Hacker Ten

Windows registry explained

The Windows registry is a database in which Windows keeps track of relationships between hardware, software and the operating system. Over time the Windows registry will become saturated with redundant files and broken links that will slow down youw Windows operating system and make it sluggish.

Windows registry cleaners explained

A registry cleaner is a piece of software that runs on the Windows operating system, issues involving the registry could cause you to lose your personal data, or make the computer completely unusable, you need to be very careful with it, all of the registry cleaners will allow you to store a back up copy of the old configurations before cleaning it.

The registry cleaner will scan through the registry keys and point out any issues which it finds, most usual are registry keys pointing at non existant files already deleted or to uninstalled software as well as pointers to missing DLLs, listings of no-longer-valid file extensions, invalid paths, invalid ActiveX Controls, and much more.

A registry cleaner will attempt to fix those keys, leaving your registry slimmer and your computer prepared to run free of junk once again. Some registry cleaners will also compact and defrag it making it easier and quicker for Windows to access the registry.

Sluggish computer

Free Windows registry cleaners

ACleaner: This two-button Windows Registry cleaner lets you search for problems and then fix them. You can choose which Registry sections to include and restore a backed-up version of the database if you encounter any problems.

AusLogics: Auslogics Registry Cleaner offers a simple wizard-based interface. You can choose between quick and advanced scans, and undo any previous changes. If you choose to run an advanced scan, the program lets you select the categories you want to target.

EuSing: Eusing Free Registry Cleaner will repair registry problems with a few simple mouse clicks, this is one of the easiest to use registry cleaners.

Comodo System Cleaner: Comodo System Cleaner is a powerful suite of utilities and tools that allows you to make your Windows based computer faster, more efficient and more secure. This is not simply a stand alone registry cleaner.

Wise Cleaner: The free version of this registry cleaner has no registry compactor (defragger), but otherwise it quickly identifies orphaned registry keys and makes them easy to fix.

We have recently seen Internet Explorer 8, Firefox +3.5 and Safari adding an internet browsing “privacy mode”, using it you are supposed not to leave internet cache, history cookies or anything else that could jeopardise your internet surfing privacy, but there are at least two things that still give away what sites you have visited.

• Cached DNS Entries: In order to be able to surf the internet you will need use a DNS server to resolve the URLs and this will be cached locally into your machine for a while to speed up your internet surfing, this entries also get cached in private mode browsing.

You can see this yourself opening up the command prompt inWindows, type command.com or cmd.exe at the search box to get to the Windows command prompt box.

Now type:
ipconfig /displaydns

Windows Command Line Prompt cmd.exe

You will see the full list of cached DNS entries, open up a new private browsing session, re-run the command again and see how the sites you just visited got added. Anyone with access to your computer, such as a noisy College systems administrator or your boss at work can see this too.

To clean up the cache just type in:
ipconfig /flushdns

• Flash Cookies: Even in privacy mode evil flash cookies will get stored into the %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects directory, and they can reveal what sites gave them to you, and what day and at what time you visited them, you can delete these flash cookies manually.

There are many reasons why you may want to spoof your referral website, privacy is the obvious one. Websites usually log how you got there, either by search engine or clicking on a link, if the latter they will also log what website you were visiting before you went to them.

Spoof your referral page

There are also some websites that will only make their content available to those being referred from certain place, the Wall Street Journal for example wants you to pay in order to read their articles, but they have an agreement with digg and Google News. If you search for a Wall Street Journal in Google news and you follow the link  through them you will be able to access the complete article for free, but there is even an easier way to read the Wall Street Journal online for free, you will need to fake your referral website as digg.com, you can do this easily with a Firefox extension called RefSpoof.

After installing the Refspoof addon visit WSJ.com. Then, in the “spoof” field of the Refspoof toolbar type digg.com. Then, click on the “R” icon to the right and select “static referrer”. That is all, you can now read all of the Wall Street Journal for free.

UPDATE: As of 1st December 2009 the trick above seems to have stopped working, therefore here goes another way for you to read the Wall Street Journal online for free:

1) Copy the headline of the Wall Street Journal article you want to read.

2) Visit http://news.google.com and paste the headline on the search box.

3) Clink on the link leading to the Wall Street Journal article. That is it, now you will be able to read the full article for free, the WSJ journal has an agreement with Google News to let people referred by them read the full article.

Wall Street Journal Newspaper

If you have an old computer with old hardware there is a good chance you may not be able to run the latest Microsft Windows 7 operating system, officially, if you want to run Windows 7 on your PC you will need this as a minimum:

Windows 7 Minimum System requirements:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

There is an easier way to know if your PC will run Windows 7, simply download Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, an official tool by Microsoft itself. You can get it from here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor

This tool will also tell what software installed in your computer is not compatible with Windows 7.

Windows 7 minimum system requirements

You can now perform a clean, full-featured installation of Windows 7 for the price of an upgrade.

Simply follow these instructions:

1. Perform a clean installation using the Upgrade disc, you should have no problems here

2. Make sure there are no Windows Updates pending — if there’s an orange shield icon next to the Shutdown button in the Start Menu, that means you need to reboot before attempting the next steps.

3. Open ‘regedit.exe‘ from the Start Menu — just type it in there, where it says: Search programs and files. Accept the User Account Control dialogue that pops up to give yourself Windows 7 superpowers.

4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

5. Change MediaBootInstall from ‘1‘ to ‘0‘

6. Open the Start Menu again and type ‘cmd’ — use ctrl+shift+enter to run it as an elevated-permissions user

7. Finally, type slmgr /rearm — and press enter.

Windows 7 hacked

Your computer will now reboot and run the Activate Windows utility. Type in your product key, and there you go… a full Windows 7 with all of its utilities for eighty dollars less than the original price.