network

December 2, 2012

How To Install Windows 8 Over The Network (LAN)

UK Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7 network, windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8 ISO, Windows 8 Upgrade 5 Comments

There are quite a few methods by which Windows 8 can be installed. A user can install Windows 8 using a bootable USB drive, a DVD ROM drive or even copied installation files on the hard disk. I tried to find any guide about installing Windows 8 over the network but unfortunately couldn’t find any easy step by step tutorial. So I’ve decided to write it myself as I feel easy.

First of all, we will need to understand a few concepts. There should be a computer on which Windows 8 source files should be located. These setup files will be used by the client computer. The computer which will initiate the installation is called the server computer. And the computer on which Windows 8 will be installed is called the client computer.

The server computer needs to be running a TFTP server and a DHCP server. The server can be any machine including Windows and Linux. The client computer should have PXE Boot enabled network card. In other words, the network card installed in the client computer should support network boot option.

Let’s go through the installation and configuration steps one by one.

First of all, we will need to have the TFTP server and the DHCP server up and running on the server. For this, we will be using Tftpd32.
Download Tftpd32. You can download either the 32-bit version or 64-bit version according to the server computer architecture.
Click on the Settings button. Make sure TFTP Server and DHCP Server options are enabled.
On the DHCP tab, fill in the values for running the DHCP server. Make sure that no other DHCP server is running on the network. Otherwise both the DHCP servers will conflict with each other. You can also use the already existing DHCP server for this purpose of Windows 8 network installation.
On the main window, change the Current Directory path to the folder in which Windows 8 setup files are located.
Now share the folder in which Windows 8 setup files are located. At least one user should be able to read the network folder to be able to run the setup remotely.
This is end of the configuration of the server. Now you should turn on the client computer. Make sure that it is connected to the network.
When the computer is turn on, it should ask you about network boot option. You should accept it and start network boot. Usually pressing F12 during startup initiates the network boot option.
If the network boot is successful, the computer will start with a command prompt.
On the command prompt, issue the following command: net use x: 192.168.1.2Windows8SetupFolder
In this command, we are creating a new drive called x: and it is mapped to the network folder. 192.168.1.2Windows8SetupFolder is the path of the network folder which we shared in step 6.
It will ask for the username and password. This is the user credentials for the user on server machine.
Enter the user name for '192.168.1.2': 192.168.1.2usman Enter the password for 192.169.1.2: technizenet The command completed successfully.
Now go to the x: drive and run the Windows 8 setup file: c:x: x:setup.exe

This will initiate the network boot of Windows 8. Normally, Windows installation over the network takes more time than installing through a DVD or a USB drive. But you can start Windows 8 installation over the network on multiple computers simultaneously.

Although this can method can be used to install any version of Windows including Windows 7 and Windows XP, I have only half-tested it on Windows 8 on my network.

October 3, 2012

View, Disable And Enable Winsock Service Providers In Windows

UK Software, Windows network, NirSoft 0 Comments

Windows Sockets API (WSA) or Winsock is a technical specification which defines how a software can access Windows networking services especially in TCP/IP. This is the method by which a software like a firewall or an antivirus will hook itself in the TCP/IP protocol in Windows and will monitor all the inbound and outbound traffic.

Winsock can also be used for malicious purposes. A malicious software can hook up its services using Winsock and control the flow of network and Internet traffic. If you have used HijackThis (Toolwiz Care does the same thing) which is a popular system troubleshooter, you’ll be able to see all the Winsock LSP entries with 010 label.

WinsockServicesView

NirSoft has released another utility called WinsockServicesView which will list down all the Winsock LSP services installed on your computer. You can not only view the entries but can also interact with them. You can enable or disable specific entries. It was dangerious to use HijackThis because it would just remove the selected Winsock entries from the system while WinsockServicesView will let you disable as well as enable the services if anything goes wrong.

Since WinsockServicesView is a portable utility, you don’t need to install anything on your computer. Just download the zip file, extract the executable and run.

WinsockServicesView supports the following command line options

/stext [filename] (save the Winsock services list into a text file)
/stab [filename] (save the Winsock services list into a tab delimited file)
/scomma [filename] (save the Winsock services list into a comma delimited file)
/shtml [filename] (save the Winsock services list into an HTML file with a horizontal list)
/sverhtml [filename] (save the Winsock services list into an HTML file with a vertical list)
/sxml [filename] (save the Winsock services list into an XML file)

The program is also available in Dutch, German, Greek and Romanian.

