April 28, 2008
Okay, so you’ve probably heard a lot about “dll files” and perhaps you’re wondering what these are? Without getting overly technical, a DLL file is a supporting library file to an application in Windows. DLL actually stands for “dynamic link library” and it functions as a “helper” of sorts to another application. Think of a DLL file has as a supporting actor or actress — they’re not the star of the show, but without their function and presence they often render the lead actor useless!
Oftentimes a DLL file is not even in the main program directory where the executable resides. DLL’s will often be in the “system” directory, which on many Windows operating systems is “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32″. You may not even realize it, but I’ll bet your PC has a few hundred (or maybe more) DLL’s right now. In my system directory alone, I have over 1400! Here’s the tail end of a “dir *.dll” in my system directory:
09/28/2006 06:56 PM 316,416 WUDFx.dll
04/16/2007 10:47 PM 33,624 wups.dll
04/16/2007 10:45 PM 43,352 wups2.dll
04/16/2007 10:43 PM 203,096 wuweb.dll
08/18/2006 08:37 AM 383,488 wzcdlg.dll
08/18/2006 08:37 AM 52,736 wzcsapi.dll
08/18/2006 08:37 AM 476,160 wzcsvc.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 91,648 xactsrv.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 174,200 xenroll.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 129,536 xmlprov.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 50,176 xmlprovi.dll
03/01/2006 03:42 PM 11,776 xolehlp.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 438,784 xpob2res.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 187,392 xpsp1res.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 2,897,920 xpsp2res.dll
10/29/2007 06:04 AM 350,720 xpsp3res.dll
03/23/2007 06:07 AM 583,504 XPSSHHDR.dll
03/23/2007 06:07 AM 1,683,280 XpsSvcs.dll
11/01/2006 02:52 AM 765,952 xvidcore.dll
11/01/2006 02:54 AM 180,224 xvidvfw.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 337,920 zipfldr.dll
1437 File(s) 348,196,327 bytes
0 Dir(s) 43,477,467,136 bytes free
1437 files! Yikes.
Now as you can imagine, that’s a whole lot files for your operating system to manage. Luckily, Windows XP and other modern day OS’s do a good job of figuring out which DLL’s are associated with applications. But, every once in a while, your system might bark at you with some sort of error - either not being able to load the DLL, not being able to allocate sufficient memory to it, etc. Perhaps you’re getting a DLL error now and that’s why you’ve landed on my site?
Well, there are two main ways you can fix DLL errors -
1) The first way is by trying to replace/redownload the missing or broken DLL in question. I don’t have them here on my site, but there are a few sites which archive various versions of these files. Try browsing over to http://www.dlldll.com to see if they have what you need. If not, try this one: http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/dll/.
2) If you try the above and it doesn’t work, you need to run a software tool that tries to fix the error for you. To that end may I suggest RegCure? Among other things, RegCure does a goob job of removing DLL’s that are no longer needed on your system, reassociating unlinked DLL’s with their primary installed application(s), and a lot of other technical stuff that’s a bit over my head! RegCure isn’t free, but it usually does the job…
I hope that information helps — any questions please let me know in the comments…
Cheers!
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April 14, 2008
Internet Protocol address, or commonly known as IP address, is an address that is uniquely given to a component of a network such as routers, switches, computers, servers, printers, and even some telephones. This is assigned to each component so they can be identified and will have no problems in remotely communicating with each other. IP addresses can be static or dynamic. Static IP addresses are addresses that do not change, while dynamic IP address change every time you connect to the network.
Knowing your IP address is important especially if you want to communicate and interact with another component of the network. To find your IP address in Windows XP, the first thing you have to do is to open the Command Prompt. You can find “Command Prompt” in Accessories. You are taken to a black screen and here you must type ipconfig. After a few moments, you will be given your IP address and other information.
IP addresses are commonly expressed in this way xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and can contain numbers from 0 to 254. If you are in a local network, doing the above steps will give you your local IP address and not the one you use when you connect to the Internet. Usually, local IP address starts with “192.168”.
You can also find your IP address by visiting websites that will do just this. You have to be careful in giving out IP addresses though since these are the more common ways that a hacker can get into your computer. And never download softwares that will claim to show you your IP address.
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March 18, 2008
Did you know that some of the most popular forms of spyware specifically target vulnerabilities associated with Microsoft’s flagship web browser, Internet Explorer? Did you know that Internet Explorer has a disproportionate number of security vulnerabilities and associated patches compared with other software? Did you further know that in June of 2004 the US Government’s CERT (Computer Emegency Response Team) recommended that people stop using Internet Explorer because of issues associated with spyware and other forms of malware? Believe it or not, it’s all true. Incidentally, you can find the US CERT’s report which contains that recommendation here: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878
There are a number of alternatives now that measure up or surpass Internet Explorer in terms of ease of use, speed, features, and security. Personally, I use a web browser called Mozilla Firefox and can’t recommend it enough. Firefox is an open-source web browser, which means that its source code is open for anyone to see and make changes to. Why is open source a good thing from a security standpoint? Well, because the software code is open to public scrutiny, developers can and do frequently analyze the code and look for ways to make it faster, more efficient, and more secure.
