Windows Defender Offline — old name, new use

Windows Defender Offline — old name, new use

By Woody Leonhard

Microsoft’s newly released beta version of Windows Defender Offline, a rootkit-sniffing and Windows-rehabilitation tool, should be the latest addition to your bag of Windows-repair tricks.

WDO should be able to catch a wide variety of nasties that evade detection by more traditional antivirus methods.

Although the name’s been around for years, don’t confuse this new version of WDO with previous incarnations — it’s a whole new animal and helps PC users in two very different situations:

1. Windows won’t boot: You can boot your machine with a WDO CD or USB drive, and WDO will perform a detailed malware scan.

2. You suspect you have a rootkit: WDO can scan your system and remove many different kinds of rootkits.

Oddly, Microsoft has been uncharacteristically mum about Windows Defender Offline. If there are any published technical details about the program — what it does or how it works — I haven’t found them. With a bit of reading between the lines, here’s what I can say:

WDO is almost identical to an earlier product called Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. Microsoft released the beta version of MSSS in May. (Susan Bradley’s July 28 Top Story talked about MSSS.) The size of the program hasn’t changed. The format of the signature files appears to be identical. The earlier product doesn’t mention Windows 8, but WDO most definitely does run on Win8 Developer Preview.

As best I can tell, WDO uses the same signature files used by Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). However, I know of one instance where a piece of malware was not caught by MSE but did trigger a WDO response. I have no idea why.

I’ve seen no published statistics about WDO’s ability to identify or clean rootkits. But one possible reason WDO found malware that MSE could not find lies in the way WDO works.

Unlike MSE, WDO doesn’t depend on the Windows OS installed on your computer. It’s completely self-contained — boot the afflicted PC from a WDO CD or USB drive, and the tool examines the system without any interference from the installed copy of Windows.

That’s critical for finding rootkits, which are very good at hiding on your system. Here’s an analogy: To make a watermelon smoothie, you’ve sliced the melon, removed the seeds, and mixed the cleaned pulp in a blender. Now imagine trying to pull a wayward seed (a missed rootkit) out of the blender while it’s running. That’s what rootkit extractors are up against: they need to find, isolate, and remove the rootkit while the Windows system is whirring away. Extracting malware is far easier when Windows is off.

Get a copy of Windows Defender Offline beta

As best I can tell — Microsoft hasn’t published the details — WDO will work on Windows XP SP3 systems (and possibly SP2); Vista RTM, SP1, and SP2; Windows 7 RTM and SP1; and Windows 8 Developer Preview. Also, your system must be bootable from a USB drive or a CD drive.

There are separate versions of WDO for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, so you need to know the bittedness of the system to be scanned. (If you need help, see the Microsoft Help & How-to page, “Is my PC running the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows?”)

You can download WDO and create the bootable CD or USB drive on any handy computer, as long as it’s connected to the Internet. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Windows Defender Offline Beta site and, at the bottom of the page, click the link for either the 32-bit or 64-bit version. (Note that the version needs to match the bittedness of the machine you’re fixing — the bittedness of the machine you’re using to download WDO and create a bootable disc or drive doesn’t matter.)

2. Run the downloaded file to start the WDO installer — you’ll see an initial splash screen with general WDO information. Click Next, and a new window appears that lets you choose where to install WDO, as shown in Figure 1. (Caution: Select the bootable USB drive option, and the installer wipes out everything currently on the USB drive.)

Figure 1. WDO must be installed on bootable media. The ISO-file option is used primarily to boot virtual machines.

3. Make your media selection and click Next. The installer downloads the latest version of the software and signature files (about 210MB for the 32-bit version or 230MB for the 64-bit version) and then creates the boot drive or the ISO file.

If you have problems creating a bootable drive, Microsoft’s WDO FAQ might have the answer.

Check your PC with Windows Defender Offline

It’s now time to boot your suspect system with the newly created WDO CD, DVD, or USB drive. If you need help with this step — or your system won’t recognize the boot media (due, for example, to incorrect BIOS settings) — the WDO FAQ page has some possible solutions (although the suggestion for disabling DEP is completely unnecessary).

