Someone has spent a LOT of time building a HOSTS file
that will help block a lot of the pop-ups. After I added this
content to my HOSTS file, the number of annoying pop-ups I receive has
decreased by something like 90%. See
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ for the hosts file.
Most excellent! Okay, I
admit, I'm a sick puppy, but I love the Knowledge Base. I regularly
surf the KB for new Exchange articles. Now I don't have to do this.
A web site called
KBAlertz provides a free service that will notify you via e-mail of
new KB articles for the products you choose. This is one of the most
kewl sites I have seen in a long time.
Who needs to type a huge URL like
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/prodtech/mailexch/opsguide/default.asp
when you can easily use
TinyURL's to provide you a URL like
http://tinyurl.com/xex Pretty kewl, eh? Check'em out!
The HFNETCHK program reports on missing service packs,
hot fixes, and security fixes for Windows NT/2000/XP, Internet Explorer,
Internet Information Server, and SQL Server.
- KB
Q303215
- KB
Q315665 for documentation
- KB
Q305385 for a HFNETCHK FAQ.
New and Kewl! The best tool
Microsoft has released in a LONG time is the Microsoft Baseline Security
Analyzer. This tool uses some of the HFNETCHK functions along with others to
show you (graphically) what your computer is missing as far as fixes and
makes recommendations as far as tools you need to run in order to fix it
(registry fixes, IIS Lock Down, etc...) Version 1.1 also does Exchange!
- Download the
MBSA tool here or
from Microsoft
- Read the
MBSA technical whitepaper
The QCHAIN program allows you to install multiple
Windows NT, 2000, and XP hot fixes at one time without rebooting.
- See
KB
Q314902 for more information
- Download from KB
Q296861
An updated (and greatly improved) Terminal Services
Client (called the Remote Desktop Connection) can be
downloaded.
The
Internet Explorer Admin Kit (IEAK) can help speed up the deployment and
configuration of many users copies of Internet Explorer; it is free to
download. You need to download the kit and install it. The first time you
run it, it will download the latest IE software and allow you to build
custom IEAK packages from which you can automate IE setups.
The "Run As" (a.k.a. the Secondary Logon Service) allows
you to remain logged in as a standard user, but run a single program in a
window logged on as an administrative user. Simply highlight the menu
selection you want to run, hold the SHIFT key down and right click on the
menu selection, then enter a user name, password, and domain name that has
the permissions for the thing you want to do. You can also use this
feature using the "RUNAS.EXE" executable program.
Protect the Administrator account and give
administrators and operators a separate
"admin" account that has only the permissions they need to do their job.
Pop-Up Stopper will help stop those annoying IE pop-ups.
Lavasoft's Ad-Aware can
get rid of some of that nasty "spy-ware" and "scumware" that some web sites
and shared programs install on your computer.