David H. Lipman

See... New Database numbering format

Are you sure this isn't "a joke" ? There is a stark difference between a random and unique instance of lets say a 10 yr old girl walking through a park and a 60 yr old man that offers the little girl a lollipop versus an organized holiday where such an event is not only normal but expected. However there have been instances of tainted candy, the so-called razor in the apple, etc. Thus Halloween Trick or Treating is not the same Today as it was say in the '70s. Personally, my feeling there is the reason for giving candy on Halloween is to provide children high calorie content before the winter.

Actually, I don't see it as correct. From what I see it is; YYYY.MM.DD.## Where; YYYY = Year MM = Month DD = Day ## = Update number for 24 hour period of day DD

Malware Today is deliberately bloated so you can't submit it to Virus Total and other web sites because they have a maximum size submission limitation. Thus the malicious actors make them to be greater than the maximum, max., size. Often you will find a 24MB EXE can be compressed in a RAR or ZIP file that is a few hundred kilobytes in size. However sometimes the EXE is bearing a large PDF, MOV or other legitimate data file such that the compression within an archive file is not much less than the size of the EXE file.

I believe what the OP wanted was a .MSI because of the ease of pushing an application through AD as a GPO.

Windows works by NetBIOS over IP and each PC must have a unique name. Each computer announces itself in the "workgroup" as a named computer with an IP address. Computers use the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) to access the shares of another computer on the network. This is in the form of \\Machine_Name\Share_Name so no matter what IP address Machine_Name is assigned, you can access the NT Share. If the IP address is static you could alternatively use \\IP_Address\Share_Name . Often that is done in a test situation under dynamically addressed computers. Alternatively one can "map" a drive letter to the share via the Command Line [ net use Drive_Letter: \\Machine_Name\Share-Name , Ex: net use P: \\Orange-PC\data ] or via the Windows GUI. No computers are forced to use only static IP addresses. If the computers are NOT Active Directory Domain participants then they are in a Workgroup environment. While each computer can use a different "workgroup name" it is easier to have computers in a workgroup use the same workgroup name. In Windows XP and above the default "workgroup name" is; workgroup. In the attached graphic you will see the computer was named "dlipman-1" and is in the workgroup "workgroup" and if I have a NT Share on the computer dlipman-1 called "data" other computers can access the data share as; \\dlipman-1\data [ of course appropriate permissions of the share have to be set to gain entry from a computer other than DLipman-1 ]

When on the University's network you are expected to act properly on their network. If you are acting in a way you don't like to be "snooped" then simply don't do it. Otherwise get your own ISP such as from a broadband cellular card.

no1texan: Please provide the URL of where you fond that.

For all intents and purposes, hardware such as the video card, RAM, CPU and motherboard can not get infected. It is the software that runs/communicates with the hardware that can be infected. For the most part, hardware can NOT be infected. It was mentioned that there is a RootKit that can compromise the system BIOS (Basic Input Output System). The BIOS is a set of low-level routines that works as middle-ware that allows any Operating System to communicate and work with the hardware of the motherboard. In the past the best that a malware could do is erase the BIOS or corrupt it. Recently, in China. a RootKit (which is a trojan and not a virus) was found to replace the the factory BIOS with a malicious BIOS. However, this is not easily accomplished as if a mistake is made it would leave the computer incapable of booting into the OS. Until last year, this was mostly a science experiment and nothing capable was seen "in the wild". As of this year we now know it is a possibility but an extremely remote possibility so one can generally discount that as a possibility. There are basically two major classes of malware that one does have to be concerned with; viruses and trojans. The term virus is widely misused. most think all malware are viruses. Not true. The overarching concept of malicious software is "malware" for Malicious Software. All viruses are malware but not all malware are viruses. Viruses are a class of malware that is able to "self replicate" or spread on its own means and without intervention. Trojans are malware that needs assistance to be spread. The vast majority of malware seen Today are trojans. For the most part, the malware infects the Operating System and software components such that the computer does the desired work the malicious author intended it to perform. This is the major worry. What malware is in the system, what is it trying to do and what modifications to the Operating System has been made. In short, don't worry about the hardware. For 99.9% of malware seen in the wild, wiping the hard disk of its disk format and reinstalling the OS of choice will eliminate the malware. For the vast majority of cases of malware infection, depending on what it is and the extent of what has been done to the OS, the system can be cleaned of the malware. In some organizations they may have a policy in which there is malware, the computer must be wiped and the OS reinstalled (using an image). For the home user, most of the time, the home user will elect to clean their computer using anti malware software. There are those however that choose to wipe and reinstall the OS at the slightest hint of infection. That would depend ONLY if it is a virus. Attaching an infected hard disk may transfer to an uninfected computer. One type of computer virus is the AutoRun Worm. If the uninfected computer has AutoPlay/AutoRun enabled and the infected hard disk has an AutoRun worm then the uninfected computer could in turn become infected. Most of the time this isn't the case. Disabling AutoRun/AutoPlay on the uninfected computer would mitigate that threat. The other case is where the infected hard disk has executable files and you execute them off the infected hard disk. When connecting such a drive to another computer you ONLY grab/obtain data files. Not programs or executables. In any event, the uninfected computer *MUST* have an anti virus application that is fully up-to-date on it. That will mitigate most threats where connecting an infected drive might compromise and uninfected computer.