If you have a multiboot system, you must choose which operating system to scan — WDO will check only one at a time. With the OS selected, WDO next displays its command screen. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. Windows Defender Offline’s command screen looks a lot like Microsoft Security Essentials.

If it’s been a while since you created the WDO boot drive and the PC being scanned is connected to the Internet, you’ll most likely want to click the Update tab and download the latest definition files.

Before clicking the Scan now button, select from the Quick, Full, or Custom scan options. A full scan is very thorough — it looks inside all the files on the system, including ancient backed-up e-mails — and can take up to eight hours to complete. (In tests on a relatively fresh Windows 8 Developer Preview virtual machine, a full scan took only 20 minutes.) The Custom option lets you select specific drives and folders to scan. A Quick scan looks in the most commonly used locations on your PC.

If WDO finds potential threats, it displays warnings identical to those in Microsoft Security Essentials — and, like MSE, it lets you remove, quarantine, or ignore each threat.

Microsoft’s ongoing problem of brand confusion

Microsoft seems to be playing around with — and botching — its brands again. You may remember the Windows Live ID branding stupidity: the same product was originally called Microsoft Wallet, then MS Passport, then .NET Passport, then MS Passport Network before finally being christened Windows Live ID. Similarly, MSN Messenger became MSN Messenger Service, which ran on the .NET Messenger Service (or was it Windows Messenger?); then it all suddenly morphed into Windows Live Messenger. The term .NET has gone through so many marketing wringers, it’s hard to keep track: is .NET a floor wax or a dessert topping? Microsoft has a habit of bewildering you with product name changes and confusing product pedigrees for no apparent reason; the term Windows Defender is about to join the club.

The branding history of WDO goes something like this. Back in 2004, Microsoft bought a company called GIANT AntiSpyware and turned that product into Microsoft AntiSpyware the next year. MS then rewrote it and renamed it Windows Defender in 2006 — and made it a free download for Windows XP. Later, MS built Windows Defender into Vista and Windows 7.

In 2005, Microsoft also bought a company called Sybari and turned Sybari’s antivirus product into a corporate AV suite — Microsoft Forefront. Many companies are still running Forefront.

Microsoft then created a free, consumer/small-business version of Forefront and called it Microsoft Security Essentials. If you download and install MSE on a PC that has Windows Defender (whether manually installed on XP or baked into Vista and Win7), it automatically disables the Windows Defender user interface and takes over Defender’s functions — MSE effectively supersedes Windows Defender.

It now appears that Microsoft is recycling the Windows Defender name, but none of the original WD code. Windows President Steve Sinofsky, who’s in the thick of finishing Windows 8, stated in a Building Windows 8 blog, “With Windows 8, we are extending the protections provided by Defender to address a broader range of potential threats.” He added that Win8 will have “improvements to Windows Defender to provide you with real-time protection from all categories of malware ….”

In short, there’s every indication that Windows Defender Offline is based on the Forefront/Microsoft Security Essentials code base and has absolutely nothing in common with the old Windows Defender — regardless of what you may have read in the computer press.

Regardless of its history, Windows Defender Offline’s primary advantage is as a self-booting anti-malware system. Try it out!

Malware removal: Learning the hard way

By Kathleen Atkins

If your good judgment fails in a fit of holiday exuberance and you end up with malware on your computer, keep the Security & Backups forum in mind.

Currently, fellow Lounge members are helping Tiger4 get out of a complete jam. For thoughtful recommendations of anti-malware tools and tutorials on how to use them, read the thread: More»

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

☼ 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 into today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Kathleen Atkins is associate editor of Windows Secrets.

Ducks take on all comers — friend or foe

By Kathleen Atkins If you haven’t thought about the essential nature of ducks lately, it might be a good way to begin the year. Here to help you ponder what a duck would do in a variety of circumstances is a variety of ducks. They all seem to have unstoppable natures, as friendly and not-so-friendly forces find out. Play the video

Easily edit Windows' right-click context menus

By Fred Langa Freeware tools make it simple to change your right-click menu options. You can also safely alter your system’s context menus with some quick manual Registry edits.

