anti virus - Antivirus in Windows 8

I have been using Windows 8 for a while, and I have just remembered that I did not install any antivirus software. To my surprise, I don't think Windows 8 has ever shown any of the usual nag popups that appeared in Windows 7, Vista, or XP if you didn't keep an up-to-date antivirus.

Is there a default antivirus in Windows 8 already installed? Or is the nag popup just disabled?

Answer

Yes, Microsoft Security Essentials is now built in to Windows 8, it has been integrated in to Windows Defender. See this SU answer on instructions on how to access the features

How can you assign a batch file to a special key on a keyboard?

I'm trying to use the special keys (play,pause,next,prev, internet) on my keyboard to open select batch files and im having trouble doing this with Windows or a 3rd party program

I understand you can change what media program is opened by going to default programs but that only lets you open media apps.

I tried assigning a keyboard shortcut to a batch file shortcut but that only lets you pick traditional keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl + Alt + O which is plausible but if I'm using a program that already has that key combo I think that program will intercept it like a bad pass

Any apps that can do this or how to do this without an app is greatly appreciated

reinstalling windows 8.1 with only os partition format?

when I reinstall windows 8.1 if I Don't format other partition because of the data. will there be a problem?
I have already formatted once without formatting any partition but windows. old is not able to delete

routing - Amazon AWS: SSL in our testing environment

My company has a running business web service on AWS which uses a wildcard SSL certificate (works for *.example.com). Multiple partners have subdomains and need SSL (https://partner1.example.com, https://partner2.example.com, etc.) and we serve either HTML or JSON responses to them.

Our production site has a web-facing ELB that has our SSL certificate installed. THe ELB balances and terminates SSL to a cluster of production server instances within our VPC. Our web app knows how to serve the correct partner HTML/JSON based on the sub-domain name.

I want to replicate this for our test environments (e.g. QA, Staging, Demo) as simply as possible. But test and production environments can't be the same server instances; I need to know that I won't kill production if I mess up on our test environment.

Ideally, the same ELB that handles production traffic could somehow route traffic to my test servers, perhaps if they used a known IP address or DNS subdomain? Am I correct that this isn't possible?

I suppose I could set up an ELB with the SSL cert for each test environment, each "balancing" to one server, but this seems overly complicated, and I would guess expensive too.

All instances, production and test, run within our VPC. But currently only the production cluster has SSL set up on the ELB (which terminates SSL) and passes along straight HTTP requests to the instances themselves.

The test servers accept HTTP. I have public elastic IPs and DNS names set up (staging.example.com, qa.example.com, demo.example.com) ... but they are not protected by SSL.

There's almost no critical or customer data on test server instances, and they are secured and patched properly as any web-facing server should be (I hope!!). Still, I would like SSL not only for additional security, but also to have my test environment match my production environment as closely as possible.

In all but the case of our staging server, the other environments are supported by a single instance (e.g. demo and qa both on the same server) with Apache named virtual host configurations. So, for test, lots of sites, but only a few servers.

Is there a way that I can still have my wildcard SSL certificate installed only on my load balancer (or perhaps one more), or some other configuration that allows me to detect and route the HTTP request to the right test server, based on IP or domain name (or even an HTTP header)?

I know this is a complicated question. I understand AWS, security, and networking pretty well, but I am still trying to figure out routing and even internal DNS within the VPC environment, so may be ignorant of my options.

Answer

Honestly? I'd say you're overthinking this. Just use multiple ELBs and put the *.example.com certs on all of them. This isn't really cost prohibitive. In your entire stack, the ELB is probably going to be one of the cheapest components. This also allows you to spin up stacks from the same CloudFormation template or provisioning system. You can use the cert on as many ELBs as you'd like.

We faced a problem very similar to yours and decided to do exactly what I describe above. We ended up saving money because the ELB just isn't a significant predictor of our monthly cost, and it'd have taken far more time in salary to hack up a solution, even if one was possible. With ELBs you only pay for what you use traffic-wise, so QA and demo environments just aren't going to be anywhere near the cost of production load. In the example described in that link, 100GB of traffic in a month is $18. That's like three Starbucks coffees.

One added benefit: It's also way easier to debug. No need to worry about weird trafficking rules or the like.

windows - Fastest way to search a directory for file names with specific charachters?

