Four free programs to help control Windows 7

Four free programs to help control Windows 7

By Lincoln Spector

Windows 7, like all powerful operating systems, can seem a bit overwhelming and give you the feeling you’ve lost control.

Fortunately, there are some great utilities for taming Windows 7.

Some problems are obvious: you’ve got so many icons on your desktop you’ve given up trying to keep them organized. Other problems are more obscure — for example, why Windows takes so long to boot. And it’s always good to know exactly what hardware and software are residing in your PC.

Here are four free programs that make Windows easier to control. I’m betting you’ll find them as useful as I do.

Use Fences to subdivide your desktop

If you’re one of those rare people who never ever put anything on their desktops, I applaud your inner neatnik. But if your screen is so packed with file and shortcut icons that you don’t remember what your wallpaper looks like, Stardock’s Fences (download page) can put some order back into your computing life. (Sorry, it can’t do anything about your garage.)

Once installed, this utility lets you create fenced areas on your desktop by double-clicking a blank spot and right-dragging the mouse. After you’ve created a fence, you give it a name and drag any item on the desktop into it.

You can, for example, create one fence for programs, another for shortcuts to files, and yet another for stuff you plan to delete in the near future. (See Figure 1.) If you put more stuff into a fence than it has room for, it adds a scrollbar. (You can get rid of the scrollbar by removing items from the box or resizing the fence.)

Figure 1. If your desktop is cluttered with dozens of icons, use Fences to corral them into organized groups.

A fenced area can be moved, renamed, or deleted. (The items that were inside the fence remain on your desktop.) Double-click the desktop, and all your fences — plus any unfenced icons — disappear. (Desktop windows remain visible.) Double-click again, and everything comes back.

If you find the double-click-and-hide feature annoying, you can turn it off in Fences’ configuration box. You can also control the look of the fences, back up your desktop layout (the backups are misleadingly called “snapshots”), and pick a standardized layout.

Fences is free for personal use, but you can also purchase the U.S. $50 Pro version, which adds default fences for new icons; automatic icon organization by file type, name, and more; icon sorting within fences; plus fence transparency and other powerful features.

The Soluto solution for long boot times

It’s one of Windows’ most annoying problems: half the programs on your PC want to load automatically every time you boot Windows — and most continue to run in the background indefinitely, soaking up memory and CPU time. Every one of those programs slows the boot process and may even slow down Windows. But in truth, few of them should be running all of the time.

I want to emphasize: I’m not talking about those junk programs you don’t want at any time; I’m talking about applications you want running only when you need them — not hanging around using valuable PC resources when you don’t need those apps.

Soluto (download page) offers a remarkably easy way to deal with this problem. After you install the app and reboot your system, an odd, turn-up-the-corner-of-the-page graphic shows you that Soluto is examining the PC’s boot process. (See Figure 2.) After your system is rebooted, you launch the Soluto app and it displays what it found.

Figure 2. Soluto’s turned-page graphic tells you it’s examining your PC’s boot sequence.

Reporting its findings within an attractive, graphic-oriented display, Soluto tells you exactly what’s launching at boot time (far more than is shown by Windows’ built-in msconfig app), how much boot time this takes, and what startup apps might be unnecessary.

It divides the boot-time applications into three categories: No-brainer (remove from boot), Potentially removable (advanced users), and Cannot be removed with Soluto (yet …). (See Figure 3.) Click on any item within a category and you get a brief description; click the description’s Advanced link and you get more details, such as what you gain and lose by allowing this program to load at boot time. Should you decide you don’t want an app to load at boot, click the Pause button.

Figure 3. Soluto’s comprehensive system-boot report displays a chart of what apps to keep and what to remove.

The program is far from perfect. It’s discouraging to look at its results and see that the Cannot be removed section is far larger than the other two put together. And Soluto itself must launch during startup so that it can block other programs.

Still, Soluto is the easiest solution I’ve yet found for controlling autoloaders.

Soluto is currently in public beta. I checked with a company contact and was told that the application will remain in beta for some time and that there’ll still be a free version once beta testing is finished.

Find out everything about your computer

System Information for Windows (SIW, download page) provides a massive amount of information about your PC’s hardware, the Windows version running on it, and the network it’s attached to. Most of this information is available elsewhere, but SIW puts it all into one convenient place. (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4. System Information for Windows provides an encyclopedic summary of your PC’s data.