How to change Windows’ right-click menus

Reader Brian Holmes wants to prune Windows’ context menus — the options that appear when you right-click on a file or folder. His request is about Windows 7, but the context menus in all Windows versions can be modified by the same methods.

• “Finally, I have migrated to Windows 7 via a fine laptop. One issue that I cannot solve is how to remove unnecessary items from the right-click context menu. I didn’t say ADD — just remove.

  “I see utilities out there, but they’re usually far too complex or confusing. Other suggestions involve hacking the Registry and are never as certain as they should be.

  “Can you suggest any specific ideas?”

Sure, Brian!

As you discovered, there are literally dozens of context-menu editors out there, both free and commercial. But I think you should try Brett Bartholomew’s simple, free Context Menu Editor [site]. It lets you remove items from the context menus of files, folders, and Internet Explorer. It’s a very basic app and not very pretty to look at, but it gets that basic, remove-only job done without fuss or fanfare. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The freeware Context Menu Editor lets you easily remove items from the context menus of files, folders, and Internet Explorer.

But if that tool doesn’t do what you want, it’s really not hard to manually edit your system’s ContextMenuHandlers and related entries in the Registry. Here’s how:

• Step 1. Make a backup. A full backup is always best, but at the very least create a new Restore Point. If you need a quick refresher, here are links to Microsoft’s instructions for creating Restore Points in Win7, Vista, and XP.
• Step 2. Click Start, type regedit in the Start menu’s text or Run box, and press Enter. (Regedit is Windows’ built-in Registry editor.)
• Step 3. When the Registry editor opens, browse in the left-hand pane to the following entry:
  HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*shellexContextMenuHandlers
• Step 4. Right-click on any entry you don’t want. In Figure 2, I’ve pretended that I want to remove 7-Zip’s entry, so you can see how it’s done.

  
  Figure 2. You can use Windows’ built-in Regedit to edit your system’s ContextMenuHandlers, located in the Registry. Here, the context menu item for 7-Zip has been right-click–selected for deletion.

• Step 5. Click Delete to remove an unwanted item. Or if you think you might want to restore a given context menu item in the future, choose Export from the right-click menu. Exporting creates a small .reg file you can later double-click at any time to put the item back. Then, after you export, click Delete.

As mentioned earlier, Windows has several types of context menus. Files, folders, and Internet Explorer have their own, for example. If the context menu item you’re planning to delete doesn’t appear in the primary location, shown above, it will appear in one of the following locations:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*OpenWithList

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershell
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellexContextMenuHandlers

If you don’t see what you’re looking for in one place, try the others. The process of deleting (with or without exporting first) is exactly the same as described above.

Saving the setup files for XP Mode

Mike Weir wrote in response to the September 22, 2011, Top Story, “Using Windows 7’s XP Mode — step by step.”

• “Thank you for this clear exposition. I have a small problem, though. I have only dialup on the home computer running Windows 7 Pro 32-bit, where I seek to install XP mode. Is it possible to download files here at work using our wideband connections for installation at home?

  “Everything I’ve tried seems to lead to an initial attempt to download and run code on my work computer, a company-managed XP machine. I doubt they would appreciate that, and it would probably be counterproductive anyway. I haven’t been able to formulate a query on the Web that gets me to an answer.”

Sure, Mike. XP Mode installs and runs only inside Windows 7, so Microsoft’s main instruction page assumes you’re running Internet Explorer 9 in Windows 7. But you can download standalone files using XP if you want or need to, for later transfer to and installation on a Win7 system.

The full XP Mode download includes three components: XP Mode itself, the Windows Virtual PC that runs XP Mode, and an optional XP Mode Update for the original version of Windows 7. (You don’t need this last item if you’ve upgraded to Win7 SP1.)

Here are direct links to the files:

• XP Mode
• Windows Virtual PC for 32-bit Win7 or for 64-bit Win7
• XP Mode Update KB 977206 for 32-bit Win7 or for 64-bit Win7

Download (or right-click Save target as) the files with the correct bittedness for your Win7 setup. Transfer them from your work XP box to a thumb drive, CD, or other medium; bring them home to your Win7 box; then click to install them.

