To get the Firefox 3 configuration file type “about:config” at address bar.

1) Disable Extension Compatibility Checks

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extensions.checkCompatibility = False
extensions.checkUpdateSecurity = False

2) Location Bar (Set number Auto Complete URL at Address Bar)
This is a good hack to trim down that huge auto-complete list on your URL bar. By default it displays maximum 12 URL

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browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = #

Enter Number at # (3,10,12 etc)

3) Stop Displaying Website Icon (Favicon) in Address bar & On Tab

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browser.chrome.site_icons = False

4) Disable Prefetch (Helpful for frequent Google searcher, low-speed internet connection or low RAM)

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network.prefetch-next = False

5) Extend Spell check to forms

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layout.spellcheckDefault = 2

Change Value from 1 to 2

6) Disable Blinking Text

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browser.blink_allowed = False

7) Speed Tweaks

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network.http.pipelining false to true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 30 to 8
network.http.max-connections 30 to 96
network.http.max-connections-per-server 15 to 32
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server 6 to 8
network.http.pipelining.ssl false to true
network.http.proxy.pipelining false to true

8 ) Disable Annoying Browser Behavior

Code: Select all

dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar
dom.disable_window_move_resize
dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar
dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar

Set all of above to value False

9) Remove Tab Close Button from all Tab and set A single Close Button at Right

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browser.tabs.closeButtons = 3

Single Close Button to control all Firefox Opened Tabs. (value should be 3 and not 2 Thanks Andreas )

10) Disabler Browser Toolbar Tip

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browser.chrome.toolbar_tips = False

11) Show More Tabs on Single Firefox Window before Scrolling

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browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 75

Setting lesser value with reduce Tab width

12) Past Copy Content with Middlemouse Click

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middlemouse.paste = True

13) Scroll webpage in One Go

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mousewheel.withaltkey.action=1

14) Disable Delay Time While Installing Firefox Add-on

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security.dialog_enable_delay = 0

(Zero is number of seconds Firefox should wait while installing Add-on)

15) Increase History Undo Close Tab Limit ( Recently Closed Tabs )

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browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo=15

By default you can undo 10 recently closed tabs inorder to increase your history closed tabs. Change number 13 to as per your choice.

16) Open Firefox Default Search Bar Result in New Tab

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browser.search.openintab=True

17) Right Click View Source in Your Favorite Editor

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view_source.editor.external=True
view_source.editor.path= Path of Editor

(e.g. path C:\Program Files\npp.4.8.2.bin\notepad++.exe)

18) Enable/Disable Single Click to Select Whole URL in Address bar
To Enable Single Click Select URL of address bar use the below about:config Tweak

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browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = True

To disable Single Click Select

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browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = False

19) Emule/ed2k link association (Linux users)

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network.protocol-handler.app.ed2k= /usr/bin/ed2k
network.protocol-handler.external.ed2k = true

20) Fast Scrolling Across Tabs

Code: Select all

toolkit.scrollbox.scrollIncrement =75

( 75 is number of pixels to scroll at a time when scrolling the tab strip’s scrollbox. (Default: 20)

21) Auto Complete URL while You type at address Bar

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browser.urlbar.autoFill=True

Situation: Your internet connection dies and you’re not sure whether it’s your computer, router, cabling, reception (i.e. wireless), modem or ISP’s fault.

If your broadband connection dies for whatever reason, you can use a simple 1-2-3 method which 99% of the time works in reestablishing your connection.

After turning OFF everything, you turn things on in this order:

1. Your modem. Power it on and wait two minutes so it can establish its connection. It usually doesn’t take this long, but better safe than sorry.

Modem won’t turn off? Unplug the power cord. If it still won’t turn off, inspect it for a battery backup. If it has one, pop the battery out, wait 10 seconds (to ensure it goes completely off), then pop it back in.

2. Your router. The router will establish a connection much faster than your modem will (usually in less than 10 seconds).

Router won’t turn off? Unplug the power cord. Plug back in to turn it on.

3. Your computer. Boot the computer as you normally would.

You turn things on in this order because the computer can’t make a network connection without the router booted and its connection established. The router can’t make a connection without the modem booted and its connection established. So in order for everything to connect properly, the power-on order has to be modem, router, computer. Computer connects to router which connects to modem.