Download WinsockServicesView

April 10, 2012

Kaspersky Pure 2.0 Released With Improved Efficiency And Better Protection

Abdullah Security, Software, Windows Antivirus, encryption, Kaspersky, Kaspersky Internet Security, network, system, update, Windows 8, Windows Vista 0 Comments

Kaspersky has released a new version of the Kaspersky Pure version 2.0. The product has gone through a complete overhaul. Kaspersky Pure 2.0 can protect and manage every PC in your home via a single PC. It is easy to manage.

File Anti-Virus module of Kaspersky Pure 2 monitors opened files, executed or saved on all your disk drives. It scans a file when you want to open it and before execution it scans the file. If virus is found in the file it is cleaned or deleted. If the Anti-Virus module fails to delete or clean the virus the file is moved to Quarantine.

Kaspersky PURE 2.0 running

File Adviser is another feature which enables you to send any file information to the KSN. In this way you can get information about the file. If it is trusted, a prompt will tell you that it is Trusted. You can check the file reputation in KSN by right-click and then Check reputation in KSN.

Network Monitor module keeps track of all network activities. All your ports and connections established by application are monitored through this module and any harmful activity will be ceased.

Safe Run is another feature of Kaspersky Pure that enables you to run any application or open any website which is doubtful of harming your system in a sand-boxed environment, meaning the application or website will not store any data or modify any system data but it will be isolated from the system core files.

Backup and Restore lets you protect your documents and any other data to gain access to your data in case of a hard drive loss.

New Features of the Kaspersky Pure 2.0

The removal of incompatible applications during the installation is improved. Kaspersky Pure 2.0 will remove some of the applications that are incompatible with it e.g. other antivirus products
The application has improved system efficiency and performance while browsing the web, making calls, playing online games etc.
Update system has improved thus minimizing the time it takes to update
Detection of unknown threats and their removal has been improved
Kaspersky URL Advisor enables you to specify a category of web sites
Phishing protection is also improved
Backup compression is added to minimize the storage space
Parental Controls, Data encryption container and Password Manager are simplified
By using Rescue Disk a USB drive can be made to recover the system in cases windows could not boot properly

Kaspersky PURE 2 works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Although it is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Operating Systems, some of the features are limited and or not available in 64-bit platform. The program comes as a trial version which can be run for 30 days and costs $99.95 afterwards.

Download Kaspersky PURE 2.0

If you are looking for a security solution for Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you may try out Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 or other antivirus compatible with Windows 8 CP.

April 9, 2012

Suggy: A StumbleUpon Alternative With A Twist

UK Internet facebook, firefox, list, network 4 Comments

StumbleUpon is a very popular network for browsing websites related to a particular topic. One just has to install the StumbleUpon toolbar to browse the websites in ones interest field. There is one limitation in StumbleUpon that it does not allow to see the list of websites so that we can choose what we want to open. We have to click on the Stumble button in order to proceed to the next website. It is a sequential approach.

Suggy configure interests

Looking for a StumbleUpon alternative which can solve this sequential limitation? Suggy, a new startup, has come up with a new way to browse the Internet. It can be termed as an alternative to StumbleUpon with a twist. Unlike StumbleUpon, Suggy does not require you to specify your interest. When you install the Suggy toolbar it will ask you if it can identify your interests using your current browser history and bookmarks. This is a great feature and I’m surprised with the identification of interests. It has pin pointed my interests and arranged them into different topic groups.

Suggy topic groups 1

Like StumbleUpon, Suggy comes as an Addon for Firefox and can be installed for free. After installation, Suggy takes some time (about 2 hours or so) for identifying and compiling the results. After the compilation, similar topics will be grouped together and will be shown in different topic groups. Just click on one topic group and you will see webpages related to the topics you have chosen.

There is a nifty feature of refining the topics. You can zoom in and zoom out which will increase or decrease the number of topics in a topic group. This feature is very useful if you want to browse websites of a very particular topic. In StumbleUpon we have to be content with a single topic of browsing. In this regard, Suggy can be termed as a better StumbleUpon alternative.