You can use Microsoft’s XP Mode instruction page to validate your copy of Win7 (a necessary prerequisite) and to obtain additional information on setting up and using XP Mode. But instead of following the download links on that page, you can use the files you downloaded and saved at work.

Free snipping tools to simplify OCR

Peter Haug found a way to use Win7/Vista’s Snipping Tool (as discussed in this December 1, 2011, item) for easy optical character recognition (OCR). That is, he has learned how to turn an image of text (from a photo, screen shot, or other source) into editable text you can work on in a word processor.

• “Here’s another use for Snipping Tool if you’re running Microsoft OneNote: Optical character recognition. Here’s the link to the HowToGeek article.

  “It works great!”

Thanks, Peter. OneNote (included in most versions of Office 2007 and 2010) is good but not required. There are other OCR tools available too, including Softi’s FreeOCR (site) and an online tool at Free-ocr.com (site).

In each case, you simply use the Snipping Tool to capture an image of the text you want, and the OCR tool of your choice will convert it into editable text for you. Easy as pie!

Win7’s built-in Problem Steps Recorder

John Worley found a nice troubleshooting tool and wants to share his discovery.

• “I’d like to mention the excellent feature built into Windows 7 and named Problem Steps Recorder, which I have used numerous times. I find that it almost always tells you how to fix the problem.

  “It really is so simple to use. Just create a shortcut on the desktop — and when a program starts giving you problems, you click on that shortcut. A small window will appear; you click on Start Record and let it record everything you do as you re-create the problem. The Problem Steps Recorder transcribes to your screen the steps you take. At the end of the process, you will be able to identify where the problem lies. Nine times out of ten, you’ll be able to fix it.

  “So simple and yet hidden away by Microsoft so that most users don’t even know it is there on Windows 7.

  “Here is a link to the Microsoft Site for directions on its use.”

Good tip, John! Problem Steps Recorder was originally intended for use by professional support personnel. But most Windows Secrets readers are at least their own support techs, and they very often also serve the same function for co-workers, friends, and family.

Problem Steps Recorder makes it much easier to see exactly where a problem occurs, no matter whose computer is having trouble!

Staying in touch with voice and video

By Katherine Murray If you enjoyed spending time with family and friends over the holidays and are looking for good ways to keep in direct contact, look to the Web for free services. When an e-mail or Facebook post just won’t do, here are popular voice/video-communication tools worth trying out.

Skype sets a high standard for services

You might be acquainted with Skype, the free online service you can use to make calls from your computer to someone else’s. People all over the world use Skype for low- and no-cost talking in real time. You can use it for voice or video calls. If you don’t mind paying a little bit for your calls, you can use it to call land-line and mobile phones, too.

Skype is available for Mac, Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, iPads, iPhones, and Android phones. You can have free audio or video chats with anyone in the world who is also using Skype. A dependable Internet connection is useful if you want to avoid repeated disconnections while you’re trying to talk. The only extra equipment you really need is a headset — and a webcam, if you want to see each other while you chat.

With Skype you can not only chat with others but also share what’s on your screen while you talk. (See Figure 1.) If you’re watching a movie or have a photo or article or some other item you want to show the person you’re chatting with, you can click Share and then choose the display you want to share. Skype puts the content into the chat window so whoever’s on the other end of the line can view it, too.

Figure 1. You can share your screen while video-chatting in Skype.

I’ve used Skype off and on for a couple of years, and I like a number of its features. The call quality is usually good (even for international calls), and the process for adding contacts is smooth and fast. The tools are easy to figure out and use so that even folks with a low tolerance for technology can get connected without a lot of hassle.

One of the biggest perks for Skype users is that calls and chats over Skype are encrypted; others can’t listen in or have access to the content of your online communications. The other voice and video services I checked out — Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, and AOL’s AV — are all silent on the level of security (or lack thereof) they provide.

