Winpatrol 2013 A Must Have Windows Tool

When troubleshooting a Windows system I often use Google to investigate error codes, to find out what start up items are and if they are safe, or find solutions to common problems. This method works but I find myself spending too much time when there is a faster solution, Winpatrol.

WinPatrol allows you to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer. It monitors important system areas that are commonly altered by many malicious programs. This includes the startup groups (registry and startup folder), cookies and active tasks. You can terminate processes and enable or disable startup programs. The cookie monitoring option allows you to automatically delete cookies based on a keyword found in the cookie name. Additional features include a WHOIS lookup tool and an option to alert you on changes.

The latest version is WinPatrol vv28.1.2013, and you can download it here

Recent changes:

Allows WinPatrol to start for current user or all users.Reduced monitoring during all sleep states to save battery usage.
Allows WinPatrol to start for current user or all users.
Reduced monitoring during all sleep states to save battery usage.
Fixed Reset function to remove duplicate Scotty icons.
Fixed Reset function to remove duplicate Uninstall entries.
Speeds up real-time detection.
Fixed bug in system tray icon behavior that could have produce unknown results.
Improved handling of repeating changes made by partner programs.
Fixed "Automatically Run WinPatrol..." option so it doesn't always launch on boot

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Homegroup and Advanced Sharing Options Configuration in Windows 7

Author: Techie Time

Homegroup Section

This section covers how to create and configure a homegroup as well as how to choose the resources that will be shared within the homegroup. To create a new homegroup, navigate to the "Control Panel" then select "Choose homegroup and sharing options" under the "Network and Internet" section.



At the homegroup screen select "Create A Homegroup" to configure your new homegroup.



On the screen, select what you would like to share with the members of your homegroup. The homegroup wizard will then proceed to create your new homegroup and will provide a randomly generated password. The provided password will be used to add other computers to your homegroup. Click on "Finish" and you will now see the current configuration settings for your new homegroup as seen below.

Advanced Sharing Settings

The homegroup options screen in Windows contains an advanced options section for sharing with homegroup users and computers. A screenshot of the homegroup options screen can be seen in the image above. Advanced sharing provides the option to configure network discovery, turn file and printer sharing on and off. turn public folder sharing on or off, set the encryption level for file sharing connections for your network, enable or disable password protected sharing and whether homegroups are managed by Windows or whether user accounts and passwords will be required to access network computers. Windows contains three types of sharing settings. These options are home, work and public. The advanced sharing options are displayed in the images below.




Network Discovery
When network discovery is enabled on a computer, the computer and shared devices can be seen by other computers on the network. Enabling this setting also allows the computer to view and access other computers and shared devices. The network discovery option requires that the DNS Client, Function Discovery Resource Publication, SSDP Discovery, and UPnP Device services must be started on each computer if network discovery is enabled. When these services are enabled, network discovery is able to communicate with Windows firewall and other network hardware or software firewalls.
File and Printer Sharing
When file and printer sharing is enabled, all shared folders and printers are accessible by users on other computers on the network. Shared folders and printers will also be displayed when accessing a computer by UNC path. For example, "\\mypc\shared" is an example of the path to a shared folder.
Public Folder Sharing
Public sharing in Windows contains the same set of configuration settings as the home or work network sharing settings. It is configured independently. Public shared folders are available to any user on the same network. If public sharing for folders is to be turned off then users on other computers on the network cannot access these shared folders. Users which are logged in to the computer which is hosting these shared folders will still be able to access the folders.
File Sharing Connections
The file sharing connections section allows for configuration of what kind of encryption is supported for shared resources. There are two options here. The two options available are 128 bit encryption or the option to only support 40 or 56 bit encryption. Certain devices do not support 128 bit encryption. 128 bit encryption is used by default in Windows and is generally supported by most computers.
Password Protected Sharing
The password protected sharing option is used to restrict access to shared resources to users that do not have a local account on the host of the shared resources. If this option is enabled, accounts from other computers which are members of the workgroup or homegroup can be added to a local group or directly to the local accounts through "Computer Management" in Windows. Turning this feature off will allow users from any computer on the network to access shared resources.
Homegroup Connections
The homegroup connections settings allow for the configuration of whether Windows will manage the connections to shared resources on the network or whether these settings will be managed by dedicated users on the network. By default Windows will managed shared resources. Generally shared resources are managed by users when customized permissions to users and group are set for the shared resources. In this circumstance the setting for Windows to manage shared resources will need to be turned off.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/operating-systems-articles/homegroup-and-advanced-sharing-options-configuration-in-windows-7-6507102.html

