Old Weird Ward
Unless otherwise noted, that which is posted here is opinion, which is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. If you don't like my opinions, go somewhere else. Nobody is forcing you to actually read this drivel.
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
- - - - - Windows Vulnerabilities - - - - -
Dr. Jerry Pournelle brings up YAWA (Yet Another Windows Annoyance). Various services that are turned on by default in Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP are, indeed, either not needed or are a security risk, especially for the home user.
One of them, the Windows Messenger Service, has the potential to be a real PITA (Pain In The Assembly).
A Windows Service is simply a program that starts when your PC boots. You don't have to be logged on, and you'll never even notice it. Mostly, these Windows Services are for necessary things, like allowing you to log on to your system, allowing Windows to recognize and work with disk drives, that sort of thing.
The Windows Messenger Service was originally intended for users and network administrators to send messages to all users on a network, like "The network will be going down for routine maintenance at 5PM Friday".
Since it's hardly ever used for it's intended purpose, it's effectively useless. Yet, on every version of WinNT, Win2000, and WinXP, including XP Home, it's enabled by default.
And now, the spammers have discovered it.
Steve Gibson has a neat little utility to disable it. It's called ShootTheMessenger . It's available here, and, as with some other Good Stuff, it's a freebie.
There are other Windows Services on your XP machine that soak up resources that you might want to disable.
To disable them, select the Start button at the bottom left of your screen. Then select the "Run" item. Type in, exactly:
services.msc
Then hit the Enter key.
A list of Windows Services will appear. You can pick the ones to disable from the list. Here's a little list of stuff that I have disabled on all machines here in The Swamp. Be careful - if you disable something critical, your computer becomes a useless desk decoration! If you're not sure, talk to someone who really knows! (My friends and family know how get hold of me - for the rest of you, sorry, my phone number IS NOT going here!)
• ClipBook: This service lets information in a clipboard to be shared across networked computers. Chances are slim you'll ever need it.
• Error Reporting Service: When a program crashes, Windows will use this service to send an error report to Microsoft (which, according to Microsoft, doesn't contain any identifying information). I don't like my computer sending anybody anything about it, so I disable this service.
• Fast User Switching: Much ballyhooed by Microsoft when XP launched, this service allows you to navigate from one account on the computer to another one without closing the first one. It's handy if you have a houseful of users with their own accounts, but if there's only one account on your PC you don't need this service running.
• IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service: This service is only necessary if your computer is equipped with a CD-ROM burner - and if you don't have a CD Burning program such as Nero or Roxio. In fact, there's a perfectly capable freeware program called CD Burner XP, available HERE.
• Indexing Service: Disable this system hog. It keeps a record of data about files and their contents in an index, which it uses to speed up the Windows search function. It uses lots of memory and unless you search your PC frequently you won't miss it a bit.
• Messenger: This service is necessary in order to send message between client and server PCs. It's all but useless on single PCs and even peer-to-peer home networks.
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