Further troubleshooting tips

Modem will not establish a connection to the ISP

This is either the ISP’s fault or the modem’s fault. You need to call your ISP to troubleshoot this one. They (should) be able to confirm whether or not you need a replacement modem.

If it is the modem’s fault, in most instances the ISP will replace your modem free of charge if it was originally provided by them.

There is also the possibility the cabling going to the modem from the ISP might be faulty. The ISP will determine whether or not this is the case.

Modem will not establish a connection to the ISP at specific times of the day

This is actually a more common problem than you’d think. If you encounter the instance where your broadband connection stops only at very specific hours of the day, this is an instance where weather is affecting the connection. It normally happens at dawn or dusk where the ambient temperature outside changes enough to cause enough condensation where a connection filter on the pole fails. Once the condensation is gone, the connection magically (but not really) reestablishes itself.

Solution: ISP needs to send a tech out, get on the pole and replace a filter (or two).

You know if you have this problem if your connection cuts out at very specific times of the day for about 2 to 4 hours, then comes back. It should be noted that this is not a problem you can fix. The ISP has to take care of it.

It should also be noted that the ISP absolutely positively will not send out a tech unless your replace your modem first (because the ISP will always and without fail blame your equipment before anything else).

Router will not establish a connection to the modem

There’s an old saying in IT: 99% of all LAN problems are cabling.

The same reigns true with your small network setup at home. If a router won’t establish a connection to the router, replace the network cable first.

If the network connection still will not establish, consider replacing the router as there’s not much else you can do.

Wireless router will not broadcast

If you have a wireless router and you cannot make a connection to it over the air even if the computer is right next to it, change the channel. You have 11 to choose from in your router’s administration program. The channel you have chosen is most likely 6. Change to 11. If that doesn’t work, try 3.

This is assuming your wireless card still works properly.

Computer will not establish a connection to the router

Change your network cable first. If that doesn’t work, you have at least 3 other open physical ports on your router. Try a different one.

Network cards very rarely fail (as there’s not much to break). I don’t suggest replacing a NIC unless absolutely necessary.

Listing files and directories

ls (list)

When you first login, your current working directory is your home directory. Your home directory has the same name as your user-name, for example, ee91ab, and it is where your personal files and subdirectories are saved.

To find out what is in your home directory, type:

% ls

The ls command lists the contents of your current working directory.



There may be no files visible in your home directory, in which case, the UNIX prompt will be returned. Alternatively, there may already be some files inserted by the System Administrator when your account was created.

ls does not, in fact, cause all the files in your home directory to be listed, but only those ones whose name does not begin with a dot (.) Files beginning with a dot (.) are known as hidden files and usually contain important program configuration information. They are hidden because you should not change them unless you are very familiar with UNIX!!!

To list all files in your home directory including those whose names begin with a dot, type:

% ls -a

As you can see, ls -a lists files that are normally hidden.



ls is an example of a command which can take options: -a is an example of an option. The options change the behavior of the command. There are online manual pages that tell you which options a particular command can take, and how each option modifies the behavior of the command.


Making Directories

mkdir (make directory)

We will now make a subdirectory in your home directory to hold the files you will be creating and using in the course of this tutorial. To make a subdirectory called unixstuff in your current working directory type:

% mkdir unixstuff

To see the directory you have just created, type:

% ls

Changing to a different directory

cd (change directory)

The command cd directory means change the current working directory to 'directory'. The current working directory may be thought of as the directory you are in, i.e. your current position in the file-system tree.

To change to the directory you have just made, type:

% cd unixstuff

Type ls to see the contents (which should be empty)


The directories . and ..

Still in the unixstuff directory, type:

% ls -a

The current directory (.)

In UNIX, (.) means the current directory, so typing:

% cd .

Code: Select all

NOTE: there is a space between cd and the dot

means stay where you are (the unixstuff directory).

This may not seem very useful at first, but using (.) as the name of the current directory will save a lot of typing.

The parent directory (..)

(..) means the parent of the current directory, so typing:

% cd ..

will take you one directory up the hierarchy (back to your home directory). Try it now.

Note: typing cd with no argument always returns you to your home directory. This is very useful if you are lost in the file system.


Pathnames

pwd (print working directory)

Pathnames enable you to work out where you are in relation to the whole file-system. For example, to find out the absolute pathname of your home-directory, type cd to get back to your home-directory and then type:

% pwd

The full pathname will look something like this:

/home/its/ug1/ee51vn

which means that ee51vn (your home directory) is in the sub-directory ug1 (the group directory),which in turn is located in the its sub-directory, which is in the home sub-directory, which is in the top-level root directory called " / " .