Happy Birthday Georgi !

Thank you for the update.

There is no doubt about it, situational awareness demands examination from the POV that a malware can be used for cyberterrorism. The naivety of the Internet user coupled with systems connected to to the Internet means there is palatable threat. You never know if a group such Al Qaeda could one day launch an attack on the nation's power grid. One such attack was already performed on a city in Brazil. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/hacking_the_bra.html

The OS keeps a backup of the Registry. The objective is to restore the backup to their original location. I have heard of booting into a live CD or placing the drive on a surrogate computer and effecting that fix but I haven't experienced it so I don't have advice to give. In my cases, I have opted to place the affected OS drive on a surrogate computer, taking ownership of the files and backing them up. Then reinstalling the drive in the affected computer and reinstalling the OS from scratch. You can contact Dell an obtain a CDROM for the OS and trying a Registry restoration via the Recovery Console, a rapir installation or wiping and reinstalling the OS from scratch. Maybe someone will follow with better and/or additional advice.

That means the Registry was corrupted. Without it, the system can't boot. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

All Today's malware can't be considered "cyberterrorism." Some, yes. Majority, no. When we saw the Brain boot sector and the Stoned virus it was all about bragging rights. Today's malware mass goal is monetary profit. There are however facets of "cyberterrorism" such as the Stuxnet which was a true cyber missile aimed at the Iranian centrifuges, the attacks by Russia against the former Soviet block country Georgia and the hacktevism we see for all sorts of political reasons and the PRC state malware created by the PLA.

Thank you for informing us. Rest in Peace Matt.

Addendum: Now that you have updated the BIOS to the last version for this MB, it wouldn't hurt to run the Memtest+ utility again.

Eventually you'll see 64bit OS' as the prevalent OS since the Windows OS is full of bloat and the max. RAM for Win32 is ~4GB (minus hardware this leaves 3.25~3.5GB free RAM). The amount of RAM that a 64bit OS is much greater, 2^64, but is limited by Microsoft's coding.

I didn't look to see if there are Win7 drivers. So that was what is meant by "appropriate drivers". When I look back at post #23 and the URL I provided you, yes there are Win7 drivers. If this is Win7/32, double the RAM to 4GB. If this is Win7/64, increase the RAM to 6GB, preferably max it out at 8GB.

Only if there are appropriate drivers and you have enough RAM.

I'm out of ideas. But I will think about it.

"Perform a C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall) which resets the chipset. Power down, remove power cord from the PSU for 2 minutes and then power up." Not too important. What is important is that "it shows 2104 version". So now we get back to the ORIGINAL problem. On a cold boot, are you still getting the Beep Codes ?

I don't understand what you mean by CPR. To me, CPR is Coronary Pulmonary Resuscitation which I am sure isn't what you mean. When it boots, does the system now show P5B BIOS version 2104 ? If yes, what about Beep Codes upon a cold boot ?

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5B/#download --> "OS: DOS" --> "BIOS-Utilities" --> "ASUS Update V7.10.05 Install Program for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista & Windows" Extract files and install. Then use the ASUSUpdate utility to "Update BIOS from file" pointing the utility to the folder where you previously downloaded the P5B BIOS v2104 .ROM file.

It doesn't matter how you download it. BIOS upgrade instructions