The Official Chatbox

[Guest victimized]

Until we get a chat box, I present to you the chatbox of this forum.

[yardbird]

did you see how fast AdvancedSetup moves! must have 5 browsers open LOL

[Guest victimized]

Yea LOL, he's doing good at his job like that though.

[yardbird]

Plus he's going over HiJack Logs.. wish I can see what it looks like from his side.... maybe I should ask for a pic?

[Guest victimized]

Plus he's going over HiJack Logs.. wish I can see what it looks like from his side.... maybe I should ask for a pic?

You can look at it, just can't reply.

[yardbird]

In the HiJack Log area... TRUE its in the rules Top Post in That forum "Only authorized support may respond to posts" Can you read a HiJack Log..... I'll email you mine.... tell me if it looks ok... I can read it, It takes forever.... Got to give credit to those that work in that forum.......

[Guest victimized]

Eh, I don't use it, so I don't get bothered.

[yardbird]

The day may come -- I hope not when someone will have to read our logs..... Its bad out there on the NET check out comments forum.....

[YoKenny1]

I read this forum but skip reading the logs as I want to comment as I can not believe that people are still running Windows SP2 that has been available for almost a year and even an occasional SP1 log.

I do comment on logs I see on avast! forum but they have good helpers over there as well.

[yardbird]

sound wisdom YoKenny1 Rules are on the top link: http://www.malwarebytes.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12264

you can't believe pc users are running xp (sp1 or 2)? go over to bleepingcomputer . got people there trying to run Win 95 & 98 amazing.... its a big world out there

[Guest victimized]

Am running windows xp sp2, but when i try to get sp3 it says that it will need a backup (just to be safe) though which is why i try not to take the risk.

[exile360]

Yes, whenever installing a Service Pack they always recommend a backup. If you've got the space and you want a "true" backup you can use a free image tool like Macrium Reflect.

[Guest victimized]

@ Exile. It has only asked me for a backup in windows xp sp3. Do I have to backup?

[exile360]

No, you don't have to, it's a "just in case" kind of thing which is usually advisable when making a significant system change. SP2 did the same for me back when I first installed it over SP1. As long as you know what you're doing you should be fine. There are a few known issues that can occur when installing SP3 but all of them can be fixed (at least the ones I know about), so it could also be advisable to either have a second PC handy to do research on fixing any issues that might arise or do some research in advance so you know what to do if a problem does occur. Be sure you have your original XP disc handy as well in case you need to boot from it to fix something.

[AdvancedSetup]

If you have XP Pro this will do a System State backup that you can schedule to run every day. It works MUCH better than System Restore though using a product like Acronis TrueImage is an even better choice. Then save to an external USB drive and if something ever does go very wrong you can easily restore with it.

http://www.acronis.com/

Requires KiXtart 4.53 from http://www.kixtart.org

If Not @LogonMode
  Break On
EndIf
Dim $SO
$SO=SetOption('Explicit','On')
$SO=SetOption('NoVarsInStrings','On')
$SO=SetOption('NoMacrosInStrings','On')
$SO=SetOption('WrapAtEOL','On')

If Not InStr(@ProductType,'2000')
 ;Shadow copy service and ntbackup only available on XP Pro or above
 ;Servers should use a more robust backup application but it will run
 ;on Server 2003 if you want it to.
  Dim $Folder,$Cleaned,$File
  $Folder='C:\Backup\'
 ;Check if the folder exists, if not create it otherwise continue on.
  If GetFileAttr($Folder) & 16
   ;Folder found do nothing
  Else
	MD $Folder
	If @ERROR
	  Quit @ERROR
	EndIf
  EndIf
  $Cleaned=CleanDirectory($Folder,'*.bkf',15)
 ;Change the 90 to the number of days you want to save the backup files
 ;If you only want to save 30 days then change to 30 anything older than the
 ;specified date will be deleted when this script runs.
 ;Note though that each backup takes about 500MB of disk space.
 ;So 30 days of backups would take about 15GB of disk space storage.
  BackupSystemState($Folder)
Else
  Quit 10
EndIf

Function BackupSystemState($Folder)
  Dim $Job
  If Not InStr(Right($Folder,1),'\') Exit 3 EndIf
  $Job = Trim(Join(Split(@DATE,'/'),'-'))+'_'+Trim(Join(Split(@TIME,':'),''))+'-SystemState'
  SHELL 'ntbackup backup systemstate /j '+ $Job +' /f ' + $Folder + $Job+'.bkf'
  Exit @ERROR
EndFunction

Function CleanDirectory($directories, $filter, optional $olderas, optional $countonly)
  Dim $rc, $timediff, $filename, $filefilter, $tempdir
  Dim $filecount, $dircount
  $dircount=0
  $filecount=0
  $olderas=IIf(Val($olderas)>0,Val($olderas),0)
  $countonly=IIf(Val($countonly),1,0)
  If Not (VarType($directories) & 8192)
	$directories=Split($directories,'')
  EndIf
  If Not (VarType($filter) & 8192)
	$filter=IIf(Trim($filter),$filter,'*.*')
	$filter=Split($filter,'')
  EndIf
  For Each $tempdir In $directories
	If $tempdir<>'' And Exist($tempdir)
	  For Each $filefilter In $filter
		If $filefilter<>''
		  $filefilter=fullfile($tempdir,$filefilter)
		  $filename=Dir($filefilter,1)
		  While $filename<>'' And @ERROR = 0
			If $filename<>'.' And $filename<>'..'
			  $filename=fullfile($tempdir,$filename)
			  If GetFileAttr($filename) & 16
				$rc=cleandirectory($filename,$filter,$olderas,$countonly)
				If InStr($rc,',')
				  $rc=Split($rc,',')
				  $dircount=$dircount+$rc[0]
				  $filecount=$filecount+$rc[1]
				EndIf
				$rc=SetFileAttr($filename,128)
				If Not $countonly
				  RD $filename
				  If Not @ERROR
					$dircount=$dircount+1
				  EndIf
				EndIf
			  Else
				$timediff=datemath(@DATE,Left(GetFileTime($filename),10))
				If $timediff>=$olderas
				  If $countonly
					$filecount=$filecount+1
				  Else
					$rc=SetFileAttr($filename,128)
					Del $filename /c /f /h
					If Not @ERROR
					  $filecount=$filecount+1
					EndIf
				  EndIf
				EndIf
			  EndIf
			EndIf
			$filename=Dir('',1)
		  Loop
		EndIf
	  Next
	EndIf
  Next
  $cleandirectory=''+$dircount+','+$filecount
EndFunction

