What are registry cleaners ?

Registry cleaner may look like an alien word for many or may be many of you aware of this little stuff. In this article I will share some information regarding registry cleaners with you.

Ever wondered Why your PC runs slow ?this may be because of crap values left by an uninstalled software. The work of registry cleaner is to remove these ‘crap’ values from the registry of computers.

When you install a new software in computer, the software adds some values in registry of computer like when software was installed ? , encrypted serial key etc. for convenience of software itself and user.

When you uninstall a software program, it removes itself from computer but it does not remove values added into registry of computer, these values are no longer useful.

There are two reasons why a software doesn’t remove values added by it from the registry:

1. Useful when software is reinstalled – Suppose you are using a software which has 30 days trial period, you remove the software when you have used it from 28 days and you are thinking that after removing if you reinstall you will again gain 30 days period. This is the reason why some values are not removed from registry of software program. To prevent you from doing ‘social engineering’.

Note: Beside adding some values to registry, software programs use some other techniques too for tracking for how many days the trail software program was used ?

2. Software don’t care you – Since you are rude toward software and are removing it completely from your computer system, then why software will care you and will remove some junk values from registry ?

When there are junk values present in the registry, your computer will most probably act like a ‘junk machine’. To again make it a normal handsome computer, you might like to use Registry cleaners.

Why registry cleaner ?

Registry cleaners remove junk values, which are no longer useful from the registry of computer. Registry cleaners are useful to speedup computers, since they remove waste values from registry of computer which leads to improvement in the speed of computer.

Any disadvantage of registry cleaner ?

There are hundreds of registry cleaners floating around the web, few of these registry cleaners are malware and viruses, but there are good one too. In many cases it was found that using registry cleaners lead to corrupt of registry, this may be because of use of an unpopular registry cleaner program. Some registries can not always be deleted neither manually nor by using registry cleaner.

The best thing to never get in the trouble is to backup whole registry of computer before installing and using any registry cleaner. If any thing bad happens then you have backup of your registry and can use it to restore registry of the computer.

Courtesy : http://bnjho.blogspot.in

How to Hide the HDDPartitions?

This trick is for all those people who wants to hide tons of data into their box. So here it is, if you have very important data in your hard drive placed in some partition which you do not want anybody to see then this trick is only for you!!!

1. Just click on start>run type gpedit.msc

2. Now navigate through user configuration> administrative templates > windows components> windows explorer

3. Double click on “Hide these specified drives in My Computer” modify it accordingly.

4. Then just below you will find another option “Prevent access to drives from My Computer”, double click on this option and modify it accordingly.

5. To make it visible again select "disable" by double clicking on the “Hide these specified drives in My Computer” option.

WARNING : Don't try to experiment with other options in gpedit.msc if you don't know, what exactly your doing. Just have some patience and follow my tutorials regularly, i am going to tell you everything that is configurable in windows [and those also which you thought before, "Seems not possible to change ;-)"

Courtesy : http://mrsupport.blogspot.in/

Use registry shortcuts to disable and enable screensavers in Win XP:

Use registry shortcuts to disable and enable screensavers in Win XP:

The steps in this tip will show you how to edit the registry for a time-saving shortcut for enabling and disabling your screensaver.

When you perform maintenance operations such as defragmenting or backing up the hard disk, you probably disable your screensaver before you begin to prevent it from interfering with the maintenance operation. However, disabling your screensaver manually is a multi step operation that involves accessing the Display Properties dialog box, navigating to the Screen Saver tab, and setting the screen saver to None. Then, you need to re-enable the screen saver after you complete the maintenance operation.

Fortunately, you can automate the disabling and enabling screen saver procedures with a couple of registry shortcuts. Note: Editing the registry is risky, so make sure you have a verified backup before making any changes.

Here's how.

1. Launch Notepad and type the following four lines. (Note: The second line must be blank.)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]

"ScreenSaveActive"="0"

2. Save the file to your desktop with the name Disable Screen Saver.reg.

3. Change the 0 to a 1 in the fourth line.

4. Save the file to your desktop with the name Enable Screen Saver.reg.

Now, when you need to disable the screen saver, just double-click the Disable Screen Saver.reg shortcut. To enable the screen saver, double-click the Enable Screen Saver.reg shortcut.

When you run either of these files, the Registry Editor will display two confirmation prompts—one before making the change and one after making the change.

Courtesy : http://mrsupport.blogspot.in/

How to disable USB sticks and limit access to USB storage devices on Windows systems

USB storage - a possible security risk?

Decent IT administrators secure their networks behind firewalls. They install mail filters on their SMTP servers and deploy anti-virus software on all client workstations. But securing the network is not sufficient -- what happens if the users bring their own USB memory sticks and connect them to the computers at their office? A 1 Gb USB stick can sometimes hold an entire company's vital data. Within minutes or even seconds an employee has all the files they need in order to start up their own business and take all the customers with them. Alternatively, what happens if a careless user accidentally compromises the network with an infected USB stick?

