Windows firewall and Spybot Progs

[skywalker]

I had to disable Windows firewall because it stopped my DL manager.

Since I use just dialup and am not always connected, how impt. is it
to have the firewall running ?

Run it but give exceptions to just my dl manager ?

How does enabling it affect browser speed ? It seems like it ran faster
after I disabled it.

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Been evaluating some spyware progs, Ewido and Spybot S and D.

Ewido is good about preventing them from attaching in the first place,
haven't used SB Tea Timer yet.

Another option would be to disable the active scanners, and just throw
out the "trash" once a week. I think Spybot can do that from a batch
file.The web bots appear to be just irritants. :-)

Thanks.
__________________________________________________

"I have taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me, send money."

[Tedd]

I'd go with giving the dl manager an exception.
Spyware, viruses, etc usually attach through some action, so the fact that you're not always connected  doesn't make much difference. The fact that you do anything online is what produces the risk. (You're not still using an admin account for general purposes are you? ::))
And be careful to not rely on spybot or any other similar software. They're fine when they work, but when they don't they trash your win2k partition!! (Or that's what happened to me)

[skywalker]

I'd go with giving the dl manager an exception.
Spyware, viruses, etc usually attach through some action, so the fact that you're not always connected  doesn't make much difference. The fact that you do anything online is what produces the risk. (You're not still using an admin account for general purposes are you? ::))
And be careful to not rely on spybot or any other similar software. They're fine when they work, but when they don't they trash your win2k partition!! (Or that's what happened to me)

Thanks for reminding. When I went to SP2, I forgot to set up another user.

I am trying to figure out how to get that user to be able to use programs that makes changes in their .ini files.
I started Easy Cleaner and it said it couldn't write to it's ini file when I closed the program.

Are you referring to them flagging legit stuff and then deleting it ?

[Tedd]

The programs can't write to the ini files because they're trying to overwrite the ones as created from the admin account. In other words, the user is trying to overwrite the admin's files - which is obviously not allowed. So you'll need to either install the software from the user account so the files are 'his' (assuming admin doesn't need the program) or add access rights for the user on the affected ini files.
Also, given the amount of messing I expect you're doing (who doesn't? :toothy) make the new account a 'power user' instead - it saves a certain amount of hassle (gives you some privilleges, but not all - but at least not none!)

As for spybot - no, I was aware of all of that. I actually had a machine with some spyware, tried to remove it and then after rebooting the machine refused to start - in safe-mode or otherwise (it was definitely 'safe' mode -- you couldn't do anything!!)

[skywalker]

The programs can't write to the ini files because they're trying to overwrite the ones as created from the admin account. In other words, the user is trying to overwrite the admin's files - which is obviously not allowed. So you'll need to either install the software from the user account so the files are 'his' (assuming admin doesn't need the program) or add access rights for the user on the affected ini files.
Also, given the amount of messing I expect you're doing (who doesn't? :toothy) make the new account a 'power user' instead - it saves a certain amount of hassle (gives you some privilleges, but not all - but at least not none!)

As for spybot - no, I was aware of all of that. I actually had a machine with some spyware, tried to remove it and then after rebooting the machine refused to start - in safe-mode or otherwise (it was definitely 'safe' mode -- you couldn't do anything!!)

I looked once at changing a user account permissions and only saw admin as a pick. Do I have to make some kind of group and then a subgroup with limited actions ? There is so much to learn but it's fun.

Found an interesting cleaner program. I've looked at a lot over the years.

At another computer which had zero maintenance done on it, it removed 700 megs of useless files, etc.

I don't think the outside IT guy for my company really knows what he's doing. He was supposed to have deleted a bunch of Word temp files and he wasn't sucessful.

Our admin tried, but he couldn't figure out how to either. There's a temp file for every Certificate of Analysis file
since 2003 on a network drive. We haven't been able to save new files either to the network drive, had to save them on the local drive. I can copy files to that drive though.

That's actually been a blessing. They open and print faster now. :-)


Andy

[Tedd]

I looked once at changing a user account permissions and only saw admin as a pick. Do I have to make some kind of group and then a subgroup with limited actions ? There is so much to learn but it's fun.

Changing the account from the nicely decorated user account thingy? baahh! :bdg
Right-click on "my computer" -> manage...
computer management: system tools -> local users and groups.
the 'users' section gives a list of all current users, and 'groups' lists all the current groups -- this should include 'power uers' as a default.
to change membership, you can either rigfht-click on a group -> properties, and add a user; or do the same for a user and add them to a group.
:U

[sluggy]

The home version of XP only allows you to be admin or user, nothing else.

skywalker,
sounds like your admins are not very good - any admin should know that all they have to do is take ownership of the files (as domain admin if necessary), then delete them. If at that stage they still can't be deleted then either there is still an open file handle to them (which is easy to diagnose and locate), or the filesystem is corrupted.

[skywalker]

The home version of XP only allows you to be admin or user, nothing else.

skywalker,
sounds like your admins are not very good - any admin should know that all they have to do is take ownership of the files (as domain admin if necessary), then delete them. If at that stage they still can't be deleted then either there is still an open file handle to them (which is easy to diagnose and locate), or the filesystem is corrupted.

I am the admin using XP Pro.

Humorous Things in Life Section

This Monday they hired someone at $5/hr less than me with no Lab experience whatsoever.
Friday I was told that my position was eliminated. :-)

I learned a lot of network stuff while I wuz there.

The news was actually good.

Take care,
                Andy