Suggy refine interests 1

If you are not satisfied with the topic group and want to add your own interests, you can edit the topic group to add or remove interests from the group. Suggy also includes a somewhat social function by which you can favorite any topic group by click on “I like it” button. You can also share the topics with other people using their emails or on Facebook and Twitter. Suggy even lets you connect with people with similar interests as yours.

In my opinion, Suggy can be a better alternative to StumbleUpon because it is more customizable and has a better relevance algorithm as I have not seen any irrelevant results while I was testing Suggy. What are your thoughts about this new social network?

To download Suggy toolbar for Firefox, you will need to register a new account on Suggy and then you’ll be given the download link for the toolbar addon.

Do you like Suggy? Which StumbleUpon alternative are you using at the moment? What are your thoughts about StumbleUpon? Please tell us in comments below.

April 5, 2012

Windows 8 General UI Tips

Abdullah Microsoft, Windows network, Windows 8, Windows 8 Consumer Preview 0 Comments

Windows 8 is built with touch enabled Metro Start Screen and Charms Menu. The metro UI is useful for those having touch screen computers because it includes many apps specifically redesigned for touch enabled devices. The Metro UI has got the menus, sliders and buttons wider than the general windows UI to prevent people missing from touching these with finger. Here I am describing some tips for general usage.

How to Close Metro Apps In Windows 8

For Computers with Touch Screen

You only need to swipe the screen from top to bottom to close any app.

For Computers without Touch Screen Displays

In the App you need to move your mouse to the top of the screen, hold your left mouse button (the app will reduce its window size) and drag the mouse to bottom of the screen, the app will fade and close
You can also close the app with ALT+ F4 keys. This option does not work for all the programs.
Move your mouse to the top left of your screen and you will see a window screen drag your mouse still in the left of your screen and you will see a thumbnails of opened apps (Currently opened app does not show in this thumbnails view).
Open the Task Manager, select any app and click End Task.

Restart/Shutdown or Sleep Computer in Windows 8

Another Useful UI is the Charms Menu.

Charms Menu provides the options for searching metro apps, sharing your files, a Device Center and options to Restart/Sleep/Shutdown computer, network connections etc.

You can open up the Charms Menu by either moving your mouse to the top right corner or bottom right corner of the screen. The menu can also be opened by pressing the Windows Key + C.

Click Power and then Click Shutdown or Restart.

To Log off in Windows 8

Switch to the metro screen either by pressing the Windows Key or by clicking in the left bottom corner. On the screen click your username on the top right corner and click Sign out.

March 29, 2012

Windows 8 Ribbon Style Explorer Improvements And Features

Abdullah Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7 Best Free Windows Explorer Add-ons And Enhancements, list, Microsoft Office, network, Office 2007, windows 7, Windows 8 0 Comments

Microsoft has coded a brand new Windows Explorer for the Windows 8. The new explorer puts all the explorer functions with the need of a click or two. The new Ribbon style was first used with Microsoft Office 2007 and that style now got its place into the explorer of the new operating system.

The ribbon style has usually three tabs Home, Share and View. In the Home tab you have all the operations you perform for file or folders.

The new ribbon style puts the mostly used operations in a prominent location. For example for a file you may want these operations Copy, Paste, Cut, Copy Path, Paste Shortcut, Move to, Copy to, Delete, Rename, Properties. All these operations can now be invoked with a single click.

The new Windows Explorer keeps the history of folders used for moving or copying files. When you click on Move to or Copy to you will see a list of folders recently used for these operations.

The share tab is for sharing files on web or burning them to Optical media. The share tab includes the options for emailing, zipping, burning, sharing on network and advanced security.

The View tab is designed to change the view of items in a Folder/Drive. In Windows 7 you can have Preview Pane and Details Pane both at once but in Windows 8 you can have only one at a time.

In the View tab you have the option to change the size of files/folders or Sort them by Name, Date Modified etc or Group them by Name, Date Modified etc, Add Columns, Size all columns to fit.

You also have the option to Show or Hide Hidden items, Hide a selected item, enable or disable file name extensions or Refresh.

In the File Menu you have the option to Open Command Prompt with the currently selected folder. Clear the history.

The new Windows Explorer adds a new tab depending upon the item you click. If you click on a Disk Drive you can see a Drive tab which gives you the options to Format, Cleanup, Optimize or BitLocker drive encryption. Similarly when you click on any image file you have the option for Rotate left, Rotate right, Slide show and Set as background.