The downside of Skype is how intrusive it can feel; by default, the service loads automatically when you boot your PC and waits in the wings — unless you tell it otherwise. When you exit Skype, it doesn’t really go away as you’d expect it to — it simply goes dormant again. I use the service sporadically, so I don’t want it soaking up processing power it doesn’t need. I’d rather have something with a lighter footprint.

Gabbing on Google, one way or another

Google offers several different ways you can stay in touch with friends and family via voice and video. I find the offerings confusing because they seem to overlap; it’s not clear why you need three different utilities that all do similar things.

Google’s voice and video chat (info) is a plugin that adds video chat to your Google account. I tried it several times and never did get it to work properly. Instead, I received an error message informing me that there was a problem with the servers used to support video chat.

If I had family members waiting to chat with me online, that’s enough to make me pack it in and use another service — which I did.

Google Talk (info) is another free offering from Google. It lets you chat digitally in real time — voice to voice — with friends and family members. Google Talk works only with Windows computers, Android phones, and BlackBerry devices at this point, but Mac and Linux users who want to use Google Talk can use other instant-messaging clients, such as AIM, to connect to Google Talk.

Google Talk was easy to set up and use — and I didn’t get a single server error. It was simply a matter of downloading the plugin, running it, and then clicking the contact to call. Click the Call button and your computer begins dialing (Figure 2). Not bad for free. The downside is no video chat — that’s what you need Google Voice and Video Chat for (and which I never got working).

Figure 2. Google Talk is simple to set up and use; just click the phone icon by the contact you want to call.

If you’re using either Gmail or Google+, you can create a Google hangout. Here, you can gather online with those in one of your circles or on your contact list and have fun with webcams. This kind of shared video chat has an interesting feature — the person speaking is shown center stage, above the miniature web images of the others in the conversation. (See Figure 3.) In this way, hangouts function almost like real conversations, where the group’s focus is on the person speaking.

Hangouts also have the shared-screen feature that Skype offers. One entertaining thing to do in a hangout is to watch a video with a few of your closest friends — who might all be located in different cities and time zones. Nice.

Figure 3. Google hangouts are video chats you can use for conversation, movie sharing, and more.

Hangouts uses the Google Voice and Video plugin to keep the connection flowing. When you add Hangouts to your Gmail account, it should install relatively painlessly. Still, if you’re creating a Google+ account (adding folks to your circles and figuring out how to use Hangouts for the first time), it’s a good idea to set everything up and invite your friends and family a day or so ahead of the time you want to have your first hangout.

Windows Live Messenger: A mediocre chat tool

Windows Live Messenger (info) seems clunkier in the voice/video-chat department than Skype or Google. It’s not difficult to launch a voice call in Windows Live Messenger; simply click the contact you want to call, open the Actions menu, and choose Call a contact’s computer. But at first I was confused about where to find the call option. I expected to see a small phone icon beside the contact name in the list, similar to what you find in Google’s contact list.

You’ll find the Windows Live Messenger video options in the same place you find its call options — click Actions and point to Video to click your choice. (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4. You’ll find the voice and video call options in the Actions menu of Windows Live Messenger.

Windows Live Messenger certainly isn’t a bad instant-messaging client, but I didn’t find much in it to get excited about. It has the basics such as chat, PC-to-PC calls, and file sharing — they’re functional but underwhelming overall.

Windows Live Messenger also felt fussier than the other voice/video-chat services I tested. Before letting me start a chat with my son, the software determined that he hadn’t downloaded the latest version of Messenger; it insisted he upgrade to the latest Messenger before we could connect. To avoid that bit of hassle, we took the easy route and used another service. (Let this be a lesson to you, Microsoft.)

AOL’s AV: light, friendly, and fun

Back in the Pleistocene era of computers, AIM (info) was all the rage with the under-18 crowd. I remember when my kids had hundreds of buddies on AIM. (“Are you really doing your homework?” I’d ask, noticing the AIM window open on their computer screens.) In recent years, I thought AIM had all but dried up and blown away. No one I know uses it anymore. I couldn’t even remember my username. But in doing the research for this article, I thought I’d take a look to see whether AIM still existed and, if so, whether it had any voice or video offerings.

