Use any version of Windows 7 free for 120 days

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Use any version of Windows 7 free for 120 days

By Woody Leonhard

There’s an easy way to stretch Windows 7’s 30-day free-trial period to 120 days so you can determine whether Microsoft’s new operating system meets your needs.

Even better — if you know the secret — you can try out any version of Win7, from Ultimate to the lowly Basic, using a single install disc.

It’s fair to say that by now hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of copies of Windows 7 sit on DVDs and hard drives all over the world. You might have downloaded a copy of Win7 from the official sites: Microsoft Developer Network, TechNet, or Software Advantage. Perhaps you hooked up your machine to a torrent or a newsgroup site to download the new OS. Or maybe you snagged a copy from your tech-savvy sister-in-law.

Whichever channel you use, if you don’t already have a copy of Windows 7, you can easily put your paws on the installation bits and burn your own install DVD. Just be sure what you downloaded is the real, shipping version of Windows 7. One way to confirm this is to use a set of checksum verification instructions found on Softpedia.

Getting a copy of Windows 7 is the easy part. The rub — and the place where Microsoft makes its money — is the Win7 activation key. You’re expected to pay for the key, no matter how you obtained the software.

Microsoft allows anyone to install and use any version of Windows 7 for 30 days without having to enter an activation key. There are no strings attached, and the operating system’s performance is not degraded or defaced during the trial.

Fortunately for us, the 30-day grace period can be extended up to three additional times — to a total of 120 days — using a Microsoft-supplied utility called the Software License Manager (slmgr). This tool conveniently ships with Windows 7.

How to use slmgr to extend the free-trial period of Windows Vista was first reported by WS editorial director Brian Livingston on Feb. 15, 2007. Because Windows 7 includes slightly different versions than Vista, the procedure has some new wrinkles. Listen up.

How to extend Win7’s trial to a full four months

In a nutshell: If you install Windows 7 and don’t enter an installation key, the 30-day activation clock starts. To see how many days you have left, click Start, right-click Computer, and choose Properties. At the bottom of the dialog under Windows Activation, you’ll see the number of days left in your trial period.

When that number gets perilously close to zero, you can extend the free period another 30 days via the following steps:

• Step 1: Click Start, All Programs, Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator. Enter your administrator password.
• Step 2: Type the following command and press Enter:

  slmgr -rearm

  Note the space after slmgr and the hyphen in front of rearm.

• Step 3: Restart Windows 7.

Once the OS restarts, the Properties dialog described above will indicate that Windows 7’s activation grace period has been reset to a full 30 days.

You can run the -rearm trick a total of three times. If you perform a -rearm at the end of each 30-day period, you end up with 120 days of full, unfettered Windows 7 use without having to supply an activation key in the interim.

How to install Win7 Ultimate now, pay less later

When the activation grace period runs out — whether it’s in 30 or 120 days or somewhere in between — you need to feed Windows 7 an activation key. That’s when many Windows 7 customers will find themselves in trouble.

Let me clarify up front that the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of Windows take the same keys. A key that works for 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium also works for 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. However, different keys are required for Ultimate vs. Pro vs. Home Premium.

(I assume you won’t want to install the exceedingly limited Windows Home Basic, which is intended primarily for developing countries. And you won’t be installing Windows Home Starter, because you can’t buy a key for it. The Starter version is available only when preinstalled on a new netbook.)

Say, for example, you install a free trial of Windows 7 Ultimate. However, when the time comes to pay the piper, you want to shell out your shekels only for Win7 Home Premium. (That’s the version most individual users will choose, and it’s considerably cheaper than Win7 Ultimate — which isn’t worth spending more for, as I see it.)

If you installed a trial of Win7 Ultimate without knowing the secret, you’re stuck. The Home Premium key won’t activate an Ultimate PC. Your only option is a complete reinstall of Windows using the version that matches your bought-and-paid-for key — Home Premium, in this case.

