![]() ![]() Panda USB Vaccine is a 100% free utility. Also keep in mind that USB drives that have been vaccinated cannot be reversed except with a format. Panda USB Vaccine currently only works on FAT & FAT32 USB drives. The drive can otherwise be used normally and files (even malware) copied to/from it, but they will be prevented from opening automatically. Once applied it effectivelly disables Windows from automatically executing any malicious file that might be stored in that particular USB drive. When applied on a USB drive, the vaccine permanently blocks an innocuous AUTORUN.INF file, preventing it from being read, created, deleted or modified. The free Panda USB Vaccine can be used on individual USB drives to disable its AUTORUN.INF file in order to prevent malware infections from spreading automatically. This is a really helpful feature as there is no user friendly and easy way of completely disabling AutoRun on a Windows PC. The free Panda USB Vaccine allows users to vaccinate their PCs in order to disable AutoRun completely so that no program from any USB/CD/DVD drive (regardless of whether they have been previously vaccinated or not) can auto-execute. The most recent examples of this are the W32/Sality, W32/Virutas and also the W32/Conficker worm which, in addition to spreading via a vulnerability and network shares, also spreads via USB drives.ĭue to the large amount of malware-related problems associated with Microsoft AutoRun we have created a free utility for our user community called Panda USB Vaccine. The malware achieves this by copying a malicious executable in the drive and modifying the AUTORUN.INF file so that Windows opens the malicious file silently as soon as the drive is mounted. The problem is that this feature, widely critizised by the security community, is used by malware in order to spread by infecting as soon as a new drive is inserted in a computer. The AUTORUN.INF file is a configuration file that is normally located in the root directory of removable media and contains, among other things, a reference to the icon that will be shown associated to the removable drive or volume, a description of its content and also the possibility to define a program which should be executed automatically when the unit is mounted. The Microsoft Windows Operating Systems use the AUTORUN.INF file from removable drives in order to know which actions to perform when a new external storage device, such as a USB drive or CD/DVD, is inserted into the PC. Not great - XP flew - but acceptable.UPDATE October 8, 2009: New version 1.0.1.4 released. I only have a 2GHz single core proc with 2GB of RAM and it runs good. It seems stable, though only time will tell with that. Win7 is real smart, it looks great, it's very modern, but not as loud as XP was in 2002. Just type in part of what you want to do in the search bar and it'll be displayed. And one of the best features is the search box on the start menu. I love being able to drag a window to the left or right side to maximize to that half of the screen, or being able to 'peek' at my desktop or minimize everything by pointing at or clicking on the box to the right of the clock. ![]() You can make Win7 look any way you want it, except the start button, haven't figured that out yet. That you had to go third-party to make the OS look good is sad. ![]() That and the login screen from XPize is the only way I'd have my XP when I ran that OS. The Media Center theme is absolutely beautiful (the pirated one that everyone who doesn't have Media Center has is called Royale) with a metallic blue on the taskbar and a royal blue start button. XP is a little loud with the default green and blue, and the other two options are outright ugly. The "eye candy" is nice, I wouldn't call it too much though. I advised the user to upgrade his RAM and get Win7 but in the meantime gave him the XP Home OEM install that matched his sticker. Just testing it, I tried to install my copy on an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2GHz box with 512MB of RAM and onboard video. You do need at least 1GB of RAM to run it, though. Look, I used to hate Win7, and now I endorse it wholeheartedly. ![]()
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