Alexander’s Blog

Knowledge Base artice: Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own

Vista Event Viewer: This is odd, and it also means no user configuration can be found.

Dell Warning: You are disruptively hitting our Dell Factory Outlet Web servers too fast….

Even on Intel chips, Macs will not be able to run Windows XP because Intel Macs don’t use BIOS like Windows XP does. Macs use what’s known as Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), developed by Intel, which is not supported on Windows XP. However, Microsoft’s Vista will natively support EFI. Currently Microsoft supports EFI only on 64-bit Windows XP as well as Itanium versions. For those of us running 32-bit Windows XP, we are out of luck. Of course, unless someone comes up with a way to tweak Windows XP to support EFI.

At the Macworld Expo in San Francisco when the Apple executives confirmed that Windows Vista will run on their Intel-based iMac desktops and the MacBook Pro computers, it came as a shocker to most observers in the technology industry. Apple has always resisted allowing any version of Windows operating system running on their platform. They want to stay away from Windows as much as possible. I use both Windows and Macs on a regular basis. I can’t wait to install Vista on a Mac.

If you don’t see the Security tab on your Exchange organization’s Properties tab, obviously you won’t be able to modify the security.

Here’s how you can enable the Security tab by modifying the registry.

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).
2. Locate the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\EXAdmin.
3. From the Edit menu, select New, and then select DWORD value.
4. Type ShowSecurityPage and press Enter.
5. Double-click the entry you just created and set the value to 1.

Close the registry editor. You should now have the Security tab in the Properties of your Exchange organization.

On a stand-alone Windows XP computer that’s part of a workgroup you don’t have the option to logon as an Administrator at the Welcome screen. This behavior is different for computers that have joined a domain. In a domain environment you get a security dialog box where you can press CTRL-ALT-DEL and then logon either to any local account in the local SAM database (including Administrator), or to a domain account in the Active Directory database.

In a workgroup environment, you can have two types of accounts: Computer Administrator and Limited. If all your accounts are Limited accounts then you cannot perform administrative tasks because the Welcome screen in a workgroup environment only shows the accounts that you’ve created. It doesn’t show an icon for the built-in Administrator account and there’s no other option where you can type in accounts that are not listed on the screen, such as the Administrator. By the way, you can manage this built-in Administrator account in Computer Management but not in User Accounts in Control Panel.

Here’s the trick. In a workgroup environment you can press CTRL-ALT-DEL twice to bring up the “Log On to Windows” box and then logon as local Administrator.

Security vendor Symantec has admitted to using a rootkit-like technology in its Norton SystemWorks appliction. The company admitted in a security advisory that the technology hides a directory from the user and the operating system.

“Files in the directory might not be scanned during scheduled or manual virus scans. This could potentially provide a location for an attacker to hide a malicious file on a computer,” the vendor stated.

The firm emphasised that it is not aware of any attempts by hackers or worm authors to exploit the feature. Symantec credited fellow security vendor F-Secure and software developer Mark Russinovich with finding the vulnerability.

More info…