The best solution is to install in the first place the version you probably want to end up with. If you expect to pay for Windows 7 Home Premium, you should install Windows 7 Home Premium. The same goes for Windows 7 Professional, which is for use in corporate domains.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to install either Windows 7 Home Premium or Pro from a Windows 7 Ultimate CD: simply delete a single file. Hard to believe, but true.

Convert Win7 Ultimate to Pro or Home Premium

Here’s the crux of the matter: If you put a DVD containing Win7 Ultimate in your PC and run the installer — either by booting from the disc or running the setup program from inside Windows — you end up with Win7 Ultimate. No surprises there.

However, if you first delete a tiny file named ei.cfg before making the installation DVD, the Win7 installer will give you the choices shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Delete or rename ei.cfg before burning a Windows 7 installation DVD, and a menu then allows you to select which version to install.

In fact, no matter which Win7 installation DVD you have — Ultimate, Pro, or Premium — if you delete the ei.cfg file from the disc, you’ll be offered the same choices and can install any version of Windows 7.

At the moment, only a small number of people have received a physical DVD containing Windows 7 Ultimate. Instead, most current Win7 users downloaded an .iso file, which includes everything on the Windows 7 Ultimate DVD: boot settings, file-structure details, etc. You burn the .iso file to a DVD. Then you either boot your PC from the DVD or run the setup program within an older version of Windows to kick the Win7 installer into gear.

If you have a Windows 7 Ultimate .iso file, it’s easy to delete ei.cfg. First, get a 30-day trial version of the gBurner utility, which is available from the program’s download page at CNET’s Download.com. Then install and run gBurner, open the Windows 7 .iso file, and delete (or rename) sourcesei.cfg. Piece o’ cake, although it can take 20 minutes to save the altered .iso file.

You can then use either gBurner or Alex Feinman’s ISO Recorder program (available from Alex’s site) to burn a version of the .iso file without ei.cfg to DVD.

What if you do have a physical Windows 7 installation DVD, but you don’t have an .iso file? In that case, use either gBurner or ISO Recorder to rip the DVD into an .iso file. Then follow the instructions above to delete the ei.cfg file and burn a new DVD.

Get the right version of Windows 7 going now and you won’t have to reinstall it — or pay an exorbitant price — later.

(My thanks to all-around good guy Seth Bareiss for his help in researching this topic.)

Woody Leonhard‘s latest book, Green Home Computing For Dummies, just hit store shelves. His encyclopedic Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies will be available in most bookstores and computer stores worldwide in October.

Add Adobe to the list of update opportunists

By Dennis O’Reilly

Many software vendors see security updates and bug fixes for their applications as a chance to install unrelated — and uninvited — programs onto your PC.

One vendor guilty of this offense — and not cited in Susan Bradley’s Aug. 13 Top Story on this subject — is Adobe, which preselects the option to install the Google Toolbar along with its Flash Player and Adobe Reader patches.

Pete Poorman points out that Adobe has been doing this for many years:

• “While not as egregious an offense as Sun’s promotion of Carbonite, Adobe certainly deserves to be in the Installers Hall of Shame.

  “First, the initial installation of Flash Player and Adobe Reader both default to installing the Google Toolbar. While not a for-pay commercial offering, Google Toolbar is completely unrelated to the core function of Flash Player and Adobe Reader — just as Carbonite is completely unrelated to Java. At a minimum, the default should be to not install this toolbar. Adobe doubles down on this offense by also defaulting to install the Google Toolbar when the Flash Player is updated.

  “Second, Adobe all but forces the installation of the Adobe Download Manager (Adobe DLM) ActiveX control in order to install or update the Flash Player. At less than 2MB, the Flash Player doesn’t require a download manager to ensure successful downloads. This apparently unneeded complication raises questions about the true purpose of Adobe DLM.

  “In addition, when I’m updating software to fix a security hole, I do not want to install another potentially unsafe piece of software from that vendor, especially software that’s of a class (ActiveX control) that is a frequent vector for malware.”

