cleanup prefetch & temp files

Cleanup "prefetch files" - some say it will create problems, some say it is safe to delete, some say it doesn't make any difference. my thought is you can safely delete prefetch files with no problems at all. below descriptions is about how to delete unnecessary files from system.

Delete prefetch files

• Go to run (start>run)
• Type prefetch and press enter (the exact path is C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch)
• Now delete all files inside the prefetch folder

Delete windows temporary files

• Go to run (start>run)
• Type temp and press enter (the exact path is C:\WINDOWS\Temp)
• Now delete all files inside the temp folder

Delete user temporary files

• Go to run (start>run)
• Type %temp% and press enter (the exact path is C:\Documents and Settings\(user name) \Local Settings\Temp
• Now delete all file in the temp folder

Note - running above actions will no harm to your system

If you need all in one type software to perform all above actions, the only free software i know (the best) is Ccleaner. just download software, install it, after install select the actions to perform (it automatically selected most for you) then click analyse, if this gonna take time click cancel button and click run cleaner, this perform all above actions for you.

adjust graphic settings for speed performance

We all know windows xp uses some considerable amount or ram for visual elements, this can cause your computer to be less responsive. By tweaking your graphics settings, you can increase the performance of your computer. to get start reduce some color quality, procedure as follows.

• Right click on your desktop and click properties
• Click on the settings tab and adjust the color quality to medium (16 bit) form the drop down menu
• Click apply and ok to exit

Next, we use the windows performance settings to optimize your computer for performance. this will reduce lot of the fancy graphics effects. follow these steps.

• Right click on my computer and click properties
• Click advanced tab
• Now under "performance" click settings
• In the visual effects tab select "adjust for best performance"
• Click apply and ok

One more thing, we also can use "windows classic" as a default theme, to do this follow these steps.

• Right click on the empty area of desktop and click properties to open "display properties" window.
  
• On the theme tab, select windows classic from the drop down menu
• Click apply and ok to exit display properties.

After completing all above steps, you can see some faster response from the computer

configure yahoo mail as a default mail client

first you need to install Yahoo Messenger, yahoo messenger can download at http://messenger.yahoo.com , then you will need to install the Browser Services option to make this work properly. Without the browser services installed, you cannot set Yahoo Mail as your default. follow these steps to set the default email program.

• Open internet option (start>run>type inetcpl.cpl>press enter)
• Click on the Program tab
• Select Yahoo Mail from the email drop down list and Click Ok
• that's all
  

printer access denied in vista

One of the errors in Windows Vista happens when you try to connect to a shared network printer. Everything else on the network appears to work properly, shared files, internet access, but Most of the time you'll receive an "Access is Denied" error when trying to connect even though you can see the printer on the network and everything else is working properly.try below method as a solution

• Go to the control panel and open printers
• Click on Add a printer
• Click on Add a Local Printer
• Choose Create a New Port with type of port remaining Local Port, then click Next
• In the Port Name box type the path to the printer you wish to connect to and Click Ok (Ex - \\computer\printer)
• In the Install Printer Driver screen, select your printer from the list or choose Have Disk and specify the location of the printer drivers on the computer then click Next and then click Finish.
• The printer is now installed in the Printers window
• Now try to print using test print.
  

what is error 1324

sometimes this can occur when you try to install program, if you have this problem try to install program in a different user account, check hard disk for errors and verify enough disk space available for installation.There is more than one possible cause for this error, they are described as follows.

• User profiles are enabled
• You are installing to an invalid destination folder
• The Windows registry contains invalid characters
• The computer is using a real mode (16-bit) driver to access the CD-ROM drive
• The Microsoft Windows Installer file is damaged or is not installed correctly
• The computer has insufficient hard disk space
• Your profile contains a slash (/) character in the name (for example, Jones/Smith)
• The CPU does not meet the minimum system requirements to run the program
• Possible disk errors
  

removal instructions for kido virus

To prevent all workstations and file servers from being infected with the worm, you are recommended to do the following.