I have a directory which contains sub folders which contain files with very diverse names from many different users so they are not named very consistently. I am moving this directory to a sharepoint site which does not allow certain characters as file names because the way it was designed they are reserved characters.

Invalid chars: " # % & * : < > ? \ / { | } ~

Referenced from:
http://www.thesug.org/mossasaurus/Wiki%20Pages/SharePoint%20Invalid%20Characters.aspx

As you can see there are many chars which I would have to look for, I could tear through the many folders and hundreads of files hunting for each invalid char by eye, but is there a faster way can I go about searching the master folder which contains sub folders as well as their contents for each or every one of these chars so that only the folders and files with the bad chars show up?

Thank you for your time,

Answer

This ought to do the trick for you:

dir *#* *%* *^&* *{* *}* *~*  /s /b > bad_file_names.txt

This should pick up the files with bad characters and dump them in a neat little text file list. I omitted the characters that should already be invalid on Windows (I assume you're running Windows what with the SharePoint server).

How to change Windows 7 Wallpaper using the registry?

All I'm trying to do is get Windows to switch to a different Wallpaper folder at night (a folder containing night images). To achieve this I'm planning to use Task Scheduler to run .bat files which simply switch the names of the two folders around. That's pretty straight-forward.

The only problem is that Windows won't let me rename the folder containing the current Wallpaper image. This means I have to temporarily change the current wallpaper image to something else while I'm renaming the folders.

And to do this I need some kind of file to modify the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\General\Wallpaper

I did find a script someone had written which I think does this, but it's too technical for me to understand. I don't know anything about the C language, what classes and namespaces are, or how to create a file that runs this code in Windows. Also, it seems like a lot of code just to change the value of a single registry key. And would I have to install software?

Perhaps someone could give me some help?

Also, could anyone confirm that the Windows wallpaper folder is not kept in the registry? If it was, I could simply change this, and wouldn't have to rename folders. But I've done a lot of searching and can't find any trace of it in the registry.

Windows 10 PC keeps Freezing

My computer keeps freezing and I'm struggling to find the cause of the issue. I have tried replacing the RAM. De-fragmenting, disk clean ups, windows updates, disabling automatic updates.

It either freezes with no message or occasionally displays the CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error.

The easiest way I can replicate the error is video editing or playing a game and turning settings up to high. I can also replicate the error when running a full antivirus scan with AVG (error still occurs when I uninstall it)

Updates

19/01/2016 - I have tried a repair install and the issue still persists

The Specs of the PC are below:

Operating System: Windows 10
Mother board: Asus maximus vi impact
Processor: intel i7 4790k
Processor Cooler: Corsair H80i
Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB PCI-E 3.0
Power: Corsair 650W CS650M CSM Semi-Modular
Ram: Corsair Vengeance Pro Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2400Mhz
Main hard Drive: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB
Other Drive: Seagate 3TB 3.5 inch 7200RPM

Running MiniToolBox.exe I get the following event log error:

MiniToolBox by Farbar Version: 02-11-2015
Ran by difurious (administrator) on 14-01-2016 at 21:57:45
Running from "E:\Downloads"
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (X64)
Model: All Series Manufacturer: ASUS
Boot Mode: Normal

---

========================= Event log errors: ===============================

Error: (01/14/2016 09:22:06 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI failed with error: -2144927141 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/14/2016 09:19:44 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI failed with error: -2144927141 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/14/2016 07:42:35 PM) (Source: Application Error) (User: )
Description: Faulting application name: SystemSettings.exe, version: 10.0.10240.16384, time stamp: 0x559f39ae
Faulting module name: MusUpdateHandlers.dll, version: 10.0.10240.16590, time stamp: 0x563ad6f2
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000002c7a8
Faulting process ID: 0x22a0
Faulting application start time: 0xSystemSettings.exe0
Faulting application path: SystemSettings.exe1
Faulting module path: SystemSettings.exe2
Report ID: SystemSettings.exe3
Faulting package full name: SystemSettings.exe4
Faulting package-relative application ID: SystemSettings.exe5

Error: (01/14/2016 07:09:48 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2) (User: )
Description: Cryptographic Services failed while processing the OnIdentity() call in the System Writer Object.

Details:
AddLegacyDriverFiles: Unable to back up image of binary Microsoft Link-Layer Discovery Protocol.