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, it seems the price of a secure PC is eternal vigilance — about the marketing practices of the very companies we buy our software from.

Gmail activity log defeats a hack attack

The Aug. 13 Known Issues column included a letter from a reader named James who described how to use the Gmail activity log to discover unauthorized use of an account. The log came in very handy for Dan Juroff:

• “In reference to Mr. O’Reilly’s piece on the Gmail activity log, I would like to report that the feature was recently very helpful to us in identifying the source of unauthorized accesses to one of our user’s accounts. (Our e-mail is hosted by Google.)

  “When one of our users discovered one morning that all the mail in his Sent folder had been deleted from the Gmail server, he contacted me and I immediately went to his location to examine his account, which he left open until I arrived. Even though the log lists only the last five IP addresses from which access had been made, it so happened that two of those were from IPs other than our own.

  “A ‘who-is’ on both addresses revealed their ownership, including one that was owned by the same ISP we use. Our provider was more than happy to identify the organization to which the IP was assigned, which happened to be that of another academic institution which, in turn, happened to be the current employer of one of our past employees. While with us, the former employee was working in a tech-support position and had — in a convoluted way — been given access to numerous e-mail passwords.

  “In addition, I found that forwarding had been enabled in the victim’s account settings and that an e-mail account had been inserted there, to which copies of all incoming mail were being forwarded. Naturally, the victim had no knowledge of the forwarding account and didn’t even know how to set up the forwarding feature to begin with.

  “The manner in which those passwords were obtained is another good lesson to us all. The passwords were actually provided to him by employees for the purpose of setting up accounts for use with a student information system. When setting up their accounts for the program, our friend would ask them to provide a password.

  “As you know, most people will use the same password over and over again, so when providing him a password, they would commonly give him the same password they used for everything else, including their e-mail accounts. Armed with a list of passwords, all he had to do was experiment with them to see if he could access their e-mail accounts with them. I’m sure most of them were successful.

  “It was pure, dumb luck that I got into the activity log before the owner accessed his mail a couple more times, as each new access bumps the oldest one off the list. It should be noted, however, that Google will provide a 30-day history but that a release must be completed by the account holder granting permission to do so.

  “Hope you enjoyed this story of espionage and intrigue. Keep up the good work, guys!”

There’s more than one object lesson in Dan’s account: instruct users to report anything suspicious about their account; convince them of the need to use unique passwords for each service they use; and keep tabs on the whereabouts of former IT staff members.

Most recent Java update may not be offered

Susan’s story referred to Sun’s Java SE Update 16, which was released just a few days after Java SE Update 15 and included the security updates and bug fixes of the previous patch. After the newsletter was published, it was learned that not all users would receive Update 16, so some people with Update 15 would be told by the Java updater that their current version was the latest available.

If your PC has Java SE Update 15, you may not need the more-recent release and may indeed consider your system up-to-date.

The Known Issues column brings you readers’ comments on our recent articles. Dennis O’Reilly is technical editor of WindowsSecrets.com.

Annoying tweeters meet their zombie demise

By Stephanie Small We all know them: Twitter addicts who constantly update their status with such breaking news as “I’m bored” or “I’m soooo glad it’s sunny out!” What makes these people think anyone cares? Well, annoying tweeters — beware! The rest of us can just tweet tweetlejuice three times to our most-aggravating Twitter friends, and the “ghost with the most” will eat their irritating little Twitter souls. At least then someone might actually be interested in knowing “what are you doing?” (Warning: gross behavior depicted.) Play the video

Delete files that Windows labels 'undeletable'

By Fred Langa Never again be prevented from removing an unwanted file by the rude “access denied” message in Windows! With the right free tool, you can easily delete files and folders that are locked, in use, or otherwise untouchable.