Lo and behold, I discovered that while AIM itself is almost (amazingly) unchanged, AOL has added a new service, AV, which enables four people to have a video chat online without logging in or downloading any kind of add-in software. This little program really wowed me! My son and I fired up the service and were chatting away in under three minutes (Figure 5).

Figure 5. You can be chatting in minutes with AV.

If you and your AIM buddies have webcams, you can now go to www.aim.com and click AV’s Start a Video Chat button. AOL will ask you to select a check box stating that you’re over 13 years old; then you click the Start a Video Chat button — again — to begin the process.

The service lets you chat with as many as four people without even signing in to an account. Onscreen instructions walk you through selecting the Flash features that make the chat possible. I was impressed by how easy the process was — this is something even my mom could figure out by herself (which is important when you want to be able to include family members of all ages in your online conversations).

AV offers one attractive extra feature: you can click the little camera icon at the bottom of the chat window to capture a still photo of you and your chat buddies and then send the image to one of your favorite social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. You can also invite others to a chat-in-progress, which makes it easy to add family members and friends who you think might enjoy using the service.

AV didn’t ask us for our e-mail addresses, it didn’t display any banner ads, it didn’t download anything to our computers. And it even displayed a sense of humor. When we clicked the Leave button in the navigation panel on the left side of the screen, a popup box prompted us to confirm by clicking a big red button: Yes, get me out of here!

And that seemed like a perfect way to end a good long holiday chat. Because, let’s face it, who hasn’t needed to escape after a little too much family togetherness?

Five tricks for improving Windows Media Player

By Lincoln Spector As music CDs give way to downloaded tunes, PCs are taking on a new role as personal, digital jukeboxes. There are plenty of Windows music players to choose from, but one of the best — Window Media Player 12 — comes free with every copy of Windows 7. Here’s how to make it even better.

Over the years, I’ve checked out most of the music players for Windows PCs. I’ve used the venerable Winamp and tried the upstart iTunes. But I keep coming back to Windows Media Player (WMP) — it’s attractive, easy to use, and does almost everything I want my digital music player to do.

As with many Microsoft products, however, WMP 12 has features that are not immediately obvious. Add a few setting changes and add-ons, and WMP becomes an even better app for listening to music on your PC.

In this article, I’ll tell you how to switch between WMP’s two modes, improve audio playback quality, create smart playlists, and stop the music at the end of the current song. And I’ll tell you about a free plugin that adds new features to WMP — and old ones that Microsoft stupidly removed.

I won’t cover WMP’s talents as a video player — that’s a topic for another day. But many of the following audio tips can also enhance your video playback experience.

Don’t like Media Player’s look? Change it!

Windows Media Player runs in two basic modes: Library and Now Playing. Not only do they have very different looks, but some settings can be changed only in one or the other of these modes.

The default Library view is a large window where you can search for artists, albums, and songs. You can also create and manage playlists and rip and burn CDs. And, of course, you can listen to your music.

Listening to music is about all you can do in WMP’s Now Playing mode. This small window displays album art and some basic information about the current song. Hover the mouse pointer over the window, and you’ll also get the basic playing controls such as play/pause, skip forward/back, mute, and volume. Right-click the WMP window, and you’ll find more controls.

How to switch between modes is not immediately obvious. In either mode, look for the small icon with three tiny boxes and an arrow (highlighted in Figure 1). In Library mode, you’ll find this icon in the lower-right corner; in Now Playing, it’s in the upper-right corner.

Figure 1. Use the mode-switch icon (highlighted in yellow) to change between WMP’s Library and Now Playing modes.

If you don’t like either of these looks, try changing WMP12’s skin. The app comes with two — Corporate and Revert — neither of which is particularly interesting. You can choose from many more on Microsoft’s “Skins for Windows Media Player” page, or simply enter wmp 12 skin into your favorite search engine.

Improve WMP’s playback-sound quality

Windows Media Player 12 makes it relatively easy to make tunes sound better through your speakers or headphones.

