computer

Cleaning the Prefetch Directory

WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs.
However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs..

To clean this periodically go to:

Star / Run / Prefetch
Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the files
Delete them

Stopping Password from expiring on Windows XP

If you want to do this for all users, enter:

Start / Run / net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited

Disable Passport Pop-Up

Normally, WindowsXP will prompt you 10 times that. You Need a Passport to use WindowsXP Internet communication features...

To disable this

Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft MessengerService
Edit the binary key PassportBalloon
Give it a value of 0A (0A 00 00 00)

Printing a Dir Listing

On the root of the C: drive, create a batch file called print_directory.bat with the following lines:

@echo off
dir %1 /o:g > c:directory.txt
start /w notepad /p c:directory.txt
del c:directory.txt
exit

Note: dir %1 /o:g will print with any directories listed first. You can add whatever other switches you like

Stopping the creation of Thumbs.db

When viewing a folder with the Thumbnail view, WindowsXP creates a thumbs.db file.
This is a cache of the current pictures in that directory.
If you want to turn this feature off and save a little disk space

Start the Windows Explorer
Go to Tools / Folder Options / View
In the first section under Files and Folders, check Do not cache thumbnails
Now you can search for the thumbs.db file (on next reboot) on your computer and remove them. No more will be created.

Reinstalling Windows XP unattended

If you need to reinstall WindowsXP and want to keep all your current installed applications and settings:

Start WindowsXP
Go to the location of your source files
Run WINNT32 /unattend

I've often need to do this to repair something that had gotten corrupted and didn't want to do a clean install.

Removing MSN Messenger

Windows XP Only!

If you want to remove the MSN Messenger from always starting in the system tray, do

Start / Run
Then enter in the following string: RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%INFmsmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove