How to disable USB storage devices

With all the high storage devices like the iPod classic going up to 160GB and just fitting in your inside pocket, people are getting more scared of data loss. Even Dave Lewis from Liquidmatrix recently saw someone at a client site using an iPod to pull corporate data onto it as a hard drive.

On Liquidmatrix, he mentions an easy trick to disable this without deactivating USB entirely. It just disables USB storage devices.

Run regedit ans search for the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR

The key value for “Start” is set to “3″. This permits USB storage to be attached to the system in question. If this is flipped to “4″ storage devices will be disabled. Whatever you do, make a backup before attempting any registry work.

Thanks Dave!

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Are you ready for Ubuntu 8.04?

So, did you know that new Ubuntu, version 8.04 codename Hardy Heron, will be out in less than two days from now? They said that there are many new features and softwares in version 8.04, like…

New Core System Features:

• GNOME 2.22
• Linux kernel 2.6.24
• PolicyKit
• PulseAudio
• Xorg 7.3

New Software Functions:

• Firefox 3 Beta 5
• Brasero
• Transmission
• World Clock Applet
• Vinagre
• Uncomplicated Firewall
• Totem
• Inkscape

New and Improved Support:

• ActiveDirectory integration
• iSCSI support
• Memory Protection
• SELinux Support
• umenu
• Virtualization
• Wubi
• Installation
• LTSP

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Troubleshooting Windows Update Issues with Vista

If you are having problems getting certain updates installed on Vista, there are two places you can look to troubleshoot:

%windir%\windowsupdate.log, a log file for Windows Update events

%windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log, a log file that tracks events to the servicing stack

These log files include the following fields: Time/Date Stamp, Message Severity, Message Source, Operation Type, and Main Text.

Source: Windows Networking

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Find all encrypted files

You can use the EFSINFO tool to find all encrypted files on a volume. This tool is found in the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools on your product CD. To use this tool to find encrypted files, run the following from a command prompt:

efsinfo /s:c: | find “: Encrypted”

Why would you want to do this? Well for example, if you have a server used for a workgroup and you decide to promote it to a domain controller, you need to remove all encrypted files from it first otherwise they won’t be accessible afterwards.

Source: Windows Networking

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Disabling UAC for Only Administrators

You can disable the—sometimes annoying—User Account Control (UAC) prompts for members of the Administrators group, while leaving them active for limited user accounts. This is great if you don’t want others accessing or changing system settings. Disabling the alerts, however, requires editing the Windows Registry:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Name: ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0 Enable, 1 Disable

Source: Windows Networking

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