In Now Playing mode, right-click the window and select Enhancements; a submenu will appear, listing seven options for changing the sound. It’s quick and easy to roll through each of these options by clicking the right/left arrows in the upper-left corner of each control’s windows.

Here are the ones I find most useful:

Crossfading: The perfect choice for those nonstop dance parties. Each song blends into the next.

Volume leveling: If your tunes were ripped at different levels, chances are good that some of your songs will be much louder (or softer) than others. Use volume leveling to reduce the time spent fiddling with the volume control as WMP moves from one tune to the next. It keeps the average volume consistent from song to song without affecting the overall dynamic range (the difference between soft and loud sounds) within a track.

However, checking this option isn’t enough. For volume leveling to work properly, you’ll have to change an additional setting. Right-click the Play Now window and select More options. Click the Library tab and check Add volume leveling information values for new files. Even then, it will take a while before this feature works well.

Quiet mode: Unlike volume leveling, quiet mode compresses the dynamic range within a song — no part of it is excessively loud or too soft. You might find this useful when trying not to disturb others or if you’d like to protect your aging eardrums.

Graphic equalizer: Use the equalizer to fine-tune sounds by frequency. Click the Default link to pick from 20 pre-set settings — such as Grunge, Country, Classical, and Swing — or to save a custom selection.

Figure 2. WMP’s sound equalizer applet. Click on the right/left arrows in the upper left corner to access other audio controls.

Smart playlists that know what songs to add

Gone are the days of homemade music cassette tapes and CDs. Playlists have replaced tape and disc as the way to make custom collections of tunes. It takes no time at all to create a new playlist and drag selected cuts to it.

Windows Media Player takes playlists to another level with its Auto Playlist function. Rather than give WMP a list of songs, you provide auto playlists with search criteria and sorting instructions. (You can, of course, still create plain old, conventional playlists in WMP.)

For instance, I have one smart playlist that includes only songs I’ve added to the library in the past month — and another smart playlist of songs I haven’t played in the past six months. I even have a playlist of songs written by Bob Dylan but performed by someone else.

You create an auto playlist in Library mode. Click the drop-down arrow next to the Create playlist button and select Create auto playlist. In the New Auto Playlist dialog box, give the new playlist a name, then click the first +[click here to add criteria] link for a drop-down menu of filtering criteria — for example, Album Artist (shown in Figure 3), Date Added, Date Last Played, and so forth.

Figure 3. WMP’s auto playlists offer powerful filtering and sorting tools.

Scroll to the bottom of the drop-down list, and you’ll find the More option. This gives you yet another long list of song metadata such as Composer (which really should be in the main drop-down menu), Conductor, and Language — plus sorting controls such as Randomize Playback Order.

It’s a flexible and powerful system for creating custom playlists.

Stop playback at the end of the current song

Does this happen to you? You’re listening to an album or playlist, and you know you’re going to have to turn off the music soon. But you really want to hear the currently playing song to the end. You can manually stop the music when the song ends, but if you miss your cue — damn! Now you want to hear this song through to the end.

I’ve yet to find a music player with a “Stop when this track is over” button. Fortunately, there’s a workaround that lets me do just that in Windows Media Player.

Starting in Library mode, click the Play tab near the upper-right corner of the WMP window. This brings up a list of song titles. Most of these titles are in black, but the currently playing song title is in blue.

Click the song title below the blue one. Then press CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN to select everything below it and press Delete. (See Figure 4.)

Don’t worry. This won’t delete these songs from the library, the saved playlist, or your hard drive. It will delete them only from this temporary list.

Figure 4. Removing songs from the playlist makes WMP stop playing at the end of the current track.

At some point soon afterward, WMP will likely ask whether you want to save this new or changed playlist. You don’t.

Improve Windows Media Player with a free plugin

Windows Media Player is great, but you can make it even better by downloading and installing the free Windows Media Player Plus! plugin (info). It adds programmable hot keys, a faster search, useful information on the program’s title bar, and assorted other features. There’s even a Party Shuffle playlist.