Some key facts about Firefox:
- It is noticeably faster than Internet Explorer.
- It has a richer feature set than Internet Explorer (including something called Tabbed Browsing which cleans up the “browser clutter” associated with multiple windows).
- It offers a number of neat add-ons called “Firefox Extensions” that make your life a whole lot easier.
- It does not have the same number of vulnerabilities as Internet Explorer.
- It is not prone to the spread of spyware.
“But if I am keeping up with my security patches, what difference does it make which browser I use”? Well, that’s a fair point, but I would say two things in rebuttal:
1. Microsoft has been known to be tardy when it comes to the release of a security patch, often well after the details of the vulnerability have been released. This means that when using Internet Explorer, there is often a “window of exposure” associated with security vulnerability present for which there is no fix or remediation.
2. Do you really want to worry about all those patches? Sure, Firefox has had its share of vulnerabilities (remember, no software can be trusted, therefore no software is immune to security holes!), however the volume has been nothing like that for Internet Explorer.
But perhaps the biggest reason of all is that many forms of spyware specifically target vulnerabilities found in Internet Explorer. With facts like this, why not make the switch? Visit http://www.firefox.com to download Firefox today. Look for more posts coming soon showing you all the cool things you can do with Firefox!
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March 5, 2008
So tonight I spent some time at a family member’s house, checking their PC for spyware and other nasties… You know I’ve been out of the day-to-day PC repair thing for a few years now… so I’m definitely not up on the popular spyware threat of the day. I couldn’t tell you what the name of the virus that infected the most systems last month. And while I know in some cases malware has gotten more sophisticated (i.e., blended threats), in a number of cases it’s just more of the same. For the most part, there really is nothing new under the sun!
It turned out my brother in law’s PC was fairly clean… SpyBot Search & Destroy did report a few instances of the Zlob trojan, and I also found a remnant of Virus Heat. What a devilish piece of malware that tool is… pretending to be a legitimate antispyware tool, Virus Heat is actually spyware in disguise, nagging you to fork over your credit card number to unlock the “critical features” of the bogus tool. What a sham.
At any rate, here’s what I did in looking at his PC…perhaps it will be helpful to some of you… Basically, I scanned his hard drives using multiple tools. I updated AdAware (free version) to the most recent signatures and ran that… came back clean. I also did the same with SpyBot…SpyBot takes a good 45 minutes or so to run on a modern Windows XP computer (I think they are up to something like 114,000 spyware checks), but it was well worth it as SpyBot was the one that found Zlob. Next, I ran the infamous HijackThis. Great tool, though you kind of need to know what you’re doing a little bit or you can do serious damage to your Windows installation…. HJT basically allows you to see each Windows service, registry “run” key, CLSID, and browser helper object that is installed on your PC… HJT also shows you the full path if applicable, and you have the option right within the program to remove or keep….This is actually how I found the remnant of Virus Heat (somehow one of its registered DLLs was hooked into Internet Explorer)…
Finally, for good measure, I downloaded the latest copy of Javacool’s Spyware Blaster. Classic tool…wish he updated and supported it more, but hey I’m not complaining….the stupid thing is free. Spyware Blaster is nice too because it has an immunizaiton feature (yeah yeah, I know Spybot does as well) that should keep some of the more common spyware threats away…
At any rate, that’s basically all I did and he’s now good as gold. Note this is not intended to be the “be all/end all” guide to removing malware from a Windows computer…so please don’t take it as such. But hopefully for some of you it provides some direction and at least a starting point…
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March 3, 2008
So you see that link on the right hand sidebar to Crap Cleaner? There’s a reason that link is there, right on my home page. You know why? Because the software is good. Real good. And today I want to tell you a little more about it and why you need to be using it…
In a nutshell, Crap Cleaner (sometimes called CCleaner) is a quick and dirty program used to speed up your computer. It does in three primary ways:
- By removing the garbage (crap) left behind by a number of applications on your computer
- By cleaning up your registry
- By optimizing your browser (supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera)
I’m not sure if you know, but every single time an application is installed on your PC a lot of “waste” and “residue” gets left behind (yeah, those are technical terms)…so much so that this waste and residue eats up valuable disk space. Well, CCleaner reclaims that wasted space by getting rid of these excess files. It also optimizes your browser by removing needless history files, temporary files, and cookies where appropriate. And of course it will also compact and clean up your registry — often the biggest mess on your PC.
CCleaner is safe to download (no spyware or anything else to worry about) and 100% free. And it’s dead simple to use. Honestly it’s one of the better PC optimization applications out there. And as of this writing, it’s been downloaded 120 million times! So what are you waiting for? Go get it now…
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