Here’s a taste of what it can show you:

• CPU and memory usage
• Broadband speed report
• Windows’ activation status
• Available restore points
• Every installed program’s version number and update URL
• Computer serial number
• PC’s Windows Experience Index
• Maximum system RAM capacity and snapshot of what’s currently in memory
• How hot a PC is running, in Celsius and Fahrenheit
• Your system’s IP address
• Open network ports

System Information for Windows is portable; you can put it on a flash drive and run it on any Windows PC. The program is free for personal use, but professional versions will set you back $70 to $100.

Take control of when your PC powers down

You’re done with the day’s work, but you’re not ready to shut down your PC. Maybe you’re backing it up or scanning for malware, or maybe you want to give family members network access to your photos or music for the evening. But you also want to save power by not leaving the system on all night.

WinMend Auto Shutdown (download page) does exactly what the name implies. It automatically powers down your PC at a time you set. (See Figure 5.) It can also sign you off your system or put a PC into hibernate or sleep mode.

Auto Shutdown lets you specify a one-time date and time for power-down or set up a daily recurring schedule. There’s also a countdown option; you can, for example, shut down the PC in two hours or put it into sleep mode within 30 minutes.

Figure 5. WinMend’s Auto Shutdown lets you shut down your PC exactly when you want to — without being there.

Auto Shutdown is completely free, though the site does have a donation link.

Lincoln Spector writes about computers, home theater, and film and maintains two blogs: Answer Line at PCWorld.com and Bayflicks.net. His articles have appeared in CNET, InfoWorld, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.

When Microsoft claims your Windows is invalid

By Tracey Capen

Operating-system installation surprises include a variety of validation error messages.

You may have a perfectly legitimate reason to swap out a factory-installed operating system for an older version, but brace yourself for possibly startling reactions to your product key.

In his “Is my system valid?” post, Lounge member John Chapel shares his experience swapping operating systems and asks for advice — after a Microsoft Update flagged his legally purchased software as pirated. More»

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions that you may be able to provide responses to:

☼ starred posts — particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right in to today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Tracey Capen is editor in chief of Windows Secrets.

Our favorite movie scenes: Action!

	By Revia Romberg A good action flick requires a hero or heroine defying death — frequently and at high speeds. Cue the stunt man. At the center of movie action are athletes — men and women — who leap, tumble, and roll through one dire circumstance into another. This video shows you one particularly adroit stunt man working without the aid of a storyline. Play the video

Return IE to its just-installed state with ease

By Fred Langa Sometimes, when things go seriously wrong, it’s best to send an application back to its original configuration. With two clicks, you can return Internet Explorer to a pristine state and reselect the browser’s initial settings.

Run IE8’s Setup Wizard after installation

Reader Orval Wood came up with a great question after reading about IE8-setup tweaks in my Dec. 16 Top Story, “10 great ‘Do these first’ tweaks for Windows 7.”

• “What happens if you already have IE8 set up? Can [the initial] IE8 settings be changed after it has been installed?”

Yes indeed, Orval. In fact, Microsoft made it incredibly easy — just a couple of clicks — to restore IE8 to its just-installed state. And you have the option of again running the Setup Wizard, if you so choose.

Here’s the easiest way. Launch your current copy of IE8 and select Tools/Internet Options/Advanced. Next, click the Reset button under “Reset Internet Explorer settings” (shown in Figure 1).

Figure 1. IE8’s Reset button (circled in yellow) rolls the browser back to its just-installed state.

When the Reset Internet Explorer Settings box opens, select how much you want to reset. The basic reset returns to their default state all settings listed under “Resetting includes:” (see Figure 2). In most cases, that’s all you need.

Figure 2. The Reset dialog box lets you choose whether to remove personal settings and customizations.

But if you want to go all the way back to that original, just-installed-for-the-first-time condition, click the Delete personal settings checkbox and then click Reset. This more stringent step wipes out all your IE8 settings and gives the browser a completely fresh start.

With either reset level, you next shut down and restart IE8. When it fires up, the standard installation Wizard runs immediately — and you work through the initial configuration options described in the Dec. 16 Top Story.

If you’d prefer a fully automated IE8 rollback, a free Microsoft Fix it tool (on the MS Support page, “Improve performance, safety and security in Internet Explorer”) can handle the reset for you. But note that this tool does exactly the same thing as the two clicks described above, so it doesn’t really save that much effort.

If you want more detail on what is — and isn’t — reset by the above methods, check out MS Support article 923737, “How to reset Internet Explorer settings.”

SD card stuck in write-protect mode

Robert Lemieux has a flash memory card that’s useless. Its write-protect setting appears stuck.

• “How do I remove an SD card’s write protect? I’m going crazy … tried everything … nothing works. Please help!”

Let’s assume it’s a hardware problem. (If software-based write protection is at fault, the steps given in an MS TechCenter forum may help.)