The first time you load WMP after installing the plug-in, the Windows Media Player Plus! Settings dialog box will come up. To launch it again at some later time, press and release the Alt key, select Tools from the drop-down menu that appears, click Plug-in properties, and then Windows Media Player Plus!.

Here are some of my favorite WMP Plus! features:

Restore Media at Startup: With this bookmarking option on, you can close WMP (even reboot Windows) and, the next time you restart WMP, it’ll start playing where it left off. (See Figure 5.)

Figure 5. Use Restore Media at Startup to have WMP restart just where it left off when previously shut down.

Find as you type: You no longer have to click the Search field. Just start typing while you’re in WMP, and your text will become a search.

Tag Editor Plus: This isn’t actually a new feature. It’s a replacement for an old one that Microsoft removed. If you want to change a song’s or an album’s metadata — title, artist, album title, and so on — you’ll find the Tag Editor significantly easier to use and more powerful than WMP 11’s clumsy metadata-editing tools. And if you want to change metadata for multiple songs — say, change the composer for all the songs on an album, this version makes it vastly easier.

After all, making things easy is the key to a good media player. With a little knowledge and the right plugin, you don’t have to think about Windows Media Player. Just kick back and enjoy the music.

Some leftover patch business from 2011

By Susan Bradley We ended 2011 with an out-of-cycle .NET update — one that desktop users can ignore for now but Web-server admins should make a high priority. There are also a few other leftover 2011 updates it’s time to put behind us.

MS11-100 (2638420)
Administrators: The cloud needs patching

Around the first of the year, workstation users running .NET Versions 1.1 to 4 might see the 100th update for 2011. Just hide KB 2638420 and ignore it. On the other hand, administrators managing Internet sites of any size — from server farms to WindowsSecrets.com — will want to pay attention.

A research firm recently discovered that nearly all Web-programming languages and platforms are vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks because of how they handle hash tables. An advisory on gmane.org states that Apache, ASP.NET, Java, PHP, and Ruby — to name a few — are vulnerable if an attacker sends maliciously crafted packets to the site.

According to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS11-100, the included .NET patch fixes a flaw that could let someone who knows user names on a website gain elevated rights and privileges to the site.

For those with premise servers that also use .net, I’m still not seeing that we need to rush. For those of you in charge of patching the Cloud, you might want to rush to update against this issue.

► What to do: Standalone PCs and on-site servers running .NET shouldn’t need KB 2638420 (MS11-100) — but consider the update a high priority for Web servers.

2460049, 2597052
It’s finally time to install MS Office 2010 SP1

That long-awaited hotfix for Office 2010 was finally released in December. As you might remember, a flaw in Office could corrupt linked e-mail addresses, resulting in bounced messages. You need to install the hotfix immediately after installing Office 2010 SP1. (The flaw is in Word 2010, but it affects outbound Outlook mail.)

► What to do: Office hotfixes do not get pushed out via Windows Update. Install both Office 2010 SP1 (KB 2460049) and the Word 2010 hotfix (KB 2597052).

976932
Last call for Windows 7 Service Pack 1

I was taken by surprise the other day when an application I was installing stated that it worked best with Windows 7 SP1. I thought I’d installed SP1 on all my workstations.

If you haven’t installed SP1 yet, I strongly recommend you do so soon. I’ve had the best results downloading the full package and manually installing it (instead of relying on Windows Update).

If you’re having difficulties installing Win7 SP1 and you’re a fan of Windows’ System File Checker (which goes through your system and compares current system files with the originals), I suggest you read the ghacks.net story, “Using the System File Checker to repair Windows 7.”

You should also check out Zubar Alexander’s long mcpmag.com story on troubleshooting a problematic Win7 SP1 update with Microsoft’s System Update Readiness Tool (more info).

However, I’ve never encountered the problem he describes when I’ve installed SP1 on my servers or workstations. When I do run into difficulties, they seem to be related to hard-drive issues.

► What to do: Book some spare time to get Windows 7 up to date by downloading and installing Service Pack 1 (KB 976932) on all your systems.