• Install the patch from Microsoft that covers the vulnerability MS08-067, MS08-068, MS09-001 (on these pages you will have to select which operating system is installed on the infected PC, download corresponding patch and install it)
• Make sure the password of the local administrator account is not obvious and cannot be hacked easily – the password should contain 6 letters minimum; use a mixture of uppercase and lowercase, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters such as punctuation marks
• Disable autorun of executable files from removable drives
• Block access to TCP ports number 445 and 139 using a network screen (You need to block these ports only while you perform the disinfection. As soon as you have the entire red disinfected, feel free to unblock the ports)

remove kido virus with kk.exe tool (provided by kaspersky)

• First download kk.exe (click here to download)
• Extract the contents into a folder on the infected PC
• Now you need to disable antivirus for a while
• Run file KK.exe
• Wait till the scanning is complete
• Now re-enable your virus guard, update as necessary and Perform a full scan of your computer.

additional information about removing kido virus and remove from admin kit - click here

security patches from microsoft - click here to visit the site, and select appropriate package for your pc.

impact of kido virus

kido is a worm, A worm is a type of virus that replicates by resending itself as an e-mail attachment or as part of a network message. Unlike a regular computer virus, a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to duplicate itself. A worm hides in active memory and performs malicious acts, such as using parts of the computer’s system resources. Worms are usually invisible to the user and are designed to affect the computer’s performance. A worm take control of remote systems without any help from the users and can delete files, send documents via email, or encrypt files.

once you infected with kido the following things can happen

• compromise your privacy by transmitting your personal information and downloading popup advertisements.
• It can tracks which websites you visited or what terms you’ve typed. Spyware uses your information to deliver targeted ads to you. Also, data of your surfing activities may be sold to third parties.
• Slow computer performance. A sluggish computer is one of the easiest signs that you have been infected with Kido. Kido and other unwanted sofware use your computer’s resources to do its nasty tasks such as displaying popups or tracking your surfing activities. If you see your computer is slowing down dramatically or crashing a lot, you may be infected with an unwanted software.

Sings of network infection

• Network traffic volume increases if there are infected PCs in the network, because network attack starts from these PCs.
• Anti-Virus product with enabled Intrusion Detection System informs of the attack Intrusion.Win.NETAPI.buffer-overflow.exploit
• It is impossible to access websites of the majority of anti-virus companies, e.g. avira, avast, esafe, drweb, eset, nod32, f-secure, panda, kaspersky, etc. (and the list keep go on)

Termination of services

• Windows Security Center Service (wscsvc) – notifies users of security settings (e.g. Windows update, Firewall and Antivirus)
• Windows Update Auto Update Service (wuauserv)
• Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS) – used by Windows Update to download updates using idle network bandwidth
• Windows Defender (WinDefend)
• Error Reporting Service (ersvc) – sends error reports to Microsoft to help improve user experience
• Windows Error Reporting Service (wersvc)
  

Short description of the Net-Worm.Win32.Kido family

• It creates files autorun.inf and RECYCLED\{SID<....>}\RANDOM_NAME.vmx on removable drives (sometimes on public network shares)
• It stores itself in the system as a DLL-file with a random name, for example, c:\windows\system32\zorizr.dll
• It registers itself in system services with a random name, for example, knqdgsm.
• It tries to attack network computers via 445 or 139 TCP port, using MS Windows vulnerability
• It tries to connect to the sites of http://www.getmyip.org, http://getmyip.co.uk, http://www.whatsmyipaddress.com, http://www.whatismyip.org, http://checkip.dyndns.org, in order to learn the external IP address of the infected computer (recommended action is configuring a rule to monitor connection attempts to these sites it network firewall)

Note - if you cant access website due to kido infection, there is a small thing to try to access webistes, follow these steps

• open miscosoft services window (start>run>type services.msc>press enter)
• in the services find DNS Client service
• now stop the service (right click on the service>click stop)
• now try to open website (hope this helps, it really works for me in a kido infection case study)