Microsoft Patches All Windows Versions Against Ransomware, Nation-State Attacks

 

Microsoft announced that, along with the typical security patch bundle that Windows users were already expecting today, it will also release additional security updates meant to protect against sophisticated nation-state attackers and against the WannaCry ransomware. The company is releasing the updates to all versions of its operating system, including Windows XP, which was no longer supposed to be supported.

prease to read more here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-patches-ransomwar...

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

So that's what it was....

Thanks for the info. I was wondering why I had such large updates for both my old Windows 7 system and my Win 10 boxes. They were far larger than usual.

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"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks" ~ Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, from Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love"

The update changed my update settings.

My win 7 was rebooted this morning due to updates. MS changed the settings from "notify me" to "always download and install". So MS still has control of even my win 7 unit.

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Nuvi 2460LMT.

Thank you

Thanks for the info. I had missed this notice.

Good to know

This is war and we need to go after these attackers with what ever is necessary to eliminate them. The penalties need to be very severe and rapid!!! We also need Spec Ops teams that will hunt them down in Countries that will not co-operate with us in eliminating them!!!

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pwohlrab wrote:

My win 7 was rebooted this morning due to updates. MS changed the settings from "notify me" to "always download and install". So MS still has control of even my win 7 unit.

What edition do you use? Home?

I don't know about Windows 7 Home edition but you can still choose 1 of the 4 available update settings with the Ultimate edition. The settings are:
- Install updates automatically
- Download updates but let me choose whether to install them
- Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them
- Never check for updates

I have win 7 pro

I have it set for "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them". And like I said I found the computer rebooted and my settings changed.

chewbacca wrote:
pwohlrab wrote:

My win 7 was rebooted this morning due to updates. MS changed the settings from "notify me" to "always download and install". So MS still has control of even my win 7 unit.

What edition do you use? Home?

I don't know about Windows 7 Home edition but you can still choose 1 of the 4 available update settings with the Ultimate edition. The settings are:
- Install updates automatically
- Download updates but let me choose whether to install them
- Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them
- Never check for updates

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Nuvi 2460LMT.

GPEDIT

pwohlrab, that can be changed in GPEDIT, as an admin.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

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pwohlrab wrote:

I have it set for "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them". And like I said I found the computer rebooted and my settings changed.

That's impossible. Someone must have changed the settings. Mine remains unchanged at "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them".

Not impossible!

I am the only one that lives in the house. No one else. No kids. No one has access. It got changed by some update. That is the way I like it because I like to know what I install from MS.

chewbacca wrote:
pwohlrab wrote:

I have it set for "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them". And like I said I found the computer rebooted and my settings changed.

That's impossible. Someone must have changed the settings. Mine remains unchanged at "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them".

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Nuvi 2460LMT.

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Yes, I've had Win 10 change my settings a few times. MS seems to think it knows what's best for me... "The better to spy on you", they said. :/

That's why I fix that crap with GPEDIT (Group Policy Edit). It sticks because it's an admin modification.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

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pwohlrab wrote:

I am the only one that lives in the house. No one else. No kids. No one has access. It got changed by some update. That is the way I like it because I like to know what I install from MS.

I have never seen that happen to my Win 7.

Juggernaut wrote:

That's why I fix that crap with GPEDIT (Group Policy Edit). It sticks because it's an admin modification.

As far as I know, group policy is only available on Win 7 Pro and Ultimate editions. You can't use that with Home or Basic/Starter edition.

Correct (sort of)

Try this, it may work for Win 7 Home as well.

https://www.techzac.com/enable-group-policy-editor-windows-1...

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

Impossible ???

chewbacca wrote:

That's impossible. Someone must have changed the settings. Mine remains unchanged at "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them".

Different situation, but I too am the only one accessing my computer. My Mozilla Firefox gets slower and I use several settings in about:config to speed it up. Some short time later those settings have gone back to previous settings !!!

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Nuvi 2797LMT, DriveSmart 50 LMT-HD, Using Windows 10. DashCam A108C with GPS.

@Melaqueman

I'd be curious to find out what settings in about:config you tweak to speed up firefox...

Thanks

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

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Melaqueman wrote:

My Mozilla Firefox gets slower and I use several settings in about:config to speed it up. Some short time later those settings have gone back to previous settings !!!

...and does that happen after updating Firefox?

BarneyBadass wrote:

I'd be curious to find out what settings in about:config you tweak to speed up firefox...