More about home directories and pathnames

Understanding pathnames

First type cd to get back to your home-directory, then type

% ls unixstuff

to list the conents of your unixstuff directory.

Now type

% ls backups

You will get a message like this:

backups: No such file or directory

The reason is, backups is not in your current working directory. To use a command on a file (or directory) not in the current working directory (the directory you are currently in), you must either cd to the correct directory, or specify its full pathname. To list the contents of your backups directory, you must type

% ls unixstuff/backups

~ (your home directory)

Home directories can also be referred to by the tilde ~ character. It can be used to specify paths starting at your home directory. So typing

% ls ~/unixstuff

will list the contents of your unixstuff directory, no matter where you currently are in the file system.

What do you think

% ls ~

would list?

What do you think

% ls ~/..

would list?

SUMMERY

Dialers, Trojans, Viruses, and Worms Oh My!

If you use a computer, read the newspaper, or watch the news, you will know about computer viruses or other malware. These are those malicious programs that once they infect your machine will start causing havoc on your computer. What many people do not know is that there are many different types of infections that are categorized in the general category of Malware.

Malware - Malware is programming or files that are developed for the purpose of doing harm. Thus, malware includes computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, hijackers, and certain type of adware.

This article will focus on those malware that are considered viruses, trojans, worms, and viruses, though this information can be used to remove the other types of malware as well. We will not go into specific details about any one particular infection, but rather provide a broad overview of how these infections can be removed. For the most part these instructions should allow you to remove a good deal of infections, but there are some that need special steps to be removed and these won't be covered under this tutorial.

Before we continue it is important to understand the generic malware terms that you will be reading about.

Adware - A program that generates popups on your computer or displays advertisements. It is important to note that not all adware programs are necessarily considered malware. There are many legitimate programs that are given for free that display ads in their programs in order to generate revenue. As long as this information is provided up front then they are generally not considered malware.

Backdoor - A program that allows a remote user to execute commands and tasks on your computer without your permission. These types of programs are typically used to launch attacks on other computers, distribute copyrighted software or media, or hack other computers.

Dialler - A program that typically dials a premium rate number that has per minute charges over and above the typical call charge. These calls are with the intent of gaining access to pornographic material.

Hijackers - A program that attempts to hijack certain Internet functions like redirecting your start page to the hijacker's own start page, redirecting search queries to a undesired search engine, or replace search results from popular search engines with their own information.

Spyware - A program that monitors your activity or information on your computer and sends that information to a remote computer without your knowledge.

Trojan - A program that has been designed to appear innocent but has been intentionally designed to cause some malicious activity or to provide a backdoor to your system.

Virus - A program that when run, has the ability to self-replicate by infecting other programs and files on your computer. These programs can have many effects ranging from wiping your hard drive, displaying a joke in a small box, or doing nothing at all except to replicate itself. These types of infections tend to be localized to your computer and not have the ability to spread to another computer on their own. The word virus has incorrectly become a general term that encompasses trojans, worms, and viruses.

Worm - A program that when run, has the ability to spread to other computers on its own using either mass-mailing techniques to email addresses found on your computer or by using the Internet to infect a remote computer using known security holes.

How these infections start

Just like any program, in order for the program to work, it must be started. Malware programs are no different in this respect and must be started in some fashion in order to do what they were designed to do. For the most part these infections run by creating a configuration entry in the Windows Registry in order to make these programs start when your computer starts.

Unfortunately, though, in the Windows operating system there are many different ways to make a program start which can make it difficult for the average computer user to find manually. Luckily for us, though, there are programs that allow us to cut through this confusion and see the various programs that are automatically starting when windows boots. The program we recommend for this, because its free and detailed, is Autoruns from Sysinternals.

When you run this program it will list all the various programs that start when your computer is booted into Windows. For the most part, the majority of these programs are safe and should be left alone unless you know what you are doing or know you do not need them to run at startup.

At this point, you should download Autoruns and try it out. Just run the Autoruns.exe and look at all the programs that start automatically. Don't uncheck or delete anything at this point. Just examine the information to see an overview of the amount of programs that are starting automatically. When you feel comfortable with what you are seeing, move on to the next section.

