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Windows XP? ME2? 7? What's your flavor?

This is great information. I have five stations running 5 on-air XP Pros, and 4 production XP Pros networked with two servers. Also 4 utility XP Pros in studios, another several XP Pros for sales and ancillary use, and 3-4 Windows 7 in offices. Like has been already stated, turn off updates, etc. Restrict on-air machines from outside world access.

XP Pro will work fine until December 21, 2012, after which time nothing will mattter.
 
Our automation system runs on DOS, we have 2 Smartcasters one for each station.

I have to download the verification logs onto a floppy and take those to my office and FTP them to corporate.

Every computer in our complex is something the GM has salvaged out of the dumpster when someone in the building has moved out.

I can't use any computer in the place without pulling my hair out of my head.
I bring my own laptop to work.

I have thrown out better computers than anything in our office or transmitter sites.

My Droid X is more powerful than any computer in the place.
 
This is timely.

By the way, there is a really nasty Google/Firefox redirect virus out there that is snagging a lot of people. I have one XP Pro machine that is BSOD at random times because of it. Anti-virus software is not quite catching it yet.
 
DudeFan said:
This is timely.

By the way, there is a really nasty Google/Firefox redirect virus out there that is snagging a lot of people. I have one XP Pro machine that is BSOD at random times because of it. Anti-virus software is not quite catching it yet.
Click to expand...

Have you tried Malwarebytes anti-malware from http://www.malwarebytes.org? Excellent tool for finding and killing nastiness that antivirus programs miss, or aren't designed to detect. Also, try Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool. Remember to get the latest version at http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.aspx.
 
SirRox:

It is the TDSS Rootkit which is making the rounds in a more heinous version. It actually infects your IO drivers so Malwarebytes and the like will not detect it.

Kaspersky has a TDSS tool that does the job. Once it removes the the rootkit, Malwarebytes can clean up anything else on the system.

BSOD would result whenever you tried to do something that threatened the rootkit, such as running certain anti-malware tools and running Windows update.

Some reports say that the rootkit can infect routers and that is how it is spread.
 
What automation system are you running on 7?
Click to expand...
SS32!

Another good tip: Turn OFF the system sounds!
Click to expand...
I also delete everything in the "C:\Windows\Media" folder.

Once I get used to how where and why Windows 7 installs everything I could get to like it more.
It's a real learning adventure migrating people from their XP machines. Some can't be "upgraded" due to old software that doesn't play well on W7. They get an XP image loaded in place of the OEM W7.
 
DudeFan said:
SirRox:

It is the TDSS Rootkit which is making the rounds in a more heinous version. It actually infects your IO drivers so Malwarebytes and the like will not detect it.

Kaspersky has a TDSS tool that does the job. Once it removes the the rootkit, Malwarebytes can clean up anything else on the system.

BSOD would result whenever you tried to do something that threatened the rootkit, such as running certain anti-malware tools and running Windows update.

Some reports say that the rootkit can infect routers and that is how it is spread.
Click to expand...

^
I got this rootkit in Oct 2009 on this HP. I couldn't even rename mbam or use a copy of mbam made on a clean machine.
Very aggravating.
It finally backed me into a corner where I had to boot XP from a CD, save my work, then re-blow the whole XP system and updates. As of this date, no other machines on the network seem to have gotten it (14 months).
The on-air machine has IE set to offline. Things like this are why.

And sounds! I can't believe how often I hear MS .wav files on the air. Sounds really dorky to me.
 
MRBIboredop said:
I can't use any computer in the place without pulling my hair out of my head.
I have thrown out better computers than anything in our office or transmitter sites.
Click to expand...

Sorry about the situation, but that just made me giggle. =-)
 
Regarding the TDS32 rootkit or whatever it's called, I removed that from one of our machines with that Kapersky tool. Worked perfectly.

AND...

Everyone...

We've been having a HUGE problem with this piece of "ScareWare" on our network that Hijacks the Start button, Desktop, Task Manager, and a number of other system resources. It pops up message like "Disk Error" in red and you can't do anything. The funny part is the messages change from machine to machine, and sometimes they're SPELLED WRONG!!! LOL ... My favorite is "Delayed wite failed!" lol =-)

But anyways, it's turned out to be very easy to remove, if somewhat time-consuming:
- reboot in "safe mode with netowrking support"
- download/install/update Malwarebytes
- run a FULL scan
- reboot into Normal mode as the user
- run a full scan again, possibly a 2nd time to make sure, and keep going if you have to
- set the desktop wallpaper/theme back to normal
- set the Internet Explorer Connection/Proxy settings back to "none"

There may be more things changed, but I've not found any yet.
 
Regarding tweaking an OS, I think the key to any successful automation computer is to view the computer as an "appliance." More specifically, the computer and its OS should be tweak so that it performs one function only. In the case of an automation computer, it's function would be playout. Or if you have a production computer, it's function would be production.

With this in mind, you can more easily move through the OS and tweak. Simply ask yourself whether a specific application or program contributes to this one function. If it does not, then it should not be running and thus should be shut off or, probably better yet, completely removed. (Of course, there will be utility programs that maintain the computer itself; these, which should be left alone).

If you follow this philosophy, you can create a very stable system. I have plenty of automation machine that are tweaked and just run and run and run. However, the machines that have problems are those that perform a variety of functions: automation, file server, FTP downloader, Aunt Jessie's email exchange, etc.