If you click on a Library Folder you will get Library Tools giving you the option to Manage library, Set save location etc.

The Search tab is also improved giving you the option for specifying certain criteria’s for searching a file. You can search files by Date Modified, Kind, Size and some other properties.

So the new explorer has got a bunch of new features for a tech guy as well as a beginner.

March 22, 2012

Windows 7 Gadgets for Tech Savvy

Abdullah Microsoft, Software, Windows, Windows 7 benchmarking, Desktop Enhancement, network, system, windows 7, Windows Vista 1 Comment

The blog orbmu2k offers some gadgets for windows 7/Vista. In all gadgets I have found 5 gadgets useful for a tech savvy.

Intel Core Series gadget
Top Five Processes gadget
Network Traffic gadget
Memory Usage gadget
GPU Observer gadget

Intel Core Series Gadgets

If you own an Intel processor the Core Series (Core Solo, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core i7) you can view all cores performance.

Intel Core series gadget details you all the cores usages ( in numerical values and bar displays), temperatures per core, graph display.

To display temperatures per core you need to install WinRing0 driver. Open options and click on Install Driver, Click Yes on the UAC confirmation dialog. The driver will be installed in a few seconds. Now you will see temperatures in the gadget display.

The Graph style can also be changed to filled threads or graph threads.

The gadget has the option to automatically adapt to number of available threads. You can see the snap for 8 threads CPU.

Another little addition is for those having motherboards with SuperIO LPC chip ITE (IT87xx). Gigabyte motherboards usually have this chip. The new addition displays the CPU fan speed and core voltage.

Top Five Processes Gadget

This gadget has dual functionality it can display top five CPU hungry and top file memory hungry processes.

The gadget comes in handy when the system seems to be too slow. You can identify the problem right from the gadget.

The gadget can also display top five memory hungry processes. If you want this gadget to show top five memory processes, open the option and in Top Five Mode select the Memory. If you want to see both top five CPU processes and top five memory processes then just open the gadget gallery and add another instance of top five gadget and configure it for memory.

You can also change the refresh interval which is by default 3 seconds.

Network Traffic Gadget

The network traffic gadget is great showing up the network up/down traffic in bits and kb/s.

To configure the gadget for your network you need to open the options and in Select Network Interface:

Select your network adapter/connection. Now click on OK and all your network traffic will be displayed. You can change the drawing style to graph or filled bars.

Memory Usage Gadget

The memory usage gadget shows the physical and virtual memory usage.

The gadget shows used memory / total memory.

The green bar shows physical memory and blue bars shows virtual memory usage. Virtual memory includes the page file. The gadget also has the option to display the usage drawing in filled or graph style.

GPU Observer Gadget

This gadget can display both of NVIDIA and ATI GPU information.

The gadget can display GPU temperature, Fan speed in, PCB temperature, GPU Load, VPU load, Memory Load and clock. Open install it will display only the temperature of GPU. But you add other information by configuring the options. You can also create a dump file that containing the data about GPU.

Download all these gadgets in a single file:

[download id=”15″]

March 14, 2012

Microsoft Security Update March 2012 ISO Image Download [KB913086]

UK Microsoft, Security, Windows iso image, microsoft security bulletin, network, system, update 1 Comment

Microsoft Security Update (The Patch Tuesday) is a security update released by Microsoft on the second Tuesday of every month. The security update for March 2012 is rather an important one because Microsoft has closed some important security holes in Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) which is installed in every Windows OS by default.

The security flaw was because of the exploitation by Morto worm which appeared last year. This particular worm opens a huge number of outbound connections by using svchost. This is due to the Morto worm which can also give the exploiter access to the file system of the affected system. If you are a network administrator, you should update your network of Windows immediately. If you are a home user and you are not using RDC, make sure that you have disabled it in Windows. Microsoft recommends that everyone updates their Windows systems with this security update.

If you are unable to update your network or system immediately, there is a workaround fix for this threat. You can enable Network Level Authentication (NLA) for your network. This will ensure some level of security for RDC security hole. You can use Microsoft Fix it utility for enabling or disabling NLA.