Most flash memory cards (SD, XD, mini-SD, etc.) have a small write-protect slider or switch on the side. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3. If you can’t write to a memory card, check the position of the write-protect switch on the card’s edge.

If the switch is in the Lock (or Protect, Disable, or some similar wording) position, you’ll be unable to write to the card.

Slide the switch to the other position, and you should be able to write to it again. (Note: If your card has lost its external slider but you can still see the tiny switch inside, try using a small, pointed tool to move the actual switch. It may not work, but it’s worth a try.)

Some cards don’t have the write-protect slider but use a simple physical notch instead. If your card has no slider or switch, but it does have a notch, try covering the notch with a small piece of tape.

If neither fix works, the card may simply not work well with your card reader. Despite standardization, there’s still a lot of variability in the quality of different cards and readers. Not all combinations work — even when their specifications say they should.

Try the malfunctioning card in a different reader and try some known-good cards in your current reader. Sometimes, a specific card and reader that won’t play together work fine with others.

If the card still won’t work, then it’s simply broken. Likewise, if your card reader can’t write to any card, then the reader is the problem. Fortunately, replacement memory cards and card readers are cheap!

What about “Stopzilla?”

Dennis Kennedy is exploring malware protection and ran into a controversial anti-malware tool.

• “What can you tell me about the program Stopzilla? Is it good or what? I have read that it’s a really bad program — and also that it’s a really good program. I tried to go to the website, but Firefox blocked it, saying it’s not a safe site. I would like to hear your take on this program.”

My opinion? Stay away!

Stopzilla is an old tool. Its website boasts that it won a “CNET Editors’ Choice Award,” but the award was given in November 2003, an eternity ago in web-years.

Current CNET user-ratings give the software two out of five stars. That’s a terrible rating!

Professional reviews of the software are equally bleak, especially given that Stopzilla costs $10 a year. There are numerous free tools that do as well or better.

I think Stopzilla’s time has come and gone. I suggest you not use it.

Forcing Internet Explorer to full-size

Jim Haffemann can’t get his saved IE shortcuts to open properly.

• “When I click on a desktop icon for a Web link or to open a program, it opens in the normal mode. I can drag it to its maximized size, but after I close it and reopen it, it’s still normal.

  “I’ve tried all the following tricks: dragging the sides out and closing, dragging the sides out and holding the control or shift key down while doing File/Exit. Nothing seems to help.

  “I tried to right-click and open properties to change to maximized, but the Web links and some of the program icons do not have this option.

  “Is there a secret to fix this?”

Some pages have a specific size hard-coded into their HTML. They’ll always try to open in the set size, regardless of Internet Explorer’s defaults. Plus, there are different ways to save pages (or links) to your desktop, and they can behave differently when you reopen them.

That said, I bet we can set things right.

Click the Start orb and All Programs. Next, right-click Internet Explorer and select Properties. You’ll see a dialog similar to the one shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Internet Explorer’s Properties control lets you select the default window size you wish (IE8 shown).

In the dialog section labeled Run, select Maximized (or whichever default opening size you prefer). This sets the overall default.

Now you can set the other options for opening pages. Open your target webpage and manually stretch it to full size. (Don’t use the maximize button.) Next, right-click on any link on your now full-sized webpage, and select Open in New Window. With the new window open, manually stretch it to full size as well. Close IE completely.

IE should now remember that you want all pages to open full-sized, regardless of how you get there.

If the above methods don’t work, there’s always brute force in the form of free third-party software. Try JiiSoft.com’s donationware, “IE New Windows Maximizer” (info page), or South Bay Software’s free Autosizer (site).

One way or the other — with built-in settings or via free third-party add-ons — odds are you’ll be able to get exactly the results you want!

Fred Langa is a senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of Byte Magazine (1987–91), editorial director of CMP Media (1991–97), and editor of the LangaList e-mail newsletter from its origin in 1997 until its merger with Windows Secrets in November 2006.

New Year's resolution: banish automatic updates

By Woody Leonhard The usual year-end dearth of technology news seems to bring out poorly considered stories — even from well-known sites. Case in point: I ran across an article — published by a site that should know better — extolling the virtues of “software’s auto-update era,” most notably Microsoft’s automatic patch-update system. And I couldn’t more strongly disagree.

Reading that article sent my blood pressure up a hundred points, had me swearing at the walls, and had me looking for a (stuffed) dog to kick. The “auto-update era” may have dawned on that writer, but for nearly a decade I’ve stated in all of my books — and online, too — that Microsoft’s automatic update is for chumps. And if anything, it’s gotten chumpier this past year. Anybody who tells you otherwise just hasn’t been paying attention.