Thanks

Me too. I'm running the latest Firefox version (ver 54). This browser started to run like a snail since version 51. I've never tweaked FF config. I'm curious to know what config speeds things up.

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Juggernaut wrote:

Try this, it may work for Win 7 Home as well.

https://www.techzac.com/enable-group-policy-editor-windows-10-home/

Looks like there's a 3rd party app to download and install. Problems start when we use apps from unknown sources. Thanks anyway.

I need to check my settings

To make sure they haven't changed.

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><> Glenn <>< Garmin nüvi 2598

Microsoft needs to get its act together

It seems to have many hack/open door problems

Slow Firefox

chewbacca wrote:

Me too. I'm running the latest Firefox version (ver 54). This browser started to run like a snail since version 51. I've never tweaked FF config. I'm curious to know what config speeds things up.

Add another user with a glacial Firefox recently. I might have to start looking at alternatives.

Firefox 54

I bumped into this the other day and now I can't seem to recall where I found it... drat.. it sucks getting old.

enter about:config in the location bar in your FF Browswer and find the

By Default, the value for the dom.ipc.processCount field by scrolling down.. its in alphabetical sort order..

dom.ipc.processCount is 5

I changed only this single value from the default value of 5 to a customized value of 20 and it seems to have helped the browser just a bit.

Sure, the startup of the first instant of the browser takes a bit longer (noticeable but not by much say somewhere in the 4-12 second range depending on everything else). But once the initial browser instance is up, any of the other instances being brought up seem to be rather spiritely.

I don't have anything to really measure this, but it's what I'm seeming to observe.. (I've been this way for a bit now).

I do tend to have many browser instances (processes) up concurrently, many more than 5 at a time... usually in the 12-14 range... so this may help someone else..

dom.ipc.processCount;20

I've not tried any of these additional changes ... yet... but I'm getting ready to give it a whirle and see what happens..

http://thehackernews.com/2017/06/electrolysis-firefox-mutipr...

Well... I couldn't help myself..

I performed all the actions listed in the site above..

Because I coudn't get he "Multiprocess Windows" to show the 1/1 (Enabled by default)" — multi-process feature is working. I went through and disabled all my "add-Ons" then I restarted the browser. and found I could then atain the 1/1 (Enabled by default)" — multi-process feature is working.

So then I opened another tab and would re-enable one add-on at a time.

Then I'd go back to the tab with the about:support presentation and re-drive (or reload) the page.

In my case, I found the TFD (The Free Dictionary) add-on was the one that was killing me.

Once I disabled it the whole browser jumped to life... at least for me..

Maybe this will help someone..

good luck

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

.

Most often, the add-ons or extensions are what kill browser performance.

Another way to improve load times is, kill accepting 3rd party cookies in the settings. There are usually a ton of those cookies on just a single site.

Lastly, clean your cache using CCleaner, or similar. Most people have gigabytes of old crap in there. Linux users can use Bleachbit.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

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Juggernaut wrote:

Most often, the add-ons or extensions are what kill browser performance.

Another way to improve load times is, kill accepting 3rd party cookies in the settings. There are usually a ton of those cookies on just a single site.

Lastly, clean your cache using CCleaner, or similar. Most people have gigabytes of old crap in there. Linux users can use Bleachbit.

It's none of the above. I only have 2 add-ons, adblock plus and noscript. No new add-ons installed for many years.

Cookies, cache, active logins are always emptied after every browsing session. I have almost 0 bytes in cache. No old crap in user temp folder either. FF became slow since the last 2 or 3 versions for no reason. I'm thinking of switching to Chrome browser.

Fair enough

I was speaking in general, not to anyone in particular.

I find Chrome to be fast, and is what I tend to use as a daily driver. Ad Block Plus can be added, but not NoScript, which prevents many ads all by itself.

I think the reason FF is slow, is that NoScript filters a lot of coding that Chrome doesn't. Too many ads, trackers, and other crap on most web pages these days.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

.

Oh, and using a hosts file is a great way to speed up browsing, and keep the nasty trash out as well.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

Yes, Hosts files are great...

Juggernaut wrote:

Oh, and using a hosts file is a great way to speed up browsing, and keep the nasty trash out as well.

You might be interested in this site.. they update the hosts file once a week...

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Hope this helps someone..

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

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BarneyBadass wrote:

You might be interested in this site.. they update the hosts file once a week...

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

I use that site. However, it's updated every 5-7 weeks, not weekly. The last update was May 16th.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

Thank you

BarneyBadass wrote:
Juggernaut wrote:

Oh, and using a hosts file is a great way to speed up browsing, and keep the nasty trash out as well.