System Error:
Access is denied.
.

Error: (01/14/2016 06:47:23 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI failed with error: -2147024865 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/14/2016 06:47:23 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI failed with error: -2144927141 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/11/2016 10:25:41 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI failed with error: -2144927141 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/11/2016 10:25:41 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy!App failed with error: -2144927141 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/10/2016 10:14:27 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell) (User: difurious)
Description: Activation of application Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI failed with error: -2144927141 See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

Error: (01/14/2016 09:49:23 PM) (Source: DCOM) (User: NT AUTHORITY)
Description: {784E29F4-5EBE-4279-9948-1E8FE941646D}

Error: (01/14/2016 09:44:12 PM) (Source: EventLog) (User: )
Description: The previous system shutdown at 9:39:23 PM on ‎1/‎14/‎2016 was unexpected.

Error: (01/14/2016 09:39:24 PM) (Source: BugCheck) (User: )
Description: 0x00000101 (0x0000000000000018, 0x0000000000000000, 0xffffd0010831f180, 0x0000000000000004)C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP

Error: (01/14/2016 09:39:24 PM) (Source: BugCheck) (User: )
Description:

Error: (01/14/2016 09:39:23 PM) (Source: EventLog) (User: )
Description: The previous system shutdown at 9:29:09 PM on ‎1/‎14/‎2016 was unexpected.

Error: (01/14/2016 09:32:17 PM) (Source: DCOM) (User: NT AUTHORITY)
Description: {784E29F4-5EBE-4279-9948-1E8FE941646D}

Error: (01/14/2016 09:28:13 PM) (Source: DCOM) (User: difurious)
Description: 1084WSearchUnavailable{7D096C5F-AC08-4F1F-BEB7-5C22C517CE39}

Error: (01/14/2016 09:28:12 PM) (Source: DCOM) (User: difurious)
Description: 1084WSearchUnavailable{7D096C5F-AC08-4F1F-BEB7-5C22C517CE39}

Error: (01/14/2016 09:23:53 PM) (Source: DCOM) (User: difurious)
Description: 1084WSearchUnavailable{B52D54BB-4818-4EB9-AA80-F9EACD371DF8}

Error: (01/14/2016 09:23:53 PM) (Source: DCOM) (User: difurious)
Description: 1084WSearchUnavailable{B52D54BB-4818-4EB9-AA80-F9EACD371DF8}

Error: (01/14/2016 09:22:06 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI-2144927141

Error: (01/14/2016 09:19:44 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI-2144927141

Error: (01/14/2016 07:42:35 PM) (Source: Application Error)(User: )
Description: SystemSettings.exe10.0.10240.16384559f39aeMusUpdateHandlers.dll10.0.10240.16590563ad6f2c0000005000000000002c7a822a001d14f025d5554abC:\WINDOWS\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exeC:\Windows\System32\MusUpdateHandlers.dlla7265b74-818c-498c-9ff4-d8512f85bc5cwindows.immersivecontrolpanel_6.2.0.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewymicrosoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel

Error: (01/14/2016 07:09:48 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2)(User: )
Description:
Details:
AddLegacyDriverFiles: Unable to back up image of binary Microsoft Link-Layer Discovery Protocol.

System Error:
Access is denied.

Error: (01/14/2016 06:47:23 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI-2147024865

Error: (01/14/2016 06:47:23 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI-2144927141

Error: (01/11/2016 10:25:41 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI-2144927141

Error: (01/11/2016 10:25:41 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy!App-2144927141

Error: (01/10/2016 10:14:27 PM) (Source: Microsoft-Windows-Immersive-Shell)(User: difurious)
Description: Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy!CortanaUI-2144927141

Date: 2016-01-14 21:56:21.224
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:56:21.165
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:40:11.746
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:40:11.676
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:34:05.400
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:34:05.341
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:34:04.916
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 21:34:04.855
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 19:54:06.891
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Date: 2016-01-14 19:54:06.831
Description: Code Integrity determined that a process (\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\AVG\Av\avgidsagent.exe) attempted to load \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll that did not meet the Custom 3 / Antimalware signing level requirements.

Answer

Updating the bios using the tool in the link seems to have solved the issue

http://www.asus.com/microsite/2014/MB/New_4th_gen_Intel_processor_compatibility/