IS WINDOWS SPYING ON YOU?

IS WINDOWS SPYING ON YOU?

If you’ve installed any Microsoft updates recently you may recall seeing something called Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) in amongst the bits and pieces you are urged to install. WGA is meant to validate your copy of Windows, but at the same time WGA also installs something called the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool.



This is a little utility that looks for pirated copies of Microsoft software, but here’s the worrying bit. Every time you boot up your PC it calls home to Microsoft, (or once a day if your PC is left running). MS are cagey about the data that’s being exchanged during these brief transactions or why a daily check should be necessary if the software on your PC is fully legit, but it has emerged that it will enable MS to remotely deactivate any programs it deems to have been pirated, at the moment...



No one can object to their system being validated but it only needs to happen once and the Notification business sounds a lot like spyware. A decent Firewall should stop this use of your Internet connection without your permission, but only if you spot the warning, which most people will probably agree to as it refers to the WGA validation tool. If you are concerned about this intrusion you might want to take a look at this free WGA Notification removal tool, which leaves the WGA Validation component intact so critical updates should still proceed as normal.


AUTOMATICALLY CLOSE FROZEN PROGRAMS

Okay, so worse things happen at sea, but don’t you just hate it when you shut down your XP Computer, only to be confronted with error message boxes telling you that ‘This

Program has stopped Responding’ and asking daft questions like what do you want to do about it? This tip, known as a Forced Exit, gets rid of those irritating messages and force unresponsive programs to close automatically. However, it is for Experts only because it involves tinkering with the Registry, and if you try it you do so entirely at your own risk. Actually it’s quite safe and very easy so assuming that you know what you are doing, have set a new Restore Point or backed up the Registry, proceed to Run on the Start menu. Type ‘regedit’ (sans quotes) to open the Registry Editor. Work your way to HKEY_USERS\Default\Control Panel\Desktop, double click Desktop to open in the right hand pane and look for ‘AutoEndTasks’. Double-click the key and change the Value Data from 0 to 1, Exit the Registry Editor and the change should be applied the next time you start Windows. You can undo the change by switching the Value Data back to 0 in the very unlikely event you run into problems.



By the way, the same key also contains a control that determines how long Windows waits before declaring a program as unresponsive. ‘WaitToKillApp’ sets the timeout delay in milliseconds (the default is 2000, or 20 seconds) and you can change this setting to speed things up a bit.


WINDOWS XP PROGRAM PROTECTION

There’s a heart-stopping moment, when you’ve just downloaded a program from the Internet and you click on the file or .exe icon to install it. What if it contains a virus or something nasty that will crash the computer, or worse? It’s impossible to be one hundred percent certain about downloads and even software from reputable sources has been tainted, but Windows does have a way of protecting itself.



The next time you want to run or install a download that you are not sure about right-click on the file and select ‘Run As’. This will open a dialogue with the option to ‘Protect My Computer’; make sure it is selected and click OK to proceed. This allows the program to read information from the Windows Registry, but it won’t allow it to make any changes, nor will it allow the program to mess around with User Profiles or interfere with My Documents folders, Temp files, the Desktop. The only points to watch out for are that before using Protect Mode you should close all running programs, and some otherwise harmless applications may not work properly under these restrictions.


WINDOWS XP PRO GOBBLING UP YOUR BANDWIDTH

The jury is still out on this tweak for speeding up the Internet connection in Windows XP PRO. I’m making no claims for it but it’s easy to do, and undo so see what you think….



The premise of the tip is that XP Pro (sorry XP Home users it doesn’t work for you…) is configured to reserve 20 percent of your available bandwidth for Windows housekeeping activities, downloading updates and so on. There’s some debate as to whether this is true or not but XP itself claims it to be the case. To check for yourself go to Run on the Start menu and type ‘gpedit.msc’ (without the quotes) and this opens the Group Policy Editor dialogue. Now work your way to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network and double click QOS Packet Scheduler. In the right hand pane click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth and a brief explanation of what it does will appear. To make the change right-click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth, click Properties then the Enabled button and set the Bandwidth Limit to zero, Exit the box, reboot and give it a try.