You might be interested in this site.. they update the hosts file once a week...

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Hope this helps someone..

Thanks for the link. I'm going to check it out.

thanks for the reminder on host files.

Spybot is a good program for handling host files, IIRC.

Attack North Korea?

windwalker wrote:

This is war and we need to go after these attackers with what ever is necessary to eliminate them. The penalties need to be very severe and rapid!!! We also need Spec Ops teams that will hunt them down in Countries that will not co-operate with us in eliminating them!!!

I've read that North Korea is attacking with the WannaCry virus. You want to send soldiers there to attack state sponsored hacking? Rather a simplistic solution and bad idea that would lead to war.

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Zumo 550 & Zumo 665 My alarm clock is sunshine on chrome.

Just put this in my system.

I am finding it is working great.. Works with both my IE (seems a bit faster loading) and my Chrome browsers.

Just remember, if you already had some entries, make sure you put them in the new file too.

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Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"

Hosts file updated today

The new version is dated Updated June-23-2017.

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

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bobkz wrote:

I am finding it is working great.. Works with both my IE (seems a bit faster loading) and my Chrome browsers.

DNS resolution is system wide. It checks the hosts file prior to querying DNS (servers). For that reason, hosts file affects all browsers but I highly doubt what you say (about it loading faster) is true. That may be a placebo effect.

Does anyone check the content of that hosts file? I mean, check it thoroughly, line by line. Seems like a very easy way to redirect your online banking if someone manages to insert unwanted entries in there. Think about that for a moment... hack the (mvps.org) site, insert all financial institution domain names and have them resolve to an IP address of your web server. I bet 9 out of 10 users won't verify there aren't unwanted entries in that file.

Choices

You have a choice to use it, or ignore it.

I prefer to use the hosts file, but it's your machine, and your preference.

If you're really curious, you can do a 'Find' in the text file, and alleviate any misgivings.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

0.0.0.0

chewbacca wrote:
bobkz wrote:

I am finding it is working great.. Works with both my IE (seems a bit faster loading) and my Chrome browsers.

DNS resolution is system wide. It checks the hosts file prior to querying DNS (servers). For that reason, hosts file affects all browsers but I highly doubt what you say (about it loading faster) is true. That may be a placebo effect.

Does anyone check the content of that hosts file? I mean, check it thoroughly, line by line. Seems like a very easy way to redirect your online banking if someone manages to insert unwanted entries in there. Think about that for a moment... hack the (mvps.org) site, insert all financial institution domain names and have them resolve to an IP address of your web server. I bet 9 out of 10 users won't verify there aren't unwanted entries in that file.

It's very easy to check. Open the file in a text editor. All entries should say 0.0.0.0 fr.a2dfp.net, that's the first entry. But every entry begins with 0.0.0.0. If it doesn't, then you have a corrupted file.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

Incorrect, Phranc

127.0.0.1 localhost, or 0.0.0.0 localhost is correct.

Personally, I use 127.0.0.1 localhost. The other is used for Windows issues in 8.x

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

I've been using it on my Mac

I've been using it on my Mac with the zeros. It should work the same. However, there is an entry for Macworld,com in there that has a suffix. I take that as and ad or something, but it causes the button on the page to not word. commenting out the entry, and flushing the DNS cache doesn't seem to work. Removing all the entries allows it to work.

I need an all day session to troubleshoot it. sad

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

.

grrr

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

.

Try it with 127.0.0.1

I'll bet it works far better. Just do a 'find and replace'.

The zeros were for Win 8.x problems.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

Microsoft Patches All Windows Versions Against Ransomware, Natio

Thanks for the info

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chewbacca wrote:

FF became slow since the last 2 or 3 versions for no reason.

Try this, it may help.

Make Firefox write less to the hard disk

By default, Firefox writes a lot to the hard disk. This costs system resources.

You can sharply reduce the write actions of Firefox by disabling the session restore feature, which remembers what pages were opened if Firefox experiences an unexpected shutdown (read: crashes). This feature is neat, but causes many disk writes. You can disable it as follows:

Type about:config in the url bar of Firefox and press Enter. Click the button to accept the risk.

In the search bar, type: sessionstore

Double-click on the item called browser.sessionstore.interval. The default interval is 15000, which means 15 seconds. Add three zeroes to the existing value, so that it becomes: 15000000 and click the OK button (note: adding too much zeroes causes an error!).

