Blazes review of xp blah

[Mr.Blaze]

:Dwill whats the reson for this littile review?

well if any of you know me im a die hard sob algaints windows xp

mainly cause i knew the program way befor it was called xp and at the time the security holes in it made spaghitie strainer look more secure to hold watter lol.

will i decided to give xp another shot mainly (AKA after microsoft check cleared lol kiding;) )

well xp is eye candy but is it better?

will after 2 days of seriouse abuse and if you know me i can really abuse a pc lol my help me pleas some 1000 or more posts should give you a perty good ideal lol.

turns out xp can actually be beter but theres a big catch

if your on dial up its not worth upgradeing to xp lol

heres why
over like 70 critical updates
will it turns out to be that way after you get service pack 1 then you look at it and thers 4 more critical updates to dowenload

dowenoading so many critical updates is over kill

then you have the 18 or so recomended updates which actualy you should get just because software incompadiablity issues

think it ends there lol nope now you need driver updates lol

you have any old hardware you better go to themain company usealy the logo on the hardware like printers monitor and hard drive are the most common as well as parelal ports and look for xp drivers for your old hardware lol

now you would think the nightmare would end there

nope

if your a security buff or just a newbie who wants a secure xp

well now you have to msconfig it
turn off the pigy hogeing resorce things if you install microsoft office

turn off fire wall xp comes with inless your useing aol

install a real firewall like zone alarm pro or another well knowen one

norton is a must

thats a typical set up

a security buff adds tds-worm guard -boclean a back up like goback and has to get xp updates or missing drivers or make sure the software is xp compadiable which it useally is

is it worth upgradeing to windows xp hmmmmmmm

on the plus side xp is a cleaner faster system and i can see the difrence with my ram

xp is not worth it inless you can do the following

your on cable or dsl

you know how to msconfig

your willing to spend 70 bucks or so to get 512 ram sd or like 200 for a stick of 512 ddr depending on what ram you use

and finaly know something about security like fire wall

otherwise stick with what you got

i did find i have less puter crashes with xp then windows me

and when i close something it really closes

xp is also faster after a msconfig thers only 4 things on my start up way cool

so get it or hate it up to you

[root]

Long ago, I gave up arguing with people about the pros and cons of XP as indeed it is a love or hate relationship thing.

When I bought my Dell last month, it came with a 2.2 GHZ P IV, XP Home and 256 MEGS ram. I noticed it seemed to perform slower than my last Dell which had a P III 733MHZ, with 128 MEGS ram, and Win2K SP4. Same hard drive on both machines. Same programs more or less.

Since it seemed so doggy, I purchased another 512MEGS ram, but noticed no speed increase. I spent three days trying to secure XP, disabling services, tweaking, uninstalling fluff, etc. After my best efforts at securing XP, I still had six ports in the listening status, and was sorely dissappointed with the lack of increase in computing performance.

Time for format C: /s . After formatting and installing Win2K SP4 and the rest of my programs, I now have a lean mean fighting machine. Huge increase in speed and only one service listening, but blocked by my firewall. See picture.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. ;D

[LowWaterMark]

My less than 2 year old Gateway Celeron 1.2GHz with 512MB RAM and a 7200 rpm 40GB disk runs great and very fast with XP Home. Boot time from power off to being desktop accessible is 60 seconds. (This includes all the normal security apps I run in the background.) My open ports at that point are:

c:\Temp>netstat -anoActive Connections Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID
TCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 664
TCP 0.0.0.0:1025 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 704
TCP 0.0.0.0:1026 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 4 For myself, I think XP is great. It's funny how everyone has different experiences. Every PC and configuration is just so different that you can never be sure what you'll get until you try it. :-\

[Primrose]

I have all the M$ OS..2000 is my favorite work horse. I am posting in here Blaze for you to consider asking a few gurus how to save those update you had to install to date in a way you will not have to go back on line to get them if you do have a crash since you are still on dial up. It can be done ;)

Also if you ever get dsl or cable..think about the fact that OUT OF the BOX WINXP usually has a clean bill of health for about 20 seconds after your put the pedal to the metal ;-)

after that..and unsecured it is pot luck.

Glad you moved up..hope all is well with you.

Regards,
John

[root]

One thing about M$ OSs is that everyone seems to have different experiences, fer sure. ;D
Hey LWM, got any idea why port 1025 tcp is always listening? I blocked it once with Outpost and 1026 started listening, Blocked that and 1027 started listening.
I can't figure out which service is opening 1025. I use Black Vipers list to secure my services and still 1025 and 445 listen.

[bigc73542]

I am not a flag waving proponent of m$ but I have tried eleven different versions of linux and four different versions of windows. I don't think linux will ever replace windows simply because it is not user friendly and if they changed it to be easier for a windows converts to learn then it wouldnt be any more secure than windows. Of all the m$ versions that I have tried only Win 2000 and xp preferably xp pro are able to use most software out there with the least amount of trouble. I know 98se users will argue the point but the truth is 98 and 98se are just minumally supported and will be less able to use new versions of software as time go on. Like some of the previous post stated, not all xp users have the same experience with xp or any os. I guess I am one of the lucky ones in that my xp runs trouble free boots very fast and does about anything I ask of it. I guess that is about all I can ask of an os.

