Clean: Using CCleaner, I clean the PCs including all the browser caches and various other application caches. (Read my introduction to CCleaner here.)

Disk Cleanup: I run disk cleanup ($ leanmgr) on all the drives.

Registry: I run a registry cleaner (these days CCleaner itself) to clean the registries, after taking a backup of the current registry set.

Virus Scan: I run an entire PC scan, not just the scan across the “commonly infected areas”.

Defragment: Using the disk defrgamenter ($ defrag –a <drive>), I first analyze all the drives and if necessary defragment the recommended ones.

Updatedb: I update the Cygwin file index.

Backup: I take a backup of all important data on my Transcend Extensible Hard disk. A good idea, don’t you think?

Image Sources: CCleaner, Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter.

Post from: EveryJoe

My Weekly Scheduled Jobs

In one such recent attack, Robert Graham, the CEO of Errata Security, came to a few startling conclusions based on the passwords published showing what should not be your password:

• 16% of passwords matched a person’s first name
• 14% of passwords were patterns on the keyboard
• 4% are variations of the word “password”
• 5% of passwords are pop-culture references
• 4% of passwords appear to reference things nearby
• 3% of passwords are “emo” words
• 3% are “don’t care” words
• 1.3% are passwords people saw in movies/TV
• 1% are sports related

You can read the complete report here.

Password management is a big hassle that every Internet user has to deal with today. Apart from the regular ones that I use, I try out new products and services all the time and have over 50 different accounts as I speak. So I use a password management software called KeePass, which is open source. In the past, Jesse suggested several others like Billeo, Vidoop and Passpack. These softwares usually are also capable of generating strong passwords or you can use an online service like the Strong Password Generator to generate a password for you.

The most basic rule is to use a long combination of small and capital letters, numbers and symbols. Read this Microsoft Security article about how to create and use strong passwords.

Post from: EveryJoe

Strong and Weak Passwords

%APPDATA%\\\\Microsoft\\\\Internet Explorer\\\\Quick Launch

\\r\\n\\r\\n(APPDATA is an environment variable which can be found by typing echo %APPDATA% at the command prompt.)\\r\\n\\r\\nI checked it on Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server, but it is possible that this location is preserved across OSs. I can’t fathom the reason behind placing quick launch icons in the APPDATA folder belonging to the Internet Explorer. Some might consider it harmless, but say when a custom slipstream installation of Windows is made where the Internet Explorer is not installed, it is possible that Quick Launch is also gone. The location is senseless and a bug, whatever maybe its priority. It is just a tiny example of bad software.\\r\\n\\r\\nWhile there are tools that can help you clean your quick launch cache, etc., if you are not a complete newbie the best way would be to navigate to the Quick Launch folder and see the various files present in that folder (mostly .LNK or shortcut files). You could see for yourself if the files are wrongly pointing to any dead or moved links and update them if necessary. You can also add your own shortcuts directly using Right Click –> New –> Shortcut.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Obscure Location of Quick Launch

CCleaner’s primary feature is the Cleaner. First, it will analyze the system, fetch the files that it is going to delete from the recycle bin, browser caches, other application caches, and many other obscure locations. The user can choose which areas to scan for and which to leave alone. Then the files can be deleted using any of the four secure file deletion options, but be warned that the greater the number of passes the fewer the chances of recovery if needed. There are many other customizations that can be made, like specifying the files and folders to be deleted and those to be excluded (apart from the usual set), the cookies to be preserved, and running from the command line.

CCleaner also has a registry cleaner than cleans the registry for any old or unclean or deleted entries. I think this feature can be made more robust. Be sure to save the registry before editing it.

Two other tools that come along are the “Uninstall” and “Startup” tools. The former can be used to uninstall programs. It is faster than the conventional “Add or Remove Programs” in loading the programs and also loads most programs unlike the regular option. The “Startup” tool can be used to disable or delete various startup processes, equivalent to the options provides by msconfig.

One other (unnecessary) feature I like about CCleaner is the way it displays the OS and the processor details when opened.

CCleaner is a regularly updated free software with new versions released every now and then. Download the latest version from the official CCleaner website. It is hardly 3 MB.

Image Source: CCleaner on my PC.

Post from: EveryJoe

Use CCleaner to Clean Your Computer

The command env typed in your command prompt or Cygwin terminal will list the entire set of environment variables and their current values. My Computer –> Properties –> Advanced –> Environment Variables will also show you the Windows environment variables divided into two categories: System variables and User variables.

While on cmd each variable can be referred to using %ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE%, on Cygwin and all Unix-based OSs they are referred to using $ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE. ($ echo %ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE% or $ echo $ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE)

ALLUSERSPROFILE, APPDATA, COMPUTERNAME, HOMEDRIVE, HOMEPATH, PATH, PROGRAMFILES, SYSTEMDRIVE, SystemRoot, USERNAME, USERPROFILE, WINDOWS are a some important environment variables some of which may be modified and are usually quite useful while writing batch programs. OS, NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS, PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE, PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER, PROCESSOR_LEVEL are a few other interesting variables which are best left untouched.