Now disable the following three other sessionstore items, by simply double-clicking them (so that "true" becomes "false"):

browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

and:

browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash

and:

services.sync.prefs.sync.browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

Close Firefox and launch it again.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

Thanks and just out of curiosity .....

Juggernaut wrote:
chewbacca wrote:

FF became slow since the last 2 or 3 versions for no reason.

Try this, it may help.

Make Firefox write less to the hard disk

By default, Firefox writes a lot to the hard disk. This costs system resources.

Where did you find this documented?

BTW.. if this actually reduces the I/O to the drive, I would expect these changes would help out the life of an SSD... shouldn't really have much effect on an HDD...

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

.

It was on a Linux site I ran into ages ago, when I moved to Mint.

I can vouch that it does make a very nice difference.

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nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

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Juggernaut wrote:
chewbacca wrote:

FF became slow since the last 2 or 3 versions for no reason.

Try this, it may help.

Make Firefox write less to the hard disk

By default, Firefox writes a lot to the hard disk. This costs system resources.

You can sharply reduce the write actions of Firefox by disabling the session restore feature, which remembers what pages were opened if Firefox experiences an unexpected shutdown (read: crashes). This feature is neat, but causes many disk writes. You can disable it as follows:

Type about:config in the url bar of Firefox and press Enter. Click the button to accept the risk.

In the search bar, type: sessionstore

Double-click on the item called browser.sessionstore.interval. The default interval is 15000, which means 15 seconds. Add three zeroes to the existing value, so that it becomes: 15000000 and click the OK button (note: adding too much zeroes causes an error!).

Now disable the following three other sessionstore items, by simply double-clicking them (so that "true" becomes "false"):

browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

and:

browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash

and:

services.sync.prefs.sync.browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

Close Firefox and launch it again.

I can't believe this thread is almost a year old. It seems as if we just discussed this a couple of weeks ago. I'm revisiting this thread today.

Since Mozilla released Firefox Quantum at the end of 2017, the speed has improved dramatically. It's too late though because I have installed Chrome browser. Mozilla is the reason why I'm using 2 browsers (Chrome & FF) instead of Firefox exclusively.

I hate NoScript add-on on FF Quantum. It's difficult to understand and tweak to my liking. I think it allows Javascript from a lot of websites by default.

Another note worth mentioning (I may have already mentioned it in a different thread). Windows 7 users can now manually download and install "Service Pack 2". Take a look at the following:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-...

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[deleted]

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Michael (Nuvi 2639LMT)

It happened to me as well

pwohlrab wrote:

I am the only one that lives in the house. No one else. No kids. No one has access. It got changed by some update. That is the way I like it because I like to know what I install from MS.

chewbacca wrote:
pwohlrab wrote:

I have it set for "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them". And like I said I found the computer rebooted and my settings changed.

That's impossible. Someone must have changed the settings. Mine remains unchanged at "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them".

I have always had my MS updates to "Let me select".

One day last month I went to unlock my PC and I saw that it had restarted for some unknown reason. Wondered why, as this machine has not crashed unexpectedly in the last 2 years.

So, today I looked in the update log and saw that the KB2952664 update that I had as "Hidden" had been installed on Feb 14, 2018 (along with 4 others). AND, the settings had been changed to "Automatic install". I changed it back today

This is not the first time, but it has been quite a while. The last time anything like this happened was during the "Free upgrade to W 10" campaign that was a pain in the butt!

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Metricman DriveSmart 76 Williamsburg, VA

 

metricman wrote:
pwohlrab wrote:

I am the only one that lives in the house. No one else. No kids. No one has access. It got changed by some update. That is the way I like it because I like to know what I install from MS.

chewbacca wrote:
pwohlrab wrote:

I have it set for "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them". And like I said I found the computer rebooted and my settings changed.

That's impossible. Someone must have changed the settings. Mine remains unchanged at "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them".

I have always had my MS updates to "Let me select".

One day last month I went to unlock my PC and I saw that it had restarted for some unknown reason. Wondered why, as this machine has not crashed unexpectedly in the last 2 years.

So, today I looked in the update log and saw that the KB2952664 update that I had as "Hidden" had been installed on Feb 14, 2018 (along with 4 others). AND, the settings had been changed to "Automatic install". I changed it back today

This is not the first time, but it has been quite a while. The last time anything like this happened was during the "Free upgrade to W 10" campaign that was a pain in the butt!

Try not to let this diminish your trust in Microsoft.