[ale] [OT] Need to lock down a Windows laptop

David Hillman hillmands at gmail.com
Wed Apr 13 01:38:24 EDT 2011


If her machine is powerful enough (Core2Duo + 2GB memory), it might be best
to install Virtualbox in Ubuntu and then install Windows 7 in there.  Put
the files in the Linux filesystem and share them in the virtual machine.
 There are some very nasty trojans that'll disable all virus scanners upon
infection and won't let any scanners even install.  To clean an infection,
Dr. Web CureIt seems to work well because it randomizes the executable and
uses something called Enhanced Protection Mode to ensure it can load in
memory, even if malware has blocked everything.  Another thing to do is run
a vulnerability tester--Secunia Personal Software Inspector and Belarc
Advisor (goes for any OS).  Avast and AVG are pretty good virus scanners.
 Also, see about using Google Chrome as the main browser.  IE just has too
many hooks deep into Windows to make me feel good about using it as anything
other than a doorstop.

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 6:16 PM, Trey Sizemore <trey at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Hi all-
>
> Off-topic for the list, but I know there's tremendous knowledge and
> experience here when it comes to tightening a Windows machine.
>
> I've got my daughter's laptop dual-booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu.  I've
> encouraged her to use Ubuntu as much as possible, but realize there are some
> programs that are not able to run on Linux at this point (tried Wine and
> others).
>
> So for the times she does log in to Windows, I want to have up-to-date
> anti-virus installed and am looking for some advice on what to use.  Also,
> any other software that would be good to install to help keep the nasties
> off.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Trey
>
>
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