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Brian's Buzz on Windows has changed its name to the Windows
Secrets Newsletter. Get the latest high-tech tricks with a free
subscription. Click here to subscribe
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Mar. 13, 2003 - Issue 2
Wow! More than 20,000 of you - many from outside the United States -
subscribed to Brian's Buzz on Windows
in just my first four weeks. And only 57 people unsubscribed
after receiving the first issue (that's below 0.3%). I'm very pleased with
both
of those figures. They've led to some positive changes, as I describe in
the "closing remarks" section at the end of this issue.
TOP STORY - info you need to make Windows work
Fun with Microsoft licensing
By Brian Livingston
I'm not going to repeat here all the complaints people have about
Microsoft's various software licensing schemes. But reader William
Walo II found a new wrinkle lately. Since he's so good at telling
the story, I'll let him do the talking:
- "I have several computers at work that we needed to migrate to
XP Pro as a corporatewide upgrade from Win 95/98. I purchased
three boxed retail copies before purchasing subsequent licenses
via the OLP. On the fourth computer that needed the upgrade to
XP Pro, I proceeded to purchase the license via the OLP program.
What I failed to purchase was the OLP media (an additional
$25).
"I did the fourth computer upgrade using the retail box CD and
the OLP license key. When I entered the key from OLP against the
retail CD, the install program notified me that the Product Key
was invalid. Assuming that MS had generated a bad key via the
eOpen Web site, I continued the install using the Product Key
from the retail box under the assumption that I could determine
the key problem when I registered the product after the OS
install.
"Well, the install completed successfully and I proceeded to
attempt to register the OS with MS. Again, the Product Key was
reported as invalid. So again back to the eOpen Web site I went,
looking for a phone number to contact MS regarding the issue.
"On the eOpen site there is no contact information for MS to
resolve problems. I was referred back to my vendor where I
purchased my OLP license. Luckily, they have a staff member
dedicated to MS licensing issues, at which point I got an 800
number to contact MS.
"I proceeded to call MS on the issue. After discussions with
the MS rep, I told her that I had used a retail box CD to
perform the upgrade and an OLP Product Key to try to activate
the product. At which point she said that that isn't allowed,
and that I needed to purchase the OLP media (another $25) and
use that media with the OLP Product Key to perform the upgrade.
The catch is that I must zero out the previous install and
completely reinstall the OS from the OLP media.
"In my view, this is a radical departure from past MS
installation/licensing procedures. I was also taken aback by the
fact that I had purchased everything legally but I was stopped
from doing a legal install of a product that I had purchased
in accordance with their rules.
"Granted, I need to have only one piece of
media from the OLP media purchase to install on subsequent
computers. But the idea that I have to purchase another media
when I have three "valid" media sitting in my office really
confounds my logic."
The point here is: Don't purchase retail copies of Windows XP
if you're going to be purchasing licenses through OLP. I wrote
about the secrets of Product Activation and other "new"
features when XP first came out. For the details, see my InfoWorld
column on the subject.
Reader Walo will receive a certificate for a free book, CD, or
DVD of his choice for sending me a comment I printed.
To send me more information about this, or to send me a tip on any other
subject, visit
WindowsSecrets.com/contact. Put "tip" in the subject of your message.
QUESTION OF THE MONTH - a puzzler that you might need to know about
Using offline files remotely - but within the same domain
Glen Looby writes:
- "We use 'offline' files for our laptop users,
typically comprising their personal and shared folders on the
network. The problem we have is that when the user works from
another office but on the same domain (we're in New Zealand and
the office is in Australia), Windows connects the drives to the
original location rather than 'work offline.'
"When the user opens a file (Word, Excel, etc.), the response
time is painful and frustrating as the system is trying to work
from the original document location. This affects the laptop's
own performance, also, since the sites are only connected by a
512 frame-relay-to-Internet connection.
"How can we 'work offline' with files while connected to the
network? You can do this with Outlook ('Connect' or 'Work Offline'),
but there's no obvious option for files. Our head office in
Houston is experiencing the same issues and cannot offer a
solution. I've entered this into a forum in WinNTMag and had a
reply from another admin in the same position, but no answers,
though. I've even lodged a call with Microsoft support and
they haven't even heard of the problem (in New Zealand, anyway)
but are researching. Can you please help?"
I have an idea how we can solve Looby's dilemma, but I'll bet
someone out there has an even better plan. How about it?
To send me your answer, visit
WindowsSecrets.com/contact. Put "offline" in the subject of
your message.
FORWARDING INSTRUCTIONS - news gains value when it's shared
Please share this information with your colleagues
You're encouraged to refer your friends and colleagues to this free
newsletter. Because most e-mail programs don't correctly display a
formatted
message that's been forwarded, simply call people's attention to
the permanent Web address of this issue:
BriansBuzz.com/w/030313
WINDOWS GIZMOS - the best new stuff
The smallest, lightest 40 GB drive you can carry
Tired of schlepping a laptop back and forth between work and home?
There's a better way. Get a portable
hard drive and put on it all the applications and documents you
ever use. Then plug it into your desktop PC when you're at work,
or your laptop or home PC when you're out of the office. The
SPIO Pocket Portable is one of
the tiniest 40 GB drives I've seen. It's only 1/2 inch thick
and as small in width and depth as a 3 x 5 card. It speeds
your disk access with support for both
USB 1.1 or the much faster USB 2.0, whichever flavor you have.
It's hot pluggable and needs no drivers on Windows 98 or above. When
you're done updating your documents, simply use the included backup
software
to copy the contents of your
portable drive to your work PC or your home
PC (or both) and you've got perfect protection against loss.
More info
Digitize any document with your own pocket scanner
Have you ever found yourself in a library or a bookstore, trying
to copy down by hand a long section of information you need?
I'm sure most of us have. If so, you'll appreciate the new
Siemens Pocket Reader. It's a scanner that's as small and light
as some highlighter pens,
but instead of marking on the page, it reads the page. The
contents you scan are saved in the device as text until you upload
the information to Windows or Linux (doesn't yet work with Macs).
It's not as cheap as writing everything with a pen, but it's a
lot more convenient than carrying a flatbed scanner around.
Perfect for students, attorneys, or anyone who needs to copy
part (but not all) of any book, newspaper, or magazine.
More info
SUBSCRIBERS SPEAK UP - your take on the world of Windows
XP password story makes good reading worldwide
My top story last issue - that Windows XP allows anyone to log on to the
Recovery Console without entering an administrator password if they use
the
Windows 2000 CD - was picked up by media around the world. It was the top
story at the "news for nerds" site known as
Slashdot, and was a feature story at
Extreme Tech,
WinInformant,
Lockergnome,
Wired News,
Security Administrator,
Langa List,
Geek.com,
IT World (Canada),
The Register (U.K.),
The Inquirer (U.K.),
PC Welt (Germany),
PC Tip (Switzerland), and many others. Here are some excerpts:
- "A slip-up like this just makes it all the more trivial to
completely
circumvent XP's existing security mechanisms."
--Ken Pfeil, a security consultant at Avaya, quoted in Wired
- "While one does need physical access to the machine to exploit this
flaw,
this will be of little comfort to the administrators of academic computer
laboratories and other facilities where users can easily pop a CD-ROM
into a computer." --Brett Glass, Extreme Tech
- "There are other boot CDs and techniques for circumventing Microsoft's
thin layer of file system protection, but using previous versions of
Microsoft's own software against XP took me by surprise. Physical access
is always going to be a potential security threat, but this is just too
darn easy." --Lockergnome
I'd like to comment on a point made by several readers who said that
there are much worse errors to be found in Windows XP.
I never wrote that this was the worst security flaw ever -
it's simply interesting that Windows XP doesn't even ask for an
administrator
password in a situation where Windows 2000 definitely does.
Second, some readers asked about my statement that Windows XP allows an
intruder to copy files onto
removable media - something that a user of the Recovery Console normally
isn't allowed to do under Windows XP or 2000. These readers weren't
able
to duplicate that feat. That's because it requires setting an
environmental
variable at a command line first. The command is documented, but I'm not
going to describe it, because I don't want to enable more people to use
this technique.
Finally, here are some of the most interesting comments I received. The
readers whose comments I printed will receive a gift certificate for a
book,
CD, or DVD of their choice.
- "Your recommendation should be that if people use ANY machine
in an open space, and they are concerned with the data on those systems,
that they physically secure them. What the bad guys know even better is
how to simply boot up on a Linux disk and change the admin password.
That is a far more significant threat - and one not limited to Win2K, XP,
or any operating system from any manufacturer."
--Tim Mullen
- "The problem, as I see it, is that Microsoft Corp. marketing
convinced a large portion of an entire generation of IT admins that
Windows NT had suddenly made it feasible to leave the consoles of
business-critical computers accessible to casual foot traffic, without
security exposure. ... We long-time Unix people immediately pegged that
as laughable drivel. Even before the Linux kernel people wrote their
NTFS driver and admin-password access utilities, it was simple, given
console access, to open the system case, insert your own NT boot
hard drive alongside the target system's drive, boot your drive, and
crack any contents of the target drive you wish."
--Rick Moen
- "The only protection is to lock down the computer, prevent booting
from CD or floppy in the BIOS setup, password-protect the BIOS, make sure
that all file systems are NTFS, and encourage users to encrypt sensitive
files (which cannot be read using this 'technique'). Windows is not alone
in having this 'vulnerability,' Linux, FreeBSD, and in fact any operating
system that does not encrypt its file system can be accessed in this way,
provided users can boot off removable media."
--Daniel Franklin
RECOMMENDED READING - page views to boost your knowledge
Long-awaited update of Firewalls and Internet Security hits the
street
Bill Cheswick and Steve Bellovin, the AT&T duo who developed the
firewall gateway for Bell Labs and laid the groundwork for all firewalls,
created a classic when they published Firewalls and Internet
Security
back in 1994. They've finally updated this work with a completely revised
second edition that shipped just a few days ago. To produce the new volume
and ensure it's up-to-date with the latest threats, the co-authors brought
in
Avi Rubin, the security guru of Johns Hopkins University. The original
edition
got pretty long in the tooth after nine years, but the new title more than
makes up for that. An important read for anyone who's concerned about
security.
More info
THE WEIRD WIDE WEB - playing for you the Internet's greatest
bits
Now keep coffee warm with your unused USB port
Most laptop and desktop PCs today include one or more
Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports. But you may not have enough USB
devices to keep all those ports occupied. Fortunately, someone's come
to the rescue with a coffee cup that plugs into any spare
USB port to keep your beverages steaming. The site where this is
advertised is all in Japanese - which I can't read - so I can't
tell you how much the USB Cup costs or even if you can order one
yet. But thanks to a graph on the site, I can state
that the plug-in cup (works with Windows or Macs!) will keep your
java hotter than an ordinary cup by a toasty 18 degrees F. (10 C.)
Is technology great, or what?
More info
CLOSING REMARKS - the best is yet to come
Brian's Buzz on Windows goes bi-weekly on April 24
I started Brian's Buzz because I receive each day way too many tips
from readers to possibly print them all in my weekly InfoWorld
column. And now, thanks to you, I'm getting two or three times as
many!
Based on the outpouring of your responses, I'm changing the frequency
of this newsletter from monthly to bi-weekly (every two weeks).
My next regular issue will be sent out to you one month from now on the
2nd Thursday of the month (April 10th). You'll receive the following issue
two
weeks later on April 24th. Thanks for your support. --Brian
Livingston
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