A survey of the automatic update spectrum

Specifically, I’m talking about Microsoft’s automatic updates, the twice-or-more-a-month patches pushed out to Windows machines all over the world.

Other products’ automatic updates don’t bother me. I don’t care whether Firefox or Chrome updates itself — if I get a lousy patch and the browser stops working, I just switch browsers. I’m accustomed to Flash updating itself frequently; if it turns belly-up, it’s no particular sweat off my brow. I’d feel the same way about Acrobat Reader — if I allowed it to live in my PC.

I’m not overly concerned about automatic updates to Microsoft Security Essentials or about spam filter updates for Outlook. Those generally work well (and if they don’t, most of us are none the wiser).

I never use the Microsoft site to update drivers.

Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer are the products that concern me — the ones where a mistake on Microsoft’s part can totally brick your computer or otherwise make your life hell.

We received 106 security bulletins in 2010, covering several hundred separately identified security holes. Depending on which version of Windows, Office, or other Microsoft software you own, we were also treated to many dozens of additional patches, modifications, patches of modifications, and modifications of … well, you get the point.

To see which patches have been applied to your system — automatically or otherwise — take the following steps:

• Windows 7: Click Start, Control Panel, and System and Security. Under Windows Update, click the View installed updates link.
• Vista: Click Start, Control Panel, and Automatic Updates. On the left side, click View update history.
• Windows XP: Click Start, Control Panel; then double-click Add or Remove Programs. At the top of the ensuing dialog box, click the Show updates checkbox.

A recent history of flawed Microsoft updates

Last year’s bumper crop of buggy $#@!ware was pushed onto our PCs via the Windows automatic update channel. If you manually applied those patches and something immediately broke, you stood a good chance of figuring out the culprit. On the other hand, if you relied on automatic updates, isolating the root cause of a sudden failure was considerably more difficult.

If you had auto updating turned on, here’s just some of what you might’ve faced after an update:

► The patch in MS support bulletin MS10-002 (KB 978207) — released in January 2010 — got the year off to an inglorious start. Released out of cycle (i.e., not on the usual second Tuesday of the month), this massive Internet Explorer patch (detailed in a Jan. 21, 2010, Top Story) addressed the Aurora attacks against Google.

If this patch was rolled onto your machine, you might’ve had problems logging on to some websites, Windows Explorer might have failed, or your IE drop-down boxes might’ve stopped dropping. There was a whole swarm of additional potential problems if you were attached to Exchange Server.

Eventually, MS10-002 was superseded by another massive IE roll-up, MS10-018. Fortunately, that one was relatively stable.

► Then in February, there was MS10-015 (KB 977165). If your PC was infected with the Alureon rootkit (very hard to detect at the time) and patch KB 977165 was run on your PC, you probably started your workday with a Blue Screen of Death. Restart the PC, and the BSOD reappeared.

Experts disagree as to whether the patch was flawed, but, in my opinion, Microsoft automatically pushed an incompletely tested patch that bricked thousands of PCs — without any notification or warning.

If your system suddenly stopped working one morning, you had no way of knowing why. Of course, those PCs were already compromised and Microsoft has no obligation to protect you from poorly programmed rootkits, so it’s hard to blame the ‘Softies. Still, it took days to sort out the source of the problem, and many PC users who had automatic updates enabled got blindsided.

► In May, Microsoft pushed a “stability and reliability update” over the update channel, KB 980408. One little problem: after the patch was installed (either manually or automatically) on 64-bit Windows 7 systems, some users could no longer rename folders. There’s a good extemporaneous discussion of this problem in an overclock.net post.

► The northern hemisphere’s 2010 summer went by pretty well with only sporadic problems, none of them fatal. (In one instance after an update, some Vista users found their Aero interface suddenly turned off.) Many of the patches were simply annoying. Susan Bradley had a good overview of the .NET mayhem in her Oct. 28 Patch Watch column.

► In December, we got another nasty patch. KB 2412171 was a “stability and performance improvement” for Outlook 2007 that introduced all sorts of problems for Outlook 2007 users, as I reported on my AskWoody.com site. Microsoft still hasn’t figured out what went wrong with this one; there’s no patch for the patch, only instructions for uninstalling it if you run into a problem.

You may consider this an acceptable number of problems with MS updates — I think it’s a disgrace.

What you need to do in order to protect yourself

For that spare PC used by the kids or that machine Aunt Gertrude keeps for solitaire, turning on automatic updates is probably fine — if the system fails due to a faulty patch, nothing much is lost.