There’s no such thing as a file you can’t delete

Sooner or later, almost every PC user runs into a situation where some file or folder resists all normal methods of deletion. I regularly receive e-mails from readers asking me what they should do in this situation. As part of the solution, I described how to remove “undeletable” malware in my Dec. 4, 2008, column.

But the question comes up so often that it’s worth providing a “once and for all” answer. The following tricks cover a wide range of circumstances. I hope you’ll refer to these pointers whenever the problem crops up for you, as it surely will again.

A recent e-mail from David Henderson serves as my jumping-off point. David asks specifically about GPS software files, but the same issue can occur with all types of files in all versions of Windows:

• “I recently updated my GPS map files from Garmin. After I finished, I uninstalled the Garmin program. I now have Garmin files remaining that can’t be deleted. I even tried a command-line delete, with no success. Please tell me how to get rid of these files.”

The most common reason for undeletable files is that they’re marked as “in use” — even if they really aren’t. Windows won’t remove a file that it thinks is currently open, because the operating system is attempting to avoid instability.

Alternatively, some software programs — either by accident or through bad design — create files with nonstandard, invalid names or other attributes that Windows can’t handle. Some malware does this deliberately, making the infected files difficult to clear out.

My favorite tool for removing locked, in-use, or otherwise undeletable files is the free but oddly titled program GiPo@MoveOnBoot. At less than half a megabyte, it’s tiny, and the tool is unobtrusive in Windows Explorer’s context menu.

To remove a supposedly undeletable file, just right-click the file in Windows Explorer, choose the GiPo@MoveOnBoot option, and instruct the utility to delete the file. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The program GiPo@MoveOnBoot adds the option Delete file(s) on the next boot to Windows Explorer’s right-click menu.

GiPo@MoveOnBoot automatically creates a little script that runs the next time the system boots. It deletes the target file before the file can be locked, marked as in-use, or loaded. The process is one-click simple and very effective.

There are several flavors of GiPo@MoveOnBoot in circulation. The version I recommend is 1.9.5, which is available from the Software Patch site. This version has served me well over the years and on many different Windows installations. It even works fine on my Windows 7 setup.

There’s a newer but — oddly — less-useful version of the program that could be misinterpreted as having a higher version number. It’s distributed by Gibin Software House as part of a small suite of freeware tools called GiPo@FileUtilities 3.1. This version works correctly only on XP and earlier versions of Windows.

The tiny, standalone GiPo@MoveOnBoot 1.9.5 is the better, more-compatible choice.

If GiPo@MoveOnBoot doesn’t float your boat, TheFreeCountry.com lists many other free unlock/removal utilities. But give GiPo@MoveOnBoot 1.9.5 a shot; the program is fast, utterly reliable, and free. I give it a big, big thumbs-up for deleting “undeletable” files.

Fix ‘unknown device’ errors in Device Manager

When Max Hilbig delved into Device Manager, he noticed a hardware problem:

• “In the July 23 edition of Windows Secrets, you have an article, ‘How to correct Device Manager hardware errors.’ As I read it, I looked at Device Manager on my Vista computer. I noticed that, under an entry called Other Devices, there was a line reading ‘Unknown device’ with a yellow flag and exclamation mark. Is there some way I can identify this device or, alternatively, is it OK to uninstall it?”

Windows reports an “unknown device” when it probes your hardware and receives an unexpected or unknown response. The OS can sense that some kind of hardware is there. On its own, however, Windows can’t determine what the hardware is or how to make it work.

If your PC is working fine, you’re free to ignore the problem. The affected component may be hardware you never need or use, such as a built-in modem on a machine that never uses a dial-up connection.

But if some device you need isn’t working properly — or if it just bugs you to have this mild error present — it’s usually easy to fix. In most such cases, the information Windows needs in order to identify and use the hardware is in the device’s driver software; the “unknown device” flag will go away once Windows has the correct driver.

Start by uninstalling the device in Device Manager and then reboot. Odds are, Windows will rediscover the mystery device on the next boot and tell you it “found new hardware” or something similar. Carefully read any and all such dialogs. They often contain additional information that will help you identify what the device is and track down its missing driver.

