There are many programs available for extracting the product key from a Windows XP or Vista installation. The only problem is that they generally require the computer to be functional to run. These programs are useless if the operating system is corrupt and the computer will not boot into Windows. Fortunately, there are other options. This article explains how you can retrieve the product key with just the ntuser.dat file from the machine. You can also download a stand-alone version of my decrypter tool.

While this may not sound very useful to the average user, if you work with computers on a daily basis you have most likely ran into this problem: You have to perform a fresh installation of Windows on a computer with a corrupt operating system, and the product key has been lost. This method makes it easy to find.

The first step is getting the ntuser.dat file from the computer. In most cases the easiest method is to remove the hard drive, and connect it to a working machine.

I downloaded the release candidate of Vista Service Pack 1 yesterday and was prepared to wait till its public debut next week before writing about it. But after upgrading a few machines here and doing some tests, I changed my mind. If Microsoft’s decision to ditch the WGA kill switch in SP1 didn’t convince you, would you be interested in a 300% increase in tripling your network file transfer speeds?

Forget the reports you might have read about SP1 resulting in no performance boost. That story was based on a silly artificial benchmark involving scripting of Office applications. Back here in the real world, where gigabit network connections are now commonplace, you’ll see at least one huge improvement when transferring files over network connections.

In its original release, Vista had some design problems with its networking stack, resulting in slow file transfers, especially when connecting to computers running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Home Server (all three of these products share a great deal of their code base, including core networking components). In Vista SP1, file transfer speeds are dramatically improved. In this post, I’ll describe what I saw.

I did two sets of file-transfer tests using two separate systems configured to dual boot between Vista RTM and the new Vista SP1 release candidate. Both systems have dual- or quad-core processors (both in the Intel Core 2 Duo family) The first group of files consisted of two large DVD images in ISO format, totaling 4.2 GB.

Microsoft plans to bundle a cryptographically flawed pseudo random number generator in its upcoming service pack for Windows Vista. Cryptographers have expressed concern about a possible backdoor in a standard for random number generators approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this year.

The cryptographically weak Dual_EC_DRBG approach, which is based on the mathematics of elliptic curves, was one of four “deterministic random bit generators”, approved by the NIST in March.Flaws in the approach (Dual_EC_DRBG) first emerged in August at the Crypto 2007 conference when cryptographers Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson demonstrated that two constants in the standard used to define the algorithm’s elliptic curve have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers.

Anyone who had access to the second set of numbers would have a kind of skeleton key able to unlock any instance of Dual_EC_DRBG. Suspicions that this weakness might be used as a backdoor have been fueled by the NSA’s support of Dual_EC_DRBG in the standards-setting process.

Random number generators are important because the correct operation of SSL and other protocols relies on their randomness. Standards set in this area by NIST are significant because they are likely to be followed by hardware and software suppliers in much the same way that the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which was also approved under the auspices of the NIST, has become widely adopted.

source :Ars Technica, pctips box

Microsoft plans to bundle a cryptographically flawed pseudo random number generator in its upcoming service pack for Windows Vista. Cryptographers have expressed concern about a possible backdoor in a standard for random number generators approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this year.

The cryptographically weak Dual_EC_DRBG approach, which is based on the mathematics of elliptic curves, was one of four “deterministic random bit generators”, approved by the NIST in March.Flaws in the approach (Dual_EC_DRBG) first emerged in August at the Crypto 2007 conference when cryptographers Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson demonstrated that two constants in the standard used to define the algorithm’s elliptic curve have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers.

Anyone who had access to the second set of numbers would have a kind of skeleton key able to unlock any instance of Dual_EC_DRBG. Suspicions that this weakness might be used as a backdoor have been fueled by the NSA’s support of Dual_EC_DRBG in the standards-setting process.

Random number generators are important because the correct operation of SSL and other protocols relies on their randomness. Standards set in this area by NIST are significant because they are likely to be followed by hardware and software suppliers in much the same way that the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which was also approved under the auspices of the NIST, has become widely adopted.

source :Ars Technica, pctips box

There are literally hundreds of freeware applications and utilities that you can download for Windows XP to tweak and improve computer performance, however, it’s still hard to find really good ones for Windows Vista. If you’re looking for some good free programs to configure, customize and tweak Windows Vista, check out the list below. The programs range from system configuration tweakers to Windows Vista boot screen modifiers. Enjoy!

1. MZ Vista Force is a full-fledged tweaking machine! It’s broken down into Performance Tweaks, Windows Tweaks, Internet Optimizer, StartUp Manager, Services Manger, and Backup Restore. Use it to easily clean up junk files off your hard disk or speed up Internet browsing in Vista. You can also modify lots of esoteric settings like the speed at which the Start Menu displays and clearing out the page file at shutdown. Lots of options and a definite download!

2. A Vista Tweaker from Stardock that packs a bunch of features into a small package. Disable unnecessary startup programs, update drivers that are out of date, get a benchmark of your computer performance, and lots more. The full version has some extra stuff for $20.

3. Vista Logo Boot Generator is a free Windows Vista program that you can use to change the default boot screen in Windows to your own custom image. You can use an image of two sizes, either 800×600 or 1024×768, so you’ll have to scale any images you might want to use to that size first and they must be in .bmp format. So if you have a nice picture of your spouse or something else you wouldn’t mind seeing at startup, use this to customize the boot screen!

4. Vista Boot Pro is a cool freeware app that you can use to easily mange the boot configuration and settings in Windows Vista without having to manually edit the BCDEdit file. You can also use Vista Boot Pro to back up the existing boot configuration before making changes in case something goes wrong. Also useful for multi-boot systems where you want to set the default OS, etc.

5. What’s the most annoying thing about Windows Vista? Could your answer be UAC or User Account Control? Mine too! I hate it! It’s a pain! But it’s also bad to turn it completely off. So what to do? Use TweakUAC, a nifty little tool you can use to Turn off UAC, Turn on UAC, or put it into Quiet mode. Quiet mode means Administrators are not bothered with prompts when doing admin tasks, but it’s still remains on for programs, etc. Finally!

6. Any other annoying Vista feature? How about those giant arrows on your desktop shortcuts? Do they really need to be THAT big? I mean come on! We know they are shortcuts. If you hate those little shortcut icons, you can get rid of them by using Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover! A free app that either lets your remove the shortcuts or make them smaller like they used to be in Windows XP. Ahhh that’s better!

A modern PC with Vista Home Edition takes about one and a half minutes to boot. An older machine with XP is about the same. That’s 30 seconds for the PC itself (the BIOS) to boot up, plus a minute for the Windows operating system to boot. Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.

Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice.

Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down combo box under “What do you want the computer to do?” to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.