$ set ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE=value can be used to change an existing or define a new environment variable.

Image Source: Microsoft Windows on my desktop.

Post from: EveryJoe

Environment Variables

Especially in labs, for instance, all systems have similar account usernames and passwords for convenience. It is not uncommon for someone to accidentally log into someone else’s system and proceed as though it were his or her own. If you are an administrator of a system which needs restricted access, you can create a custom legal notice which warns other users from accidental misuse.

Open the Registry Editor (Ctrl+R –> regedit), navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon, and you’ll find two registry keys called LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText. Create them using Right Click –> New –> String Value and modify them with the text you wish to include.

In UNIX-based OSs, a MOTD serves this purpose. Even the .profile may be modified to include the MOTD.

While you are at this, you may also change the registry keys DefaultDomainName, DefaultUserName, AltDefaultDomainName, AltDefaultUserName to suit your preferences.

Post from: EveryJoe

How to Set Windows Logon Warning Message

IMHO, both Windows and Google Desktop Search consume too many resources.

e.g. Windows Desktop Search recommends Pentium 1 GHz Processor and 256 MB RAM, 500 MB of free hard disk space,… A process that starts automatically all the time. Note that we don’t search for files on our desktop all the time and mostly have an idea which file sits in which folder. A desktop search is for that occasion where we’ve “lost” some file, now and then.

Cygwin provides the best alternatives: locate and find.

locate coupled with updatedb helps you find any file (even hidden ones and those in temporary cache folders) in your system.

When you run the updatedb ($ updatedb), as the name suggests, it updates its database creating a simple index of all the files that are present in the system, with full paths. The first time you run it, like any other indexing application, it takes a few minutes to index the whole system. From the next time, it barely takes a minute, if you run it periodically, that is. I run updatedb about once every week to keep the index fresh.

After updating the file index, you can start using locate.

$ locate <substring-of-filename>

gives you all the files on your PC which contain the substring in their filenames, within a second. Even the files that accidentally got saved in some obscure temporary folder can be retrieved easily.

There are more options to update and locate files with extra preferences but I never had to use them much. The default usage suffices.

The great thing, apart from the speed of retrieval, is that this is not resource intensive and a dedicated process is not always running on your system for it. Of course, you need Cygwin installed.

Post from: EveryJoe

Locate: A Desktop Search Alternative

On this occasion, the super blog has two interesting posts: Our Best Posts From 2005 to 2009, and Weirdest and Most Controversial Posts.

I am especially thankful to Gina Trapani, the blog’s founding editor, for introducing me to Cygwin and the todo.sh. She used to make frequent posts but has been writing only a weekly column on the blog these days. She released a book, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better, which consists of all the best hacks from Lifehacker.com’s archives, and her personal manifesto on working more efficiently in the digital age. Check out the official web site of Upgrade Your Life to browse the table of contents and download a sample chapter.

Happy birthday, Lifehacker! Many happy returns of the day. I am a regular visitor of Lifehacker, a big user of Cygwin, and I hope that the four-hour-long course that I did today on time management nudges me enough to become a daily user of todo.sh.

In this spirit, dear readers, here is the ultimate list of free Windows software from Microsoft. Enjoy.

Post from: EveryJoe

Happy Birthday Lifehacker

e.g. The drive on which you installed Windows usually has the following folders:

Documents and Settings
Drivers,… and similar ones
Program Files
WINDOWS

In addition, I have folders called cygwin, Downloads, and SysinternalsSuite. Until recently, I also had Msocache. Msocache is not always in C: but could be on any non-removable and non-network drive with over 1.5GB free disk space.

The Msocache folder is created during the Microsoft Office installation and is called the “Local Install Source”. It contains a copy of the install source files and is a hidden folder. The folder is not necessary after the installation and it is safe to get rid of. Save up to 270 MB disk space.

The Microsoft Help and Support site has a helpful article about Msocache explaining in detail its purpose, and ways of removing it. “Do not delete the MSOCACHE folder by using Microsoft Windows Explorer,” the article warns.

In the past and more recently too, I have deleted the folder directly and I had no problems. But I now learnt that it is not the right way to do it.

Post from: EveryJoe

You Can Delete Msocache

Mark Russinovich, now a Fellow in Microsoft, originally developed them along with Bryce Cogswell when they were in the company Winternals Software. The company subsequently was acquired by Microsoft in mid 2006. Initially, many of the tools were not just freeware but were also accompanied with the source code. No longer, of course.

The utilities are categorized under File and Disk utilities, Networking utilities, Process utilities, Security utilities, System information, etc. The Windows Sysinternals website is one of the rare treasure troves of the Microsoft Website that is rich with learning resources and regular updates.

The suite at 9.6 MB includes close to 70 tools and every PC user should own them. Download the Sysinternal Suite now. Why not, when they are freely available?

I will try to give you a detailed overview of various of these tools regularly from now on, so keep watching this space.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sysinternals Suite For Troubleshooting PCs