The best source for drivers is your system vendor’s site. If for some reason the driver isn’t available there, search the sites of the PC’s subsystem makers: the motherboard, video chip, audio devices, network interfaces, etc.

If you know what kind of driver you’re looking for, you can zero in on just that update. But if you don’t know what driver you need, this might be a good time to bring all your system drivers up-to-date.

Once you’ve downloaded the latest drivers for your hardware and your version of Windows, follow the instructions on the sites to install them.

In most cases, the manual installation of a free, updated driver will fix your problem. If it doesn’t, there are commercial options, too. For example, Driver Guide can supply individual drivers from its library. Some drivers are available for free and others at a low cost of about U.S. $3 or so.

Drivers HeadQuarters’ Driver Detective is similar to Driver Guide, but it’s a slicker and more-automated service. It’s free to update one driver and $30 to update your entire PC. Driver Detective will try to sniff out all your system drivers and link you to the latest versions automatically.

No matter where you get them from, having the correct drivers will almost surely resolve this problem!

Identify an external drive’s format type

John Swanson needs a quick way to determine how an external drive is formatted:

• “Fred’s article “NTFS vs. FAT32 for formatting external drives” in the July 2 edition talked about various formatting [options]. How can I tell how my external drive is formatted?”

Piece o’ cake, John! In Windows Explorer, right-click any drive and select Properties. With almost all standard drive types — spinning-platter, flash memory, whatever — Windows will show you the drive’s name, how it’s formatted, how much of its capacity is used, and more. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. Right-click any drive in Windows Explorer and select Properties to determine its format type (NTFS in this example).

As you can see in the figure, my 1TB One Touch external drive is formatted using NTFS. It also has 389GB of its 1TB capacity free (though I suspect this number will shrink quickly). As they say, you can never have too much memory or processing power.

Use the best tool to convert WMA/MP3 audio files

Debra Schlehuber was overwhelmed with choices when she searched for an audio-file conversion tool:

• “I don’t know who else to ask. Any idea on how to change a Windows Media music file to an MP3 file? I have done a lot of looking, but there are so many programs out there for converting/changing your music files, I’m not sure who to trust.”

One of the best tools for converting a Windows Media file — wma, .wmv, .asf, etc. — to the .mp3 format is WinFF. It’s a free, multiplatform tool available from the WinFF site. The program can handle a range of conversions and is supported by an online discussion board, a wiki, and more.

Well-known tech author Jake Ludington has a how-to page for WinFF on his MediaBlab site. Jake even provides a video clip showing how to use WinFF. The info is good, but the page is somewhat cluttered with ads for other audio tools, most of which have nothing to do with WinFF, so read (and click) carefully.

By starting with a free tool that I know is a good one, you can gain experience with audio conversions safely and without paying a fee — or taking a shot in the dark with unknown software.

WinFF may turn out to be all you need. If not, at least you’ll have a rock-solid basis for comparison when you look at alternative tools. Happy converting!

Fred Langa is editor-at-large 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 browser combines best of three worlds

By Ian “Gizmo” Richards You no longer have to choose between Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome as your browser of choice. A new contender in the increasingly crowded field combines all three engines behind one easily customizable interface.

It’s what’s beneath the hood that counts

If you want to start a heated discussion among a group of computer enthusiasts, just ask them, “What’s the best Web browser?” Among the Firefox supporters, Opera freaks, Chrome devotees, Safari adherents, and even the occasional Internet Explorer advocate, you’re bound to be sternly lectured as to why their particular browser favorite is the best.

However, this argument may be history. There’s a new browser in town that combines the engines from all the major browsers into a single, easy-to-use package.

This all-in-one browser is called Lunascape — an appropriate name, because it has arisen out of the blue. It originated in Japan, where it has a substantial following and sizable installed base.