But for that PC you depend on daily, you’d be well advised to make your own decisions about updating Windows and Office. I recommend that you set Windows to Notify but don’t download, using these steps:

• Windows 7 and Vista: Using an administrator-level account, click Start, Control Panel, and then System and Security. Under Windows Update, click the Turn automatic updating on or off link. In the drop-down box, select Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them, then click OK.
• Windows XP: Click Start, Control Panel, and then Security Center. Click the down-arrow to the right of Automatic Updates. Click the icon marked System and then the Automatic Updates tab. Choose Notify me but don’t automatically download or install them, then click OK.

Of course you will need to apply updates on a regular basis. Windows Secrets’ Patch Watch column, plus In the Wild and Perimeter Scan, will give you the latest scoop on patches and patching problems. I also maintain a patch warning system at askwoody.com.

Or you can just stick a “Microsoft Kick Me” sign on your PC, turn on Automatic Updates, and pray that the cure isn’t worse than the disease. But for heaven’s sake, don’t believe those soothsayers who tell you there’s nothing wrong with Microsoft Automatic Updates.

As G. Santayana famously stated, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praises, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum.

Woody Leonhard‘s latest books — Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies and Green Home Computing For Dummies deliver the straight story in a way that won’t put you to sleep.

Protecting your browsing with EMET

By Susan Bradley It’s an all-too-common occurrence: As soon as Internet Explorer gets patched, another zero-day exploit is discovered. If you’d like to give IE more protection from hackers, Microsoft has a little-known, free tool — EMET 2.0 — you should take a look at.

A professional tool that non-pros can use, too

Targeted at IT professionals, Microsoft’s recently released Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) 2.0 (info page) is designed to reduce vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and older applications. But version 2 adds a nicely designed graphical-user interface (see Figure 1) that lets even non-pros benefit from its antihacking features.

EMET is unusual because it does not require changing application code to make it work. With other security technologies, such as Data Execution Prevention, developers must recompile their apps to add support for the enhanced protection. EMET works with existing code, making it ideal for protecting legacy software.

The only drawback to EMET 2.0 is that it requires .NET 2.0. That’s not a problem for Windows 7 systems, but if you’re on Windows XP, you may need to download .Net 2.0 — and maintain it via future patches.

Figure 1. EMET’s clean, simple interface makes adding enhanced security to legacy apps relatively easy.

It’s been hinted that EMET will be included in future versions of Windows. Current versions of Win7 and Vista include many of EMET’s security features, such as Structured Exception Handling Overwrite Protection (SEHOP, info page) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR, Wiki page), turned on by default. XP does not support SEHOP or ASLR, but EMET will add these additional security features for applications running on XP.

At this time, EMET is not an officially supported Microsoft product, but support for developers is on the way. As with all beta software, I recommend limiting its use to especially vulnerable applications.

Building a hardened Internet Explorer

To add EMET protection, begin by grabbing the app from its download site and installing it on your system; then launch the app.

To protect Internet Explorer with all of EMET’s security capabilities, start by clicking the Configure Apps button at the bottom of EMET’s interface. In the Application Configuration window, click Add and then browse to IE’s .exe file (for example, c:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe). Next, check that all EMET options are selected. (See Figure 2.) Finally, click OK and close and relaunch IE and EMET.

Figure 2. The Application Configuration window is where you select additional security to specific apps, such as Internet Explorer.

Once you relaunch EMET, iexplore should be flagged as running EMET, as shown in Figure 3.

Finally, see whether the new, enhanced security has any impact on your frequently used websites. If you do find any websites that are incompatible with EMET, please post your findings in the Windows Secrets Lounge. (Ironically, I ran into difficulty with Brian Krebs’s blog page that discusses EMET and the latest IE zero-day attack. If this means I’ll need to read Brian’s blog in Chrome, that’s a small price to pay for EMET’s extra protection.)

Figure 3. With Internet Explorer configured within EMET, the status window confirms IE’s enhanced protection.

Although Windows XP users will have less protection and fewer options with EMET, it can still help protect applications such as Internet Explorer and Adobe Acrobat from zero-day attacks. (Don’t opt for system-wide protection; just start with vulnerable apps such as IE.)

For example, enabling EMET will protect you from the recent Internet Explorer zero-day threat reported in MS Security Advisory 2488013. In fact, the advisory calls out EMET (under the Suggested Actions/Workarounds section) as an initial fix.

Even after this zero-day attack is patched, I recommend that you keep EMET enabled. As sure as the sun rises, there will be another zero-day threat, so a little extra protection can’t hurt.

Susan Bradley has been named an MVP (Most Valuable Professional) by Microsoft for her knowledge in the areas of Small Business Server and network security. She’s also a partner in a California CPA firm.