Originally published at PC Tips Box. Please leave any comments there.

The Windows Disk Cleanup utility does a good job of deleting old Microsoft temp files, logs, memory dumps and other OS related junk files. It can free up a lot of space on your computer but it often leaves a lot of junk behind. A great program that I use all the time on my computers is called CCleaner. Not only does it clean the Microsoft OS related junk files from your computer, it also removes junk files from other popular applications such as Firefox. Additionally, it is very good at locating other temporary files.

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Tags: computer, vista, windows

Originally published at PC Tips Box. Please leave any comments there.

The new Network and Sharing Center in Windows Vista is great for the average Windows user but can be a huge headache for advanced users. When I need to make a change to my network settings I don’t want to be forced to go through the networking interface for the average non-technical users. I want to go right to the settings screen and make the change.

I am a big fan of the old Windows XP network approach where I could modify all of the network settings and connect to wireless network from the Network Connections screen. In Windows Vista, the Network Connections screen still exists,

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Tags: vista, windows, xp

Originally published at PC Tips Box. Please leave any comments there.

How’s this for a new twist on the old responsible disclosure debate: Hackers are taking advantage of information released in Microsoft’s pre-patch security advisories to create exploits for zero-day vulnerabilities.

The latest zero-day flaw in the Windows DNS Server RPC interface implementation is a perfect example of the tug-o-war within the MSRC (Microsoft Security Response Center) about how much information should be included in the pre-patch advisory.

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Tags: internet, windows

Originally published at PC Tips Box. Please leave any comments there.

It was a sad day last Friday when I uninstalled Firefox from our terminal servers. At the same time, I upgraded from Internet Explorer 6 to IE 7, which fortunately has most of the spiffy features that we’ve all grown to love about Firefox (especially tabbed browsing).

I had previously been happy to give students the choice of browsers and had even set the default to Firefox, since so many students and staff had adopted the IE alternative (often at my urging). However, our business applications teacher brought a significant problem with Firefox to my attention.

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Tags: internet, software

Originally published at PC Tips Box. Please leave any comments there.

I was talking to an old friend the other day and he confided that he was once a magician. Wow! And of course, I asked him to share some of the cool secrets of the trade. Although we’ve known each other for over a decade, he was not forthcoming. In fact quite the opposite. Apparently, there is a secret code among magicians that they can only share with each other. That said, we all know that there really is no magic, just slights of hand that make things seem different than they might appear. Which brings us to Microsoft’s latest operating system - Vista.

During the development of our latest product, Disk MD, we did considerable analysis of Windows Restore Points. These are files that store important system information that enables us to restore critical system information to an earlier point in time. In Windows XP, we learned that these hidden files are usually between 20-50MB big,

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Tags: vista, windows