Lunascape may be downloaded from the vendor’s site. The initial download is 8.42MB, plus additional downloads for the Gecko and WebKit engines, if required.

To understand Lunascape’s significance, it’s necessary to consider how browsers are constructed. Underneath the hood of your car is the engine. Regardless of what your car looks like on the outside, it’s the engine that largely determines the vehicle’s performance.

It’s the same with browsers. Every browser has an engine that handles screen rendering and other key browser functions. The engine for Firefox is Gecko. Safari uses WebKit, Opera uses Presto, and Internet Explorer uses Trident.

The recently released Google Chrome browser also uses WebKit, as does Safari. That should alert you to the fact that different-looking browsers can share the same engine in much the same way different cars can have unique exterior and interior designs while using the same engine.

Each browser engine has its strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, much of the discussion about browser performance really comes down to differences in the engines used by those browsers.

Browser lets you switch among three engines

The idea behind the Lunascape browser is to incorporate several major browser engines and let users swap among these engines, based on the tasks at hand.

The three supported engines are Internet Explorer’s Trident, Firefox’s Gecko, and WebKit — which is used by Safari and Chrome. You could use Trident for browsing sites that work well only with Internet Explorer, Gecko for pages where JavaScript speed is important, and WebKit for sites that have a lot of images.

This kind of optimization is easy with Lunascape, because it can be configured to open a different engine for specified sites. Indeed, you can have multiple tabs open, each using a different browser engine.

Swapping engines in Lunascape is easy: Just right-click a tab and select the engine you want.

Not only can you swap engines, you can also easily change the look and feel of the browser. If you like the Internet Explorer 8 look, you can configure Lunascape to look somewhat the same — though not identical. Similarly, you can choose a Firefox or Safari look, if you wish. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Lunascape’s interface options include Simple (top), Silver (middle), and Cool (bottom).

In fact, Lunascape is so amazingly configurable that it’s a tweaker’s delight.

Looks aside, what’s the browser like to use?

First, let me say that when I’m running the WebKit engine, the Lunascape browser is genuinely fast. The Lunascape site claims the product runs JavaScript faster than Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, or Firefox. I can’t confirm this, but I can say that the product has the same zippy feel when browsing as Google Chrome does.

Second, Lunascape will import your Firefox bookmarks and/or Internet Explorer favorites. That’s a handy feature.

Third, you can use Internet Explorer add-ons with the product, although Lunascape doesn’t support Firefox add-ons. Lunascape also supports a number of its own plug-ins (but at present, most of these have menus only in Japanese).

Fourth, I found the product stable. I tested the latest version, 5.1.4, over a three-day period, and the browser didn’t crash once. That’s a big advance on the alpha version I tested late last year, which crashed with regularity of a ticking metronome.

On the downside, I found the interface somewhat cluttered compared to other modern browsers. Some would say that’s because Lunascape offers more features. Maybe so, but to my eye, it’s still cluttered.

The program’s biggest negative for me is the inability to use my Firefox add-ons. It’s the same problem I have with Safari and Chrome: both are great browsers, but I’m not prepared to live without the productivity provided by my Firefox extensions.

The three types of users who’ll love this app

Three groups of people will benefit the most from using Lunascape:

• For webmasters and HTML developers who want to see how their sites look in different browsers, Lunascape offers a really simple way of doing so. You could have the same site open in three tabs, each using a different rendering engine.
• Advanced users can maximize their browsing performance on sites that employ varying technologies.
• Hardcore tweakers will be able to totally customize the browser to meet their needs. Lunascape is a twiddler’s dream and is the most configurable browser I’ve ever used.

Most average users will find Lunascape little more than a curiosity. Still, the browser looks rather cool, and the next time someone asks you what browser you use, you can answer, “I don’t use any of the three common browsers — I use a browser that combines the best features of all three.” (Mind you, that’s what Opera users have been saying for years!)

Ian “Gizmo” Richards is senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of the Support Alert Newsletter, which merged with Windows Secrets in July 2008.