What does Microsoft have to say about it?

If you, the administrator, want to establish a minimum level of security, it is absolutely necessary to control which users can connect USB memory sticks to a computer. Unfortunately, a default Windows XP or Windows 2000 installation comes with no limitations on who is able to install and use USB storage media. Microsoft knowledge base article 823732 contains instructions on how to disable USB storage access for a certain group of users; however, the article only distinguishes between whether or not a USB storage device has been installed on a particular computer. Furthermore, the instructions are limited to a stand-alone computer. According to the general rule of thumb "If it's tedious, there is a better way", I try to avoid techniques that force me to repeat certain tasks for each computer that I manage. That's what group policy objects (GPO) are for.

Suggestions?

Mark Heitbrink describes how to disable USB storage devices entirely on all or some computers in the network. He employs an ADM template in a group policy object that disables the USB storage driver (USBSTOR). The ADM template simply sets the registry valueHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor\Start to 4 (Disable). But his technique has a serious drawback. It only works if the USB storage driver is already installed. If it has not yet been installed, Windows' plug & play subsystem automatically resets the Start value to 3 (Manual) when it installs USBSTOR after a USB storage device is plugged in for the first time. In that case, USBSTOR remains enabled until the GPO is re-applied, usually at the next reboot. If the storage device is plugged in during that reboot, it will still be available because the USBSTOR driver is started before any GPOs are processed.

The Howto!

If we combine Mark Heitbrink's approach with the one outlined in knowledge base article 823732, we get a more reliable solution. Firstly, we need to prevent USBSTOR from being installed unless the currently logged on user is allowed to use USB storage. We do that by restricting access toUSBSTOR.INF and USBSTORE.PNF in a GPO such that PNP can't automatically install the driver. This is possible because when PNP installs a driver, the installation is performed using the priviledges of the currently logged on user. Secondly, we need to make sure that USBSTOR is not started when a USB storage device is plugged in. For that we use Mark's ADM template. The only minor drawback of my solution is that users with access to USB storage need to manually start USBSTOR before connecting USB storage devices.

1.   In Active Directory Users and Computers, open an existing GPO or create a new one and open it. Use the security settings of that GPO to specify which computers it affects.

2.   In that GPO, go to Computer Configuration – Windows Settings – Security Settings – File System and create a new entry (right-click File System and select Add File). Specify the location of USBSTOR.INF (usually SystemRoot%\Inf\USBSTOR.INF)

3.   Change the security settings of the new entry. The security settings that you specify here will be enforced on the USBSTOR.INF of every computer to which the GPO is applied. This process is not additive, which means that the previous security settings ofUSBSTOR.INF will be overwritten by the ones given in the GPO. It is therefore recommended to grant full control to SYSTEM and local administrators. But unlike in the default security settings of USBSTOR.INF, you should not grant any priviledges to Everybody. You do not need to explicitly deny access – just omit an entry for Everybody. Optionally, you can grant read access to a certain group. Members of this group will be able to use USB storage.

4.   Repeat the above two steps for USBSTOR.PNF.

5.   Download USBSTOR.ADM.

6.   Back in the GPO, right-click Administrative Templates under Computer Configuration and select Add/Remove Templates. Click Add and browse to the location of USBSTOR.ADM. Close the dialog.

7.   You should now have an additional entry called Services and Drivers in Administrative Templates. Click on it. If it is empty, select View from the menu and uncheck Show Policies Only. Click back on Services and Drivers in Administrative Templates. It should now show the USB Storage policy. Double click it, select Enabled and pick Disabled from the Startup Type drop down. Again, the policy must be enabled wheras Startup Type must be Disabled.

8.   Close the dialog as well as the GPO and boot/reboot one of your workstations. Make sure no USB strorage device is connected to that computer. Log on with administrative privileges and check the permissions of USBSTOR.INF and USBSTOR.PNF. Check the value of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor\Start. It should be 4. It is also ok if the UsbStor key doesn't exist at all.

9.   On the same workstation, log off and back on as a user that should not have access to USB storage. Connect a USB memory stick or a similar device. Nothing should happen. Remove the memory stick.

10.                Log on as a user that should have access to USB storage and execute net start usbstorin a command shell or at Start – Run before connecting the memory stick. The memory stick should initialized and mapped to a drive letter. If USBSTOR fails to start, it's probably because this is the first time a memory stick is plugged into the workstation in which case USBSTOR is not yet installed. Nevertheless, the memory stick should be initialized and mapped correctly but you need to reboot in order to reapply the administrative template such that USBSTOR is disabled again. Alternatively, you can disable it manually by downloading and double clicking USBSTOR.REG as well as executing net stop usbstor.

11.                Instruct the users with access to USB storage that they need to execute net start usbstor before they can connect a USB storage device.

Attachment	Size
usbstore.adm	530 bytes
usbstore.reg	258 bytes

Source : http://diaryproducts.net/
Courtesy :  http://makeonlinetricks.blogspot.in/