[LowWaterMark]

-{ Quote: " quoting: root link=board=27;threadid=17405;start=0#msg107587 date=1070755860]Hey LWM, got any idea why port 1025 tcp is always listening?" }-

I never actually bothered to figure out which specific service / function was related to the TCP port 1025 held open by one of the copies of svchost. I figured it could be closed, but I really didn't want to carry service disabling quite that far. Like many people I got rid of NetBIOS, UPnP and a few of the more common services that I knew I'd never need on a standalone (well, non-LAN based) simple client PC. But to close the rest takes more than just disabling a Service in the Admin Tools > Services applet.

Some people take it all the way using this site (http://www.hsc.fr/ressources/breves/min_srv_res_win.en.html), but I think many can end up causing themselves system problems when they do some of the more extreme ones.

-{ Quote: "I blocked it once with Outpost and 1026 started listening, Blocked that and 1027 started listening. I can't figure out which service is opening 1025. I use Black Vipers list to secure my services and still 1025 and 445 listen." }-

I did decide to close 445 which is done a little differently than the normal Services applet stuff. Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager > View (menu) > check "Show hidden devices" > under "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" > right-click "NetBios over Tcpip" > "Disable". Reboot and all the microsoft-ds stuff is gone. Reversing it is easy if you ever want it, but again on my stand-alone client PC, it's never been needed.

[AplusWebMaster]

;) FYI...
- Give Steve Gibson's "Port Authority" a try - for Port 1025:
http://grc.com/port_1025.htm
- He doesn't have all the answers, but he says so, and that one of the things I like about Steve.

(Thank You, Mr. Gibson!)

[root]

Thanks for the replies to both of you. I will investigate and if you don't see me around for a couple of days is is because I should have zigged when I zagged. ;D

[Mr.Blaze]

lol will its strange most of you guys got double what i got lol i updated an old celeron gate way essintial 700c pc which is basicly bottom of the barrel crap

but after msconfig and the fact i got an 80 gig fast performance hard drive its not only stable but fast.

yeah i would like to know how to back up those updates on cd so i never have to reinstall from microsoft website that really sucked.

but you guys are right it is hard for newbie like myself to secure an xp

thanks god i been here long enough

and it can be done just really time consumeing

[root]

Port 445 is history.

Unfortunately Gibson sheds no light on disabling port 1025. I found a registry hack for disabling Task manager, which is supposed to be the culprit, and may be on XP, but has no effect on Win2K SP4.

I am now on a madmans quest to close forever the last remaining listening port (1025) on my machine. The righteous shall prevail over the evil M$ empire and the devil Gates shall be vanquished forever to the gates of obvlivion. :o

[Pilli]

I like XP for all it's foibles:)
On PC2 I am now running the Windows Server 2003 (6 month evaluation), MS have closed everything down, by default you have to open everthing including widows update, browsing, even media player does not work without the Admin taking specific action, So it looks like MS is moving in the right direction security wise

[Paul Wilders]

Those using/intereste in XP: Doug Knox site is very worthwhile. Have a look over herr (http://www.dougknox.com/).

regards.

paul

[Mr.Blaze]

:Dwow paul thats one sweet website have you been to black vipers website to

[Paul Wilders]

-{ Quote: " quoting: Mr.Blaze link=board=27;threadid=17405;start=0#msg107769 date=1070817681]
:Dwow paul thats one sweet website" }-

It is, isn't it? Doug puts a lot of effort in it as an MVP.

-{ Quote: "have you been to black vipers website to
" }-

Sure ;)

regards.

paul

[Pieter_Arntz]

This one is very useful too IMO: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks2.htm

It took me a bit to find my way around, but well worth having a look.

Pieter

[Paul Wilders]

Nice one, Pieter!

Did you ever encountered this one (should work on XP Pro, Home and 2000):

Provided at minium 256 MB Ram installed, PAGEFILE.SYS. slows down the system - to quite an extend at times.

Tweak:

open regedit search HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management select: DisablePaging Executive, and change value to 1 do the same with: LargeSystemCache

THis way, parts of the kernel are left in RAM > result: speed boost.

As ever, back up the registry first!

regards.

paul

[Pieter_Arntz]

Hi Paul,

Number 9: http://webgear.datacreek.net/system/xptweaks.html ;)

Not many secret tweak resources left now for me.

Ah well. This one is nice to use together with blackviper's site: http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/windowsxpservices.php

And there is: http://www.tweakxp.com/

Gave away all my treasures now. :'( ;D

Regards,

Pieter

[Paul Wilders]

I'm impressed :o

regards.

paul

[Bowserman]

......and don't forget The Elder Geeks site on XP (http://www.theeldergeek.com/) 8).

Regards,
Jade.

[Mr.Blaze]

:owow look at all the cyber candy

i want to try pauls tweak for the boost would be cool as its already fast

but is there a newbie easy way to back up the registry also

reg edit not my strong suit is there pics on step by step how to do that tweak?

