How to - Windows Fast Edition

@ChrisGTL are you new to computing? You could easy write a script for all that but in the real world these days won't make any difference what-so-ever!


Paracelsus said:
Never used AV or software firewall and not had a virus in 10 years (which was me at 15 downloading a suspiciously small .exe file off Kazaa knowing full well it would probably be infected but wanting to play the game that desperately I didn't care lmao)
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Might swell remove the seat belts out of a car and also remove the air bags as no-one will ever crash.
 
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PanMaster said:
What I do:
-Uninstall Windows features: Games, DVD Maker, XPS, Gadgets...
-Disable UAC
-Disable Firewall
-Disable Windows Update
-Disable System Restore
-Disable Recycle Bin
-Disable hibernation
-Disable services e.g. Print Spooler, Homegroup, Diagnostics, IP Helper, Workstation, Time, Search, Indexing, Server, NetBIOS, Computer Browser, Shell Hardware, Tablet, ...
-Set Windows appearance to "performance"
-Set desktop background to "solid colors"
-Set Windows sounds to "no sounds"

If theres a way to squeeze anymore performance out I'll find it. You don't need anything more than DirectX and a functional UI.
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How is Windows 3.1 these days?
 
NathanE said:
You really, no really, need to check your articles before referencing them as proof for your ridiculous claims.

It's below the very paragraph you quoted so how can you miss it? You've picked the wrong person to argue this point with really.
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"ridiculous claims" - " You've picked the wrong person to argue this point with really" - oh dear, oh dear. Do you realise that you come over as arsey? Maybe forums do that to you!?

You're the one the seems hooked on this fixation, that UAC on it's highest setting is THE magic bullet in the fight against malware. Honest question and one not meant to wind you up at all - do you work for Microsoft or a partner of them?

I had hoped that the quoted paragraph might lead to you to further reading - I certainly didn't quote that part of the one blog entry to provide indisputable proof. Please don't forget that you were the one that said that AV software today has been rendered useless many times. You then post some arbitrary google search supposedly backing up this claim yourself!

If you don't want to look outside of the MS box at all then all I can say is good luck.
 
Mr Blonde said:
"ridiculous claims" - " You've picked the wrong person to argue this point with really" - oh dear, oh dear. Do you realise that you come over as arsey? Maybe forums do that to you!?

You're the one the seems hooked on this fixation, that UAC on it's highest setting is THE magic bullet in the fight against malware. Honest question and one not meant to wind you up at all - do you work for Microsoft or a partner of them?

I had hoped that the quoted paragraph might lead to you to further reading - I certainly didn't quote that part of the one blog entry to provide indisputable proof. Please don't forget that you were the one that said that AV software today has been rendered useless many times. You then post some arbitrary google search supposedly backing up this claim yourself!

If you don't want to look outside of the MS box at all then all I can say is good luck.
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I come across as arsey to you because quite simply I'm fed up with small-time IT department people such as yourself thinking they know it all but actually it's clear from your contributions to this thread that you know jack ****. You might get away with your FUDish claims about Windows amongst your peers. But here at OcUK, unfortunately for you, people like me exist to dispel them for the good of the community. The truth hurts. As they say.

I have no fixation on UAC. You do. Just like most people that *think* they know about computer security but actually don't. At least you're not one of the mugs that goes out of their way to turn it off, presumably. I said "Windows security policies and things like UAC are a lock." and later extended that with "UAC is simply a UI tool that allows LUA as a security policy to be used on a daily basis."

I really dislike the way people seem to refer to UAC as being the only security measure in Windows. It isn't a security measure. It's just some UI prompt dialogs and some folder redirection. The real security has been in Windows NT since day one. UAC is merely a more friendly way to do "Run As Administrator". So when you make claims that UAC has been subverted by malware... what you're actually saying is that Windows security policies have been subverted. This may and certainly has been the case in the past but rarely do such exploits remain open for long. Microsoft patches privilege escalation vulnerabilities with the highest of priority. Just like key rivals do. And yes, privilege escalations occur on rival OSes like say Linux. They're actually far far more common on that OS in fact due to the more primitive security architecture.

You can drop the whole "further reading" lark as well. I don't need further reading.

And I provided a link to a Google search about AV being obsolete and useless because it's the only way to show the extent of public opinion on this now. It was done to show that I'm not some lone crazy spouting FUD. That actually it is something that has been gaining momentum year on year, with plenty of studies done in recent years to back it up. Look at this for example: http://www.zdnet.com.au/eighty-percent-of-new-malware-defeats-antivirus-139263949.htm You've even got CERT now saying that desktop AV software "do not work", and that was back in 2006! Admittedly they are a bit more politically correct about their wording than I am. How much more clear do I need to make this point?
 