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5 Things you can do to improve the security of your Home PC

Author: Brooke M. Perry

Improving the security of your PC has become one of the difficult things do especially when millions of threats like viruses and malware are lurking into the web. It has become very important today to ensure the PC security because we use our computers for doing a lot of things such as Internet banking, shopping, payment of utility bills, email, social networking and others. As computers play a very important role in our life today, it becomes more than important to ensure their security anyhow.

Below listed are the 5 ways using which you can improve the security of your home PC:

Always connect to a secure network

Do you know that when you connect your PC to the internet it also gets connected to millions of other PCs connected to the web at the same time? This allows hackers and virus authors to access your PC and do the harms which they intend. The information which you seek from the internet first comes to your modem then router and then your PC. Because the modem is not equipped with any security features, it becomes important for you to secure your router. Ensure to secure the router before you connect your PC to the internet. It improves the computer security by many times and minimizes the risk of infection.

Enable and configure a firewall 

Firewall is an important security component that protects your PC from phishing and scams. It is in fact a device which regulates the flow of information which flows between your PC and the web. It is more like a router in terms of features. All the modern operating systems offer firewall as a software. Apart from the firewall offered by the OS, home PCs also have built-in firewall. For this you should consult your service provider to know how to enable the firewall on your network.

Install effective antivirus and antispyware software

The third step towards improving the security of your home PC is to install effective antivirus and antispyware software on your computer. It is also important to keep the software up-to-date to avail complete security from even newer threats.
Modern antivirus and antispyware can detect viruses and malware on the basis of the pattern exhibited by these threats in the files or memory of your PC. These software work on the basis of virus signatures which is provided by software vendors to detect the malware. Vendors constantly update the signatures with the discovery of new malware on the daily basis. For impeccable security against online threats it is mandatory that your antivirus program uses the updated signatures for detecting malware.
It is important that you enable the feature so that the antivirus program detects malware on the basis of current signatures. There are many rogue software available on the internet so be careful and install the antivirus program either through a CD or the website of the vendor.

Secure your web browser 

Web browsers are an important gateway for online threats because of their inherent security vulnerabilities. You should know that the web browsers installed on your PC don't have the enough secure default settings most of the time. So the next step towards protecting your home PC is to secure your web browser. It becomes more important today because most of the security incidents are taking place because of the vulnerabilities existing in the web browser. From the next time when you start browsing the internet make sure that you have done the following to secure your browser.

• Disabled the mobile code such as Java, JavaScript, Flash, and ActiveX
• Disabled options to always set cookies
• Configured the browser to ask for your permission for setting a cookie.

Install software updates and enable automatic updates

Most of the software development companies release updates on regular intervals to patch security vulnerabilities, flaws and bugs and improve the program to detect even newer threats. Most of the users treat these updates unnecessary and ignore it. This is not a good practice and makes your PC vulnerable to virus attacks. Always install the updates and enable the automatic updates so that you never miss any security update.

Before the Conficker virus struck computers worldwide in 2008, Microsoft had released a security update. If users would have installed the update on their PCs, they would have mitigated the impact of this virus to a greater extent. So always treat software updates at high priority and never ever miss it.
Above discussed are the 5 ways though which you can improve the security of your home PC. Apart from these there are many other ways that help you improve the PC security. You can also opt for standard practices of internet browsing like not visiting any website which you don't know, not clicking on link or attachments coming from an unknown source etc.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/5-things-you-can-do-to-improve-the-security-of-your-home-pc-6564878.html

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