Bolster your security with top-notch free tools

By Erik Larkin If you entrust your security to a single antivirus app, your PC might well become a casualty some day. To make sure you win the malware war, you need the multiple lines of defense provided by the advanced features of two of my favorite free services.

Give your antivirus software a torture test

You can drastically improve your security by using two free tools that thwart crooks’ primary methods of attack: (1) luring you to download a bogus security program and (2) exploiting software that you’ve left unpatched.

To avoid being tricked into downloading a fake utility, check for the product in the list of approved anti-malware products that’s maintained by Virustotal. To protect your apps from remaining unpatched, use some little-known features of Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector.

Virustotal helps you thwart scare jobs that try to con you into downloading fake anti-malware programs. If you fall for such a ruse and actually install a phony security app, it might go undetected by your PC’s AV program. (After all, you probably clicked OK more than once to download the file.)

The impostor will have a much-harder time, however, concealing itself from all of the 41 different antivirus engines Virustotal currently uses to identify suspicious files.

To scan any file on your PC, click the Browse button on the main Virustotal page. The service checks files as large as 20MB. Click the Save File button to begin the scan. It usually takes less than a minute for the results to roll in. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The free Virustotal anti-malware service scans files as large as 20MB, using 41 different antivirus engines.

If you receive one or two generic-sounding warnings such as “suspicious Trojan,” the results might be false positives. If multiple engines flag the file and identify it by a specific malware name, however, don’t use the download.

To make Virustotal even easier to use, you can install a tiny, free tool from the site. The utility allows you to upload a file to the site without having to open your browser first.

After installing the upload utility, you can right-click any file in Windows Explorer and select Send To, Virustotal. Once the file finishes uploading, you’ll see the scan results in your browser. This is a dead-simple option, although it can handle only files that are 10MB or smaller.

To use the service or get the utility, see the Virustotal site.

Little-known options help you stay patch-perfect

Malware frequently attempts to break into your systems via unpatched applications. Media players and other software often have flaws that are more serious than the weaknesses periodically discovered in Windows itself.

Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI) protects you against drive-by downloads and other silent attacks by making it easy to keep all your apps patched. I consider the service much more reliable than the automatic-update features of the programs themselves.

You may be familiar with PSI’s basic scan, but the service’s advanced features give you a more-complete status report on your apps. PSI’s advanced settings also provide links to more info on the updates you need.

After you download and install PSI, the program scans your computer. It often finds old and vulnerable programs that are open doors for attackers.

The program’s “Simple” interface is meant for less-technical users and will report only easy-to-fix problems. PSI’s “Advanced” interface, which I recommend, provides much better information.

In the advanced mode, you’ll see a full list of your software in four categories: Insecure, End-of-Life, Patched, and Secure Browsing. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The advanced interface of PSI categorizes your apps and provides links to more information.

For each program listed, you’re provided with a link to download any available updates. Other links lead to the folder in which the program is stored, complete details on existing vulnerabilities, and other helpful information.

PSI makes closing critical security holes about as easy as it gets. By default, the program continually monitors your software and displays a status icon in the notification area. If you’re short on system resources, however, you can run the utility only when you choose.

One of the best little-known features of PSI is its Secure Browsing section. This capability focuses solely on your system’s ability to thwart attacks by Web sites. In this section, you find security assessments of every browser that’s ever been installed on your PC. (You might be surprised at the number you have on-disk.)

PSI provides hyperlinks to updates for each browser it labels “Insecure.” The scan also includes a severity rating of each threat and a link to the Secunia advisory for the unpatched program.

Double-checking gives you better protection

Bringing in two big guns such as Virustotal and PSI won’t guarantee your PC’s safety. No single security product or service can do that. Making these free and easy anti-malware tools part of your security arsenal, though, is a no-brainer if ever there was one.

Erik Larkin is a tech writer and IT worker who covers security topics for CIO and other computer magazines and sites.