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While that is undoubtedly true about the miss rate it itself misses one important fact, AV definition updates will then allow AVs to pick them up at a later date. We all know how AVs work which is why it is so easy to bypass them, however once detected (and major ones are detected pretty quickly) they can subsequently pick up the malware. Its not perfect (for the early infected) but its better than nothing for the majority of users*.

As for claims that malware can be picked up by other software easily, fine, but again you need to run that software or check certain files/os parts, again which the majority of users don't do.. In reality malware that just plants itself into the autostart folder will run forever on most machines without an AV. Its all very well suggesting that UAC and windows security policies help, in most cases they make no difference, even if UAC can't be bypassed. Thats where AVs come in, they will catch most of the main circulating malware and if infected by a lesser piece of malware in most cases it will delete them after definition updates.

Calling Antivirus' snake oil is at best a little silly and at worst downright dangerous for the general public... Especially when there are plenty of perfectly good free options out there. Security policies are all very well but in reality they also make little difference. They may stop your computer being disabled but that tiny keylogger sitting on your will be having a field day.

*Obviously being careful online is the best way round all this but again its for the majority and the slipups.
 
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I find myself quite a security worried person, but I do find I doubt I even need a AV now days, maybe for on-demand scanning, but with windows built-it features, a few hardening features and some common sense they really ain't needed. DEP on all processes, SEHOP, EMET, UCAS and updating host files amongst the other crap that's probably out there is more than enough to keep a system safe, then majority of the time it's the users fault if they problem.

But seriously there's always the "what if" scenario, and for that plain reason even amongst all the features I have I still choose to have a AV, the recent ones use little to no memory, and could be classed as a 2nd/3rd line of defense in my system. Has anything even reached my AV I highly doubt it; so many will say its obsolete, but maybe its just cause i'm worried about security in general that i have it there but I'm ready just incase
 
TheVoice said:
How is Windows 3.1 these days?
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The Windows 98 style theme is just perfect except for a few annoyances:
-You can't disable "taskbar always on top" anymore and it's really irritating.
-Internet Explorer 9 was driving me crazy as well so I'm using IE 8.
-When you click on icons e.g. IE on the taskbar the icon merges with the window label which is a royal pain.

Regarding AV security I agree that AV software is next to useless. The last time I had a virus all the major AV software failed to even detect it but some random unheard of AV programme did.
 
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iviv said:
So, it apparently lets 80% of malware through. So... we should just say to forget it and let the 20% through that would have otherwise been stopped?
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Would you buy an anti-bacterial cleaner for the kitchen that boasts on its label "Kills 20% of germs, dead."?

I wouldn't.
 
i don't do anything from OPs list besides disable indexing as it annoys the hell out of me

reason? if you change things around a lot and do a search, it doesn't give you live results - it gives you old ones. e.g plug in a new drive full of files and search - it's not indexed and windows says it hasn't found any files.

vista at least let you tick a box that searched for files outside of the index as well
 
NathanE said:
Would you buy an anti-bacterial cleaner for the kitchen that boasts on its label "Kills 20% of germs, dead."?

I wouldn't.
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My soap won't kill SARS or Swine flu either. I'd still rather stop some of the germs.
 
mrbell1984 said:
@
Might swell remove the seat belts out of a car and also remove the air bags as no-one will ever crash.
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slight differences being other people can crash into you no matter how good a driver you are and you might not even be a good driver, whereas in this case the driver is good and uses common sense in opening executables, hardware firewall and uptodate security patches so cannot be 'crashed into' as such, let's be honest, 99% of viruses must be caught by people downloading stuff and opening it without thought, clicking fake browser windows saying their pc is infected, leaving their comp wide open by not setting up packet filtering or letting a friend plug a usb stick in with god knows what on and autorun enabled, etc etc, stupid things like that, basically user idiocy

heard the fear mongering before, but it's my choice not to use AV or software firewall, and over a decade+ of daily use, downloading torrents, cracks etc, it's not failed me yet

I'm not saying my rig is immune, just that the chance is so astronomically slim that it's not worth the threads to run AV. the comparison would be wearing a crash helmet walking around the street in case you get run over.
 
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I don't do anything because Win7 doesn't run slow to begin with so nothing needs "tweaking".
 
iviv said:
My soap won't kill SARS or Swine flu either. I'd still rather stop some of the germs.
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Your soap if used properly will kill both those viruses if they are resident as droplets on your skin.
Its the most effective way of preventing viral spread, proper hand hygiene.
If nfected with either disease however, washing your hands will not help you, but it will prevent spread.

Your soap won't kill certain bacterial spores, and prions however.
 
possibly, but again, arguing your point with 2 threads doesn't really mean people will agree with you. I can see your point, but I still would rather have my free AV as my system is in use by other family members.
 
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