Contrary to what many believe, MS is a stable system, provided it's configured properly.
 
MRBIboredop said:
Our automation system runs on DOS, we have 2 Smartcasters one for each station.

I have to download the verification logs onto a floppy and take those to my office and FTP them to corporate.

Every computer in our complex is something the GM has salvaged out of the dumpster when someone in the building has moved out.

I can't use any computer in the place without pulling my hair out of my head.
I bring my own laptop to work.

I have thrown out better computers than anything in our office or transmitter sites.

My Droid X is more powerful than any computer in the place.
Click to expand...

Is Smartcaster still supported? I thought it was a dead puppy because of it's lack of storage versus hard drive size. Please tell us more.
 
Timmy said:
Let's keep this going! I've searched for a good broadcast-centric list of tweaks for winxp or even win7. What about services, anything to disable or set to manual there? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Timmy, I like this site for services that can be disabled. Each OS is listed along with suggestions depending on whether you want a "safe", "tweaked", or "bare bones" footprint.

www.blackviper.com

Scroll down to Window Services and pick your OS.

FYI--I've read a variety of tech papers on service disabling. Some warn that it's a bad idea; others advocate that it should be done. I've done it successfully and have reduced my footprint considerably. I've never had problems, but YMMV.
 
DudeFan said:
SirRox:

It is the TDSS Rootkit which is making the rounds in a more heinous version. It actually infects your IO drivers so Malwarebytes and the like will not detect it.

Kaspersky has a TDSS tool that does the job. Once it removes the the rootkit, Malwarebytes can clean up anything else on the system.

BSOD would result whenever you tried to do something that threatened the rootkit, such as running certain anti-malware tools and running Windows update.

Some reports say that the rootkit can infect routers and that is how it is spread.
Click to expand...

Dude, I haven't seen this particular exploit. Thanks for the info. Malwarebytes detects it, but can't clean it (so far). Rootkits are probably the most difficult exploits to detect and kill because they load before the operating system. I did run the Kaspersky tool linked by ChiefOp, and fortunately didn't have the problem. I think that it's interesting that it can attack unsecured routers and change the DNS settings, sending people to infected sites and preventing access to anti-malware sites. Nasty!
 
It is interesting how nasty it has become.

The TDSS we had was not detected by Malwarebytes on our machine, even with an updated database.

The symptom we had was that disk access would cause BSOD alleging driver errors. Running Microsoft Update and Combofix would also cause BSOD. Since Hijack this and a the panoply of good tools out there would not detect anything, I thought rootkit. Sure enough, lots of postings on bleepingcomputer.com about this particular one.

We also had HDDPlus malware on this machine, which leads me to believe one of our less sophisticated users clicked on a pop-up or went to a site that spreads malware.

This is why we are moving to Ubuntu. It is easy for folks to transition from Windows and Open Office is fully Microsoft Office compatible (ok, 98% compatible).With WINE, we an install and use Adobe Audition, so its really a much more secure platform. Cheaper, too.
 
DudeFan said:
clicked on a pop-up or went to a site that spreads malware.
Click to expand...

in my case I had clicked on a "blank space area" on a page to latch onto it to be able to scroll up and down on the page with the up/down arrow. What happened then was not pretty. It was not a blank space area after all, was it?

It got worse within a few days, despite my efforts.
 
One simple answer to all of this is to run the computer as a limited user. That can help prevent these things from taking over your computer. Most automation systems can be tweaked to run in a limited user account.Taking off things like MSN messenger, the Internet Explorer icons (although you really can't uninstall it) helps.

Another idea is to use an OS that doesn't respond well to the Windows based threats. An excellent choice is Ubuntu 10.4, which someone already mentioned. Perfect for web browsing, almost any Word or excel document works great in Open Office (the latest version)... I know they've gotten a bad rap, but have picked up the development pace and has turned into an enterprise quality product. Oracle's funding helped...

I use a PC I built from a FoxConn barebones Atom 1.66Ghz dual core I got at Newegg... spent less than $220 for the whole thing and Ubuntu is very zippy on it. With Hyperthreading, shows up as a quad core CPU. Amazing technology is easier to buy than ever... I can buy 4 of these for every Dell they buy me at work, and I'd put this Atom based CPU with Ubuntu up against a clunky Optiplex 745 with bloated Windows any day. Less then 20 seconds from clicking the power button to browsing. On Windows, I'm still waiting...

To answer someone else's question about storage on Smartcaster, the answer is "it's not purely a DOS system" They typically use a Linux server for the media storage, the programs, although originally written for M$ DOS, work fine on any of the many open source DOS emulators for Linux. Many ENCO systems were similarly packaged and are still in use today using Linux based servers.

It's a shame most publicly held broadcasting corporations (who have to be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant) are limited on what open source software they can use, because of the laws that Sarbanes-Oxley imposes on them. Only operating systems utilizing file systems that can track user access to files, logging in, for auditing can be used. Fortunately, in recent years, EXT4 was developed for Linux for this reason - adoption to using this OS for servers and other uses is slower coming because of fear or misunderstandings of Open Source licensing in corporate environments. Also until recently, to be compliant, you had to prove that all security updates were being applied, and on Linux, this was impossible to do. Now there are plenty of tools to do this with. If a computer in your enterprise was broken into using a piece of rouge spyware, confidential data was stolen, and a full scale investigation was launched, you could find yourself testifying for a lack of safe practice.
 
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