[Pieter_Arntz]

Hi Blazey,

Here you go. Save the part printed in bold as Blazingboost.reg, doubleclick it and confirm you want to add it to the regsitry.
Best make a manual System Restore point first, so you have a registry backup automatically.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001
"LargeSystemCache"=dword:00000001


Regards,

Pieter

[Mr.Blaze]

:o whole way cool

hmmm but the sytem restore part i dont use i have goback so i think systemrestore diabled not sure

is there a way to export the back up registry so its one of those blue wyrd cube things that look like a wyrd rubix cube

so when you click on it lol it add it back to the registry

lots of hackers and pirayers use these wyrd blue things to add registry entrys for evillpurposes but couldnt it be done to back up a registry entry for its default setting

whats the default entry for the xp befor you tweak it?

can it be backed up other then system restore

[Mr.Blaze]

by the way thank you guys

[Pieter_Arntz]

Hi Blaze,

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q322756

This part:
-{ Quote: "Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click the key that contains the value that you want to edit.
On the File menu, click Export.
In the Save in box, select a location where you want to save the Registration Entries (.reg) file, in the File name box, type a file name, and then click Save" }-

To make a complete backup of your registry select MyComputer as the location to export.

Regards,

Pieter

[Pieter_Arntz]

Oops. <tap><tap> One.. two.. testing. Blazey, you still out there?

[Mr.Blaze]

;Dyup sorry i had to go to work

by the way thank you so much thats way cool

tommrow hopefully ill have some pics of the work we did so i can share with all you

anybody seen my fan j hope he ok i know how bad it suck to have poor vistion

i was in same boat couldnt do anything or see anything for over a year really sucks

[Mr.Blaze]

:owow i did it i did it i back up my whole pc registry thx it was a 52 mb file man i must have alot of stuff on this pc

now to change values

still not clear on that

[Mr.Blaze]

:-\ now how do i put this in
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001
"LargeSystemCache"=dword:00000001

[Pieter_Arntz]

Hi MrBlaze,

Open notepad, copy the part printed in bold into a new file, and save it as Memmanage.reg, doubleclick it and confirm you want to add it to the regsitry.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001
"LargeSystemCache"=dword:00000001


Regards,

Pieter

[Mr.Blaze]

:o wow you made that so easy you the man woooooo hooooo

big big big giant huuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggggggggg


thanks so much hey im excited today after i come back from work ill have pics of the job we just did its awsome

you guys out there might want to see this as it could help out your relationships and even make them better

lets just say your ladys would keep you happy for weeks if you did this for them

and the best part is its affordiable way cool

youll see what im talking bout lol

[Mr.Blaze]

:'( it didnt work looky

[Pieter_Arntz]

Hi Blaze,

You did copy this part as well?
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

That should work for win2k and xp
for any other version you would have to change that to REGEDIT4

Regards,

Pieter

[Uguel707]

Hey mr Blaze!

Don't worry, I used to be as puzzled by the registry as by the Book of Deuteronomy :) But you will find that it is not as bad as it looks (speaking of the registry :) )

From Paul Wilder's
"Tweak":

-{ Quote: ""open regedit
search HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
select: DisablePaging Executive, and change value to 1
do the same with: LargeSystemCache"" }-

I did it and it works well! (My system is in French but the steps are the same on any system)

Follow these steps in order (on steps 2 thru 6 click on the '+' sign to the left of the name to navigate to the key in the next step):

1. Start > Run > Regedit
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
3. SYSTEM
4. CurrentControlSet
5. Control
6. Session Manager
7. Then you: Highlight "Memory management".
8. Select "DisablePaging Executive", and change value to 1.
Do it by right-clicking on it, and "modify"

See screenshots:


http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachments/regscreenshot1-a.jpg



http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachments/screenshot2-a.jpg





http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachments/screenshot3-a.jpg



You will see the changes I made right below
Values o are changed to 1 (see no.8 above)



http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachments/screenshot4-a.jpg




You need to make these changes by right-clicking on each of the values and selecting "Modify".
Once the changes are made, go to "File" and then "Exit".

Hope this help! ;)


Uguel

[Mr.Blaze]

yes yes your right i left out the 5.0 editor thinghy in the scriptMemmanage.reg Pieter

and Uguel thanks to you i was able to make sure it was in there yeah thx guys way cool now im a speed demon

[Pieter_Arntz]

8)

[Uguel707]

-{ Quote: " quoting: Mr.Blaze link=board=27;threadid=17405;start=30#msg109272 date=1071131574]
yes yes your right i left out the 5.0 editor thinghy in the scriptMemmanage.reg Pieter

and Uguel thanks to you i was able to make sure it was in there yeah thx guys way cool now im a speed demon
" }-

Very good Blaze! :) And you know what , if you hadn't started this thread, I wouldn't have got this nice tweak, thanks to you and to all other people who posted very good "tweak" addresses! :)

Where's the cookie jar?
Here get some!
Don't push, I've got enough for all of you!


Uguel :D