An article has been posted at itworld.com about tips that can help you solve problems and improve performance in XP.

One of them is about restoring the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer if a third-party application somehow removed it. An application called Actual Booster increases the performance of old computers. The author notes that he saw a big difference when he used it on his old notebook. However, he writes that on some computers, it will cause some trouble with mice.

The article also shows how a user can create a hibernate button. There are at least three steps that are involved to make this happen.

Source: ITworld

According to a security vendor, the current Windows operating system, Vista, is more secure that its ancestor, XP. They rated it as 37% more secure.

“We wanted to find out how bulletproof Vista was. The answer is that it is more secure than XP, but not so secure that you can give up on anti-virus and other security software,” said Michael Greene who is the vice president of product strategy at PC Tools. The company also found out from their results that Windows 2000 is much more secure than Vista or XP.

Recently, Microsoft asserted that Vista is 60% more secure than XP.

Source: IDG.no

Many computers have experienced endless reboots after installing Windows XP’s SP3 according to posts at Microsoft’s support forum.

“I just installed Windows XP SP3 and after completing the processes and when the system reboots, the system cannot proceed to load the Windows. It just displays the flash screen of Windows then after it reboots again,” said a user named “Olin” in one of the posts.

The users reported that they cannot go into Windows Safe Mode or revert to a previously saved System Restore point.

The IDG.no article notes that Microsoft was not available for comment early Friday.

Source: IDG.no

Someone in our forums recently brought up the topic of press releases the other day and I feel its something we should definitely cover. In this article, we’ll show you the secret of creating an effective press release, how it should be written and how to go out distributing them.
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According to F-Secure, there is a new BBB trojan attacks that are going around and they provided an example on their weblog.

The email shows various data including Business Name and Contact name and they are real business and individual names which makes the email credible.

A link is included in the email and once a user clicks on it, it will open up a web browser and loads a site which tells the user that an ActiveX Control is required to view the page. If the user fall for this trick, then the site will install a backdoor on the user’s computer.

Source: F-Secure

McAfee has posted a blog entry recently about an application which entices a user to download it to get free mp3 files. The filename of this file is PLAY_MP3.EXE and when it is run, it will install a potential unwanted adware application.

Sophos detected this program as PlayMP3z and the MP3 files are detected as Troj/Wimad-E. The blog entry at Sophos notes that the URL from where the installer is downloaded has been blocked since the beginning of this month and they consider the site as ‘High Risk’.

Corporate users should not worry about this issue since they are unlikely to be at risk.

Source: Sophos

Z-Cron is a freeware (for personal use) and powerful task scheduler. Although Windows does come with a task scheduler but you would hardly call it user friendly and it isn’t nearly as powerful as Z-Cron.
Z-Cron has a large list of tasks that you can schedule, but here are some of the highlights:

• Copy, Move & Delete Files - Useful for backup devices
• Kill - Closes a file
• Download - Downloads a file via HTTP
• Mail - Send an email with SMTP
• Ping - Pings an IP address to test for connectivity
• Reboot - Reboots the computer
• Remote Shutdown - Remotely shut down a computer
• Wake on LAN - Remotely power up a computer
• Connect/Disconnect - Connects or disconnects a dialup connection
• Watch - Monitors a program. If the program “dies”, it will be restarted
• And more, here is the complete list

An example of what you could do with Z-Cron is to get it to start a backup on a remote computer and have it email you when it finishes; or, if you were in a job that managed many computers on a network, you could set a master computer to turn on all the computers in the building in the morning and shut them down at night. There are many possibilities.
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Computer maker, Gateway, has announced new desktops and some of them will contain Windows XP instead of Vista.

The (entry-level) GT series, (mid-level) DX442 and FX7026 systems can ship with either a 32-bit Vista, a 64-bit Vista, or an XP operating system. One of the GT series model is exclusive to Costco. The article at pcmag.com listed two out of the five models and their prices are $549.99 and $649.99.

Models GT5676, GT5678, and GT5685E will all have a 64-bit Windows Vista installed on them.

Source: PC Magazine

The third service pack of Windows XP has been officially released according to various tech sites.

There is also a “slipstream build” version that is available to Microsoft Technet Plus and MSDN subscribers. This version contains the complete operating system plus SP3 in one image file which is available in nine languages.

Internet Explorer 7 should be uninstalled by users before applying the patch since they cannot uninstall it later if they want to if they apply the patch first. This is the same issue for IE 8 Beta 1.

Users can download the service pack via Windows Update if it is not yet available through Automatic Updates.

Source: Redmond Developer

In part 1 of our Automation with AutoIT tutorial, we showed you how to run silent commands using AutoIT. In this article we are going to show you how to install applications that don’t have any silent install options. If you found the last article hard, don’t be turned off as this one is easier.

For this article I will be installing Winamp without using a silent switch.
Although inamp actually has a silent switch we will be doing it the other way sake of showing you how to do it for programs without them. This is where AutoIT really shines.
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