Function FullFile($path1, optional $path2)
  Dim $a, $path3
  $a=UBound($path1)
  if $a>0
	$path3=$path1[$a]
	ReDim Preserve $path1[$a-1]
	$path1=fullfile($path1,$path3)
  EndIf
  If UBound($path1)=0
	$path1=$path1[0]
  EndIf
  If Right($path1,1)='\'
	$path1=Left($path1,Len($path1)-1)
  EndIf
  If $path2
	If Left($path2,1)='\'
	  $path2=Right($path2,Len($path2)-1)
	EndIf
	$fullfile=LCase($path1+'\'+$path2)
  Else
	$fullfile=$path1
  EndIf
EndFunction

Function DateMath($ExpD1,$ExpD2)
  Select
	Case InStr($ExpD1,'/') And InStr($ExpD2,'/')
	 ; two date passed - return daysbetween integer
	  $DateMath=SerialDate($ExpD1)-SerialDate($ExpD2)
	  If $DateMath<0
		$DateMath=$DateMath*-1
	  EndIf
	Case InStr($ExpD1,'/') and 1-InStr($ExpD2,'/')
	 ; date and a number passed - return date
	  $ExpD2=0+$ExpD2
	  $Datemath=SerialDate(SerialDate($ExpD1)+$ExpD2)
	Case 1; incorrect parameters passed
  EndSelect
EndFunction

Function SerialDate($ExpD)
  Dim $z,$h,$a,$b,$c,$y,$m,$d
  If InStr($ExpD,'/'); date passed
	$y=Val(SubStr($ExpD,1,4))
	$m=Val(SubStr($ExpD,6,2))
	$d=Val(SubStr($ExpD,9,2))
	If $m<3
	  $m=$m+12
	  $y=$y-1
	EndIf
   ; return an integer
	$SerialDate=$d+(153*$m-457)/5+365*$y+$y/4-$y/100+$y/400-306
  Else; integer passed
	$z=0+$ExpD+306; cast numeric
	$h=100*$z-25
	$a=$h/3652425
	$b=$a-$a/4
	$y=(100*$b+$h)/36525
	$c=$b+$z-365*$y-$y/4
	$m=(5*$c+456)/153
	$d=$c-(153*$m-457)/5
	If $m>12
	  $y=$y+1
	  $m=$m-12
	EndIf
	$m=Right('0'+$m,2)
	$d=Right('0'+$d,2)
   ; return a string date
	$SerialDate=''+$y+'/'+$m+'/'+$d
  EndIf
EndFunction

[exile360]

Agreed re image backup, that's why I recommended Macrium, it's free and does an image backup to just about any media and lets you create a linux based boot disc to use to restore the image. Of course, in Vista Ultimate I just use it's built in Complete PC Backup feature.

[AdvancedSetup]

Haven't tried that one. There is DriveImage XML from here: http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Private Edition: Private home users are allowed to use the Private Edition of DriveImage XML without charge. You are allowed to install DriveImage XML on your home PC. You must not use DriveImage XML commercially. No support is provided for the Private Edition.

But I use the script above at work and I can recover from just about any driver, malware mistake that someone makes in minutes, and leave the state of the computer exactly the way it was the day before it happened. Free and I can control the script

[exile360]

...and I can control the script

You love having all that power don't you .

[AdvancedSetup]

Well 10 years of scripting has left me with 1,690 Script Files. Most are just snippets of code to handle one off tasks. But a few are quite large scripts to do multiple tasks.

[exile360]

I'm not much for writing scripts (haven't really learned any scripting languages yet), but I have some nifty batch files that I use to automate stuff.

[AdvancedSetup]

Yep and I've seen some. Quite nice.

[exile360]

Thanks . I just made one recently that has Vista defrag all my HDD's then puts the computer to sleep (I've got over 1Tb of storage so it takes a while). I just start it up then go to bed or go to work.

[Raid]

Thanks . I just made one recently that has Vista defrag all my HDD's then puts the computer to sleep (I've got over 1Tb of storage so it takes a while). I just start it up then go to bed or go to work.

I've got that much potential space on one HD. <G>

I will have to buy more blank dvd-r's soon tho, the malware archive is getting rather large.

[Guest victimized]

@Exile. LOL what do you need 1 Tera byte memory for? On my computer I usually delete files that I don't need and along with Malwarebytes and Avira free and BitBefender free I have only tooken up 28.79 Gigabytes of memory where I only have 37.2 Gigabytes memory and 1257 Megabytes RAM.

[exile360]

I have many gigs of pictures, even more of music, and loads more than that of video. Every time I buy a new CD I immediately rip it to my PC so I can listen to it there and also on my MP3 player. I also record a lot of TV using Media Center, which takes up space quite quickly. I also have ISO images of all of my frequently used software and operating system discs and 2 of the drives I have are mirror images of one another and contain my most important stuff, so if one drive fails, I've got a backup . My C: drive only takes up about 28Gb (on a 74Gb Raptor).