How to remove these infections

We have finally arrived at the section you came here for. You are most likely reading this tutorial because you are infected with some sort of malware and want to remove it. With this knowledge that you are infected, it is also assumed that you examined the programs running on your computer and found one that does not look right. You did further research by checking that program against our Startup Database or by searching in Google and have learned that it is an infection and you now want to remove it.

If you have identified the particular program that is part of the malware, and you want to remove it, please follow these steps.

1. Download and extract the Autoruns program by Sysinternals to C:\Autoruns

2. Reboot into Safe Mode so that the malware is not started when you are doing these steps. Many malware monitor the keys that allow them to start and if they notice they have been removed, will automatically replace that startup key. For this reason booting into safe mode allows us to get past that defense in most cases.

3. Navigate to the C:\Autoruns folder you created in Step 1 and double-click on autoruns.exe.

4. When the program starts, click on the Options menu and enable the following options by clicking on them. This will place a checkmark next to each of these options.

1. Include empty locations

2. Verify Code Signatures

3. Hide Signed Microsoft Entries

5. Then press the F5 key on your keyboard to refresh the startups list using these new settings.

6. The program shows information about your startup entries in 8 different tabs. For the most part, the filename you are looking for will be found under the Logon or the Services tabs, but you should check all the other tabs to make sure they are not loading elsewhere as well. Click on each tab and look through the list for the filename that you want to remove. The filename will be found under the Image Path column. There may be more than one entry associated with the same file as it is common for malware to create multiple startup entries. It is important to note that many malware programs disguise themselves by using the same filenames as valid Microsoft files. it is therefore important to know exactly which file, and the folder they are in, that you want to remove.

7. Once you find the entry that is associated with the malware, you want to delete that entry so it will not start again on the next reboot. To do that right click on the entry and select delete. This startup entry will now be removed from the Registry.

8. Now that we made it so it will not start on boot up, you should delete the file using My Computer or Windows Explorer. If you can not see the file, it may be hidden so you will need to enable it.

9. When you are finished removing the malware entries from the Registry and deleting the files, reboot into normal mode as you will now be clean from the infection.

The Firewall

A firewall is a hardware device or software application that sits between your computer and the Internet and blocks all Internet traffic from reaching your computer that you have not specifically requested. What this means is that if you browse to a web site, the firewall will allow the traffic from that web site to reach your computer and therefore yourself. On the other hand, if you did not request information from that web site, and the web site sent traffic to you, it would be denied from reaching your computer because you did not specifically ask for it. This behavior can be changed if you wish, and we will discuss that further in the document.

Firewalls for the home user can either be a piece of hardware or a piece of software. The differences will be discussed below.

A Hardware Firewall is a device that sits between your Internet connection and the rest of the computers plugged into it. These firewalls usually come with a built in hub that allows you to connect multiple computers to it in order for them all to be able to share one Internet connection. These firewalls provide protection to all the computers connected to it using a technology called Network Address Translation, or NAT. This protection is performed by all the protected machines using private IP addresses, such as 192.168.1.X, that can not be reached via the Internet. The firewall then convert these internal IP addresses to the single public IP address that is assigned to the firewall. This makes it so that your hardware firewall accepts all incoming requests you asked for and then forwards them on to the requesting internal computer. Using this method, outside machines are never able to connect directly to your computers.

A Personal Firewall is a piece of software installed on each computer that needs to be protected. This software then filters all incoming, and sometimes outgoing traffic, and only allows only data that has been requested or explicitly allowed to pass through. Personal firewalls tend to be more feature rich than hardware versions, but they do not have the ability to allow you to share your Internet connection with multiple computers on the network.

The decision as to which type of firewall you to use depends on what you plan on using it for. If you would like to protect just one computer, then a personal software based firewall is more than adequate. If you would like to protect multiple computers, then a hardware based solution may be most cost effective. Some people even state that you should use both a hardware firewall to protects your network and a personal firewall that further protects your computer. Though this is not a bad idea, it may be cost prohibitive for many users. If money is not an option, then using both will add an extra level of security as well as provide you with the greater functionality found in personal firewalls.

For the rest of this tutorial we will predominantly focus on personal firewalls that are installed on your computer, though many of the topics discussed here apply to hardware firewalls as well.