Other than that the security update does not include any major security updates. The following security bulletins are included in this March 2012 update:

You can download Microsoft Security Update March 2012 ISO image directly from Microsoft.

March 12, 2012

Protect Your Computer From USB Viruses With USB Disk Manager

UK Security, Software, Windows, Windows 7 network, usb first aid, windows 7 1 Comment

USB Disk Manager is a small and portable utility that helps you secure your computer against USB viruses and malware.

If you are a frequent user of USB flash drives, you better know that USB flash drives are a major source of infecting a computer with viruses and malware. The major reason of this is the auto-run feature of the USB drives in Windows. Viruses and malware get installed in a USB drive and then automatically start running if auto-run feature is enabled in Windows.

Although Windows 7 has taken steps to improve the security against USB viruses but still new techniques get created everyday. If you are a network administrator, you must have disabled the USB port in order to save your network from these kinds of threats. But not any more. Now you can use the USB Disk Manager to secure your computer from USB viruses.

USB Disk Manager preferences

USB Disk Manager is a portable application, hence can be a part of usb first aid, which can give you control over how the USB flash drives can be accessed on your computer.

There are three modes of protection available in USB Disk Manager

Write protect – You can enable or disable Write protect feature of the USB drive. If you enable this feature, you will not be able to write anything on the USB drive. Hence the USB flash drive will act as a read-only device.
Execute deny – This is the most common function that you should use because it will not allow any executable file to be run from the USB flash drive directly. You can still run the file by copying it on your computer.
Disable USB – This option completely disable all the USB ports in the computer. This can be useful if you want to prevent access to or from the USB ports immediately.

You can also disable autorun feature of the USB drives which is the main cause of automatically executing viruses. To disable autorun feature, just go to settings and check the checkbox saying “Disable Windows Autorun for USB Disks”.

Please note that all the above features implemented by the USB Disk Manager are in Windows only. These are not permanent settings for the USB drive itself. So if you want to disable a feature on two computers, you have to use this tool on both the computers.

Download USB Disk Manager

March 12, 2012

Monitor Applications For CPU and Memory Usage With Kiwi Application Monitor

UK Software, Windows firefox, google chrome, list, network, system 0 Comments

Kiwi Application Monitor is a very useful tool for monitoring different applications running in Windows. Kiwi Application Monitor can monitor the CPU usage and memory consumption of each application from the start till the application is exited.

The Computer Information module of Kiwi Application Monitor gives all the hardware information in one glance. It gives technical details about the motherboard, processor, video card, RAM and hard drives.

The graphical user interface of Kiwi Application Monitor is rather simple. It gives you all the options on the top menu. The top menu contains the following options:

Add
Edit
Remove
Statistics
Tools
Settings
Help and About

The first three buttons will let you add the application which you want to monitor. When you click on the Add button, a new window will open giving you certain options and rules which you can set in order for Kiwi Application Monitor to alert you. You can even do different actions automatically if a certain condition is met. For example, if I want my Firefox browser be closed when it uses more memory than 500 MB, I can set it in the monitoring options. You can either browse the application path or if the application is running you can use the Process explorer to select it for monitoring.

Add an application to Kiwi Application Monitor

The fourth button, Statistics, gives you a lot of information about the process being monitored. You can get the following information about each process being monitored:

Process run time
Process average memory consumption
Process peak memory consumption
Process average CPU load
Windows run time
Computer memory load
User activity
Mouse movement
Keyboard keys

The real benefit of Kiwi Application Monitor lies in the Tools menu. You get very important tools like process manager, service manager, startup manager and advanced system information tool. The process manager lets you get information about a running process and even terminate it. There is a plethora of information which Kiwi Application Monitor provides about each process. For example, I got the information of Google Chrome running on my computer and got the following information:

Complete system memory details
Complete peak memory usage details
Total process time and CPU usage details
Full path of the executable application

You can set the priority base and priority boost of each process.

Process Explorer process information

You can manage the services list in Windows using Service Explorer tool.

The Startup Manager lets you add, edit or remove the Windows startup entries.

If you want complete and highly detailed information about you computer, you can run the System Info tool under Tools menu.

System info tool

It gives you complete and detailed information about the following:

Hardware information
Data storage
Memory
System information
Network
User and security

If you are a network administrator, I highly recommend that this little app should be a part of your first aid kit.

Download Kwi Application Monitor

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