Firewall Features

When choosing your firewall it is important to pay attention to what features they offer you as these features can make a large difference in how your computer is protected. For some people certain features are more important than others, but in terms of security the most important are inbound and outbound filtering, application protection, notifications, stealth mode. These features and others will be discussed below:

Inbound and Outbound Filtering

Filtering is when a firewall examines information passing through it and determines if that information is allowed to be transmitted and received or should be discarded based on rules or filters that have been created. This function is the primary function of a firewall and how it handles these tasks if very important for your security. Most people feel inbound filtering, which is the processing of inbound data towards your computer, is the most important function of a firewall. Outbound filtering, though, plays just as an important role for securing your computer. You may have had malware installed on your computer without your knowledge, and suddenly when you install a firewall with outbound filtering, you will find that software on your computer is attempting to transmit data to a remote host somewhere on the Internet. Now, not only do you know that this software is installed, but the outbound filtering stopped it from passing on private information.

These filters can also be modified to allow certain computers on the Internet to reach your computer or for certain applications on your computer to transmit data to the Internet. How these rules should be modified is determined by your needs. For example if you would like remote users to be able to connect you remotely using remote desktop you will need to open up the port associated with Remote Desktop, which is tcp port 3389, in order for your firewall to allow that traffic to flow through. An example of this can be seen below where a particular remote computer is given permission to access the computer behind the firewall.



Stealth Mode

It is important for your firewall to not only block requests to reach your computer, but to also make it appear as if your computer does not even exist on the Internet. When you are connected to the Internet and your computer can be not be detected via probes to your computer, you are in what is called Stealth mode. Hackers have the ability to detect if you are on the Internet by probing your machine with special data and examining the results. When you are in Stealth mode the firewall does not send this information back making it seem like you are not even connected. Due to this hackers will not continue targeting your computer as they will think you are not online.

Privacy protection

Many firewalls now have the ability to block spyware, hijackers, and adware from reaching your computer. This allows you to protect your computer from being infected with software that is known to reveal private information about what you do on the Internet or other computing habits. These features are usually bundled into the commercial versions of the firewall software packages.

Application Integrity

Application Integrity is when the firewall monitors the files on your computer for modification in the file or how they are launched. When it detects such a change it will notify the user of this and not allow that application to run or transmit data to the Internet. Many times these modifications may have been part of an upgrade, but if it was modified by a malicious program you will now be made aware of it.

Intrusion detection

Intruders use various methods to penetrate the security of your computer. Intrusion detection scans incoming data for signatures of known methods and notifies you when such attacks are recognized. This allows you to see what means a hacker is trying to use to hack your computer.

Notifications

Notifications allow you to see the activity of what is happening on your firewall and for the firewall to notify you in various ways about possible penetration attempts on your computer.

Firewall Monitoring and Good Practice

Monitoring

Regardless of the firewall you use it is good practice to monitor the firewall logs occasionally. With good monitoring of your logs your will increase your security immediately. Statistically most hacks could have been avoided if people monitored their logs as most hackers will probe a computer before they hack it. If an administrator of the computer had noticed these probes, they may have been able to determine if their computers were vulnerable to what was being probed for. When you first install your firewall and examine the logs you will be simply amazed as to the amount of people who are attempting to access your computer without your knowledge.

There are three main reasons for monitoring your log files and are discussed below:

Preventative Measures: By monitoring the logs of your firewall you can see what ports and services hackers are attempting to exploit. You can then use this information to make sure your computer is secure from these exploits. For example, if you notice on your logs that many people are scanning your computer for port 3127 and did some research, you will find that it could be that people or viruses are looking for backdoors into your computer left by an early variant of the MyDoom virus. You can then make sure your computers are not affected by this potential exploit.

Forensics: If your computer gets compromised by a remote computer, and you find the files placed on your computer by the hacker you can determine the date and time that they were placed there. Using this information you can check your log archives for activity during that time and date to determine how the hacker was able to penetrate your computer. This information can then be used to secure your computer.

Reporting to the authorities: Using the information found in the log files will allow you to present information to authorities in the case of a successful hack or an attempt. The logs will give you the IP address of the offending computer, the method used, and the time and date it was performed. This information can be given to the appropriate ISP or authorities in case of criminal activities.

Good Practice

It is good practice to occasionally examine any custom rules or filters that you have created for allowing incoming traffic or outbound traffic to or from your computer. You may at time allow certain protocol to be allowed to connect to your computer for various reasons including file sharing, mail, ftp, or web. Many times these rules are created, and then they are forgotten and remain open. It is good practice to examine your firewalls configuration occasionally to make sure these rules are disabled if they are no longer needed. If you keep these rules open when you do not need them, you are creating a potential avenue for hackers to compromise your computer.

Common Issues with Firewalls

It is important to note that almost all Internet applications are created with the thought that there is no firewall in place that could change how these applications can communicate with the Internet. Sometimes using a firewall can make certain features of the applications no longer work properly. In the majority of cases, these services can be enabled to work by changing certain settings in your firewall to allow incoming traffic to be received by your computer. When this type of situation occurs you can create a custom rule that allows that particular application to work.

An example of this would be if you have Windows XP Professional and would like to be able to remotely connect to your Remote Desktop from another computer. Since firewalls by default block all incoming traffic to your computer when you attempt to connect to Remote Desktop the connection will be denied. If you search on Remote Desktop using Google you will find that Remote Desktop uses TCP port 3389 to accept incoming connection. You would then change your rules on your firewall to allow incoming connections to TCP port 3389, thus allowing you to connect to your computer remotely.

Therefore, when using applications with a firewall and you find that there are problems, you should search the Internet on how to use that program with a firewall and what ports should be opened. Then you would create a custom rule that would allow the specific traffic to reach your computer.

How to perform and automatic repair of Windows Vista using Startup Repair

If you are having problems starting Windows Vista, then your first step is to use the automated repair tool called Startup Repair. Startup Repair is a diagnostic tool that can be accessed via the Windows Recovery Environment. In order to start the Windows Recovery Environment you must boot your computer off of the Windows Vista DVD that you purchased or that came with your computer. To start this process, insert the Vista DVD into your DVD drive and turn your computer on. Your computer will start and you should see your BIOS listing your hardware and other information. When that information is cleared, your computer will see that a bootable DVD is inserted and present a prompt.

As you want to boot the computer from the Windows Vista DVD you need to press a key, and any key will do, on your keyboard when you see the above prompt. After you press the key, you should hear your DVD reader spinning up and then you will see a black screen with a white status bar at the bottom stating Windows is loading files.... After a while, the status bar will turn completely white and you will see a screen stating that Windows is loading. The Windows Setup environment will continue to load and when finished you will be presented with a screen similar below.



At this screen you should configure the Language to install, Time and currency format, and Keyboard or input method options so that they are set correctly. When done, press the Next button. You will now be at the main Windows Vista setup screen where you would normally install Vista on to a computer.



As we want to repair the computer, you should click on the Repair your computer option. This will bring you to a new screen where the repair process will look for all Windows Vista installations on your computer. When done you will be presented with the System Recovery Options dialog box.

Select the Vista installation you would like to repair and if there are drivers you need to load in order for Vista to access any of your drives or other components , then you should click on the Load Drivers button to load them. When ready, press the Next button to continue.

If the repair process does not detect any problems starting Vista, it will display a list of recovery tools. These recovery tools are discussed further in the Advanced Tools Overview section below. As we want to perform an automated repair, we would click on the Startup Repair option under this list of tools. It should also be noted that if the repair process detected that you previously had problems starting Vista, instead of displaying the list of recovery tools, it would have automatically started the Startup Repair tool for you. When the Startup Repair tool starts, it will scan your Vista installation for any problems. If problems are found it will attempt to fix these problems automatically.

The automatic repair process can take quite a while. So please be patient as Vista attempts to find and repair any problems on your computer. During this process your computer may reboot multiple times, which is normal and nothing to be worried about. During this process you may also be presented with a dialog box asking if you would like to restore your computer using System Restore.

You should click on the Cancel button at this prompt because there is a better System Restore option that can be used from the advanced tools list which we will cover later. For now, just click on the Cancel button and continue with the Startup Repair process. The repair process will now continue to scan your installation for errors to fix. Once the repair process has completed, if it could not find any problems, you will be given an option to send your information to Microsoft.

When sending this information, it is important to note that you will not receive a response back from Microsoft with a solution. Instead they use this information to determine if this is a bug that a lot of people are having and that they need to rectify or if they need to create a support article on how to fix it. If you wish to send the information, then click on the Send information about this problem (recommended) option. Otherwise, click on the Don't send option. You will now be at a summary screen.

You can now click on the Finish button to reboot your computer to exit the repair process or if you would like to try some more advanced options then click on the View advanced options for system recovery and support. We recommend that you try the advanced tools if the Startup Repair tool could not fix your problems. You can also reach the advanced tools at any time during a Startup Repair scan by clicking on the Cancel button.

Advanced Tools Overview

Vista provides advanced repair tools that you can use to fix problems with your Windows Vista installation. To reach this list of tools you would start your computer using the above process and either press Cancel during the Startup Repair process, or if no problems were detected, the list will automatically be shown. The repair process will now display the System Recovery Options screen.

This screen provides access to five tools that can help you repair your Vista installation. These tools are:

Startup Repair
Startup Repair is an automated repair process that scans your Vista installation for problems and attempts to automatically fix them. When you select to repair Vista from the Vista setup screen, and Vista detects problems, this process will be started automatically. You can cancel this process at any time to access the other repair tools described below. The Startup Repair process has already been introduced above when we discussed performing an automated repair.


System Restore
System Restore allows you to restore your computer's configuration, driver information, and programs to a previous state while leaving your existing data intact. Using this option can typically fix a installation's problem if it is not associated with faulty hardware. In order to use this option, you must have had System Restore enabled in Vista so that there are restore points available to restore to. To learn how to use this feature you should read this tutorial: Using System Restore from the Vista Windows Recovery Environment.


Windows Complete PC Restore
Complete PC Restore is a feature that allows you to restore your entire computing environment from a backup image that you created previously. The ability to create backup images for Complete PC Restore is only available in Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise. If you have tried all possible steps to repair your computer, and have a Complete PC Restore backup image available from when your computer was operating properly, then you can use this repair option to restore that image. To learn how to use this feature you should read this tutorial: Using Windows Complete PC Restore to restore your computer.


Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool
Windows Vista comes with a diagnostic tool that allows you to check the memory installed in your computer for errors. This will allow you to determine if the actual memory (RAM) hardware installed in your computer is creating errors. To learn how to use this feature you should read this tutorial: How to use the Vista Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool.


Command Prompt
The Command Prompt repair tool allows you to open a command prompt that you can use to access the files and registry information on your computer. This is an invaluable tool for removing security threats such as worms, rootkits, and other malware from your computer and to be able to access files when Vista fails to boot up.To learn how to use this feature you should read this tutorial: How to use the Command Prompt in the Vista Windows Recovery Environment.

You start to shut down every program running on the computer hoping that you will be lucky and be able to delete the file, but it still won't delete. What do you do? This tutorial is designed to answer these questions and provide methods that will allow you to delete or remove practically any file in Windows.

4 Steps to working with in use or open files

When attempting to delete or rename a file or folder you should follow these steps in the following order:

1. The first, and easiest method, is to shut down any programs that may be currently using that file. When a program is using a file it tends to exclusively lock that file so it can't be modified or renamed while it's in use. By shutting down the program using it, you unlock that file or folder so that you can work with it.

2. Reboot your computer. When you reboot your computer, this will shut down any open programs and hopefully on reboot allow you to work with the file in question.

3. Reboot into safe mode and try to rename or delete the folder. When you are in safe mode a limited number of programs start up automatically. This provides a greater chance or being able to rename or delete a stubborn file or folder.

4. Last but not least, download a file unlocking utility. File unlocking programs will find the processes that are using the file and attempt to close them or disconnect their connection to the file or folder so they can be deleted, renamed, or otherwise manipulated. These programs tend to do the work for you so you do not have to deal with the headache of finding the program that is keeping a file open. In the next section we explain how to use one such program, called Unlocker.

Using Unlocker to work with in use and open files

If you are still reading this, then you must be at step 4 above. To help solve this problem, we introduce a program called Unlocker. Unlocker is a program that kicks in when Windows can't delete or rename a file and provides a series of options for enabling you to do so.

The first step is to download the Unlocker program. This program can be downloaded from the following link:

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/#download

Once the program is downloaded, save it to your desktop and double-click on the file to start the setup program. When the installation program starts, keep pressing the Next button until you get to the Choose Components page

Make sure there is a checkmark next to each component and then press the Install button. Unlocker will install and when it is completed you should click on the Finish button.

Now that the program has been installed, Unlocker will have added a autorun statement to your registry to start the Unlocker Assistant when Windows starts. This background program stays resident and detects when you try to delete, copy, rename, or move a file that is in use. When it detects one of these operations, it automatically open up a Window in order to assist you in working with the file.

For example, we are trying to delete a file called D:\Test.txt. When we try to delete the file Windows tells us the file is being user by another person or program and that it cannot delete it. It also suggests we close any prog