Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Spork Well, there was more policy's that I wanted to adjust besides preventing access to certain programs. But they wanted internet explorer blocked completely. I don't know if it has something to do with children and viruses or what. I didn't ask. I told them I might not be able to either. I'm not sure, but I almost remember something about it being completely integrated into Windows.

It is completely integrated. One can not just get rid of it and I suppose blocking it would have the same result. I have gotten rid of the internet explorer before. It will get rid of the other internet browsers on your machine and will make it so you can not go out on the internet. So say if you have Google Chrome downloaded onto your machine and you get rid of internet explorer your Google Chrome with disappear and any other browser on your machine and you will not be able to go out on the internet for anything. I kind of think this is unfair because they are saying you have to have our browser on your machine if you want to go out on the internet.

This really sucks, we'll call the customer and let them know. Back in DCSI, we was able to block it with a policy, but we was running XP I think. There was some lawsuit or something before that and people sued Microsoft saying they couldn't force them to use IE or something. And Microsoft lost the lawsuit and had to provide the ability for it to be removed or blocked or something, if I remember correctly. I want to say they was trying to say it was integrated in such away where it couldn't be removed but they was forced too.

If I was to take a guess (which I shouldn't be doing), I'd guess it was probably for security reasons as to why they wanted it blocked / removed. Isn't Microsoft browser's notoriously bad at being secure?

What do you think would happen if I just renamed c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe ? Wonder if that'd break the system or not...wouldn't take care of the Edge problem but I gotta clarify if they want Edge or not as well. If it's got something to do with their kids, maybe I can suggest some net nanny type program or a good AV.

I think after this PC, I gotta take a break for a bit.

[diif]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

I see plenty of malware infections when Chrome is used.
AV does not stop idiot/naive/young users from compromising and infecting their machines.
Create user accounts for the users without Admin privileges.

[R_J]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Have you tried this to remove IE in windows 10 http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-t...0-488800.shtml

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

I see plenty of malware infections when Chrome is used.
AV does not stop idiot/naive/young users from compromising and infecting their machines.
Create user accounts for the users without Admin privileges.

You're right, removing or not using IE definitely doesn't prevent viruses and god only knows there's been exploits that took advantage of just about every browser out there, I'd think, maybe minus Lynx or something like that.

However, I gotta say, I think IE is probably the MOST insecure browser, ever. At least, last time I looked into it. Also, last time I checked, the latest version of IE properly supported something like 10% of all the HTML. Firefox, at the time, supported 98% or something. Then some browser called Safari supported something like 100%. My data is outdated now and I've had a long day so I don't really feel like checking nothing up.

Do you know if Edge / IE is a lot more secure now and if it supports a lot more HTML, like Chrome or Firefox? Thanks!

P.S. - My sister totaled her car today taking my brother to the ER, just more bad stuff happening. Might not be around for a bit to check your response. Thanks for all the info though, it's much appreciated.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

I think I figured out what was going on though. I think because I was in the SysWOW64 directory, I was executing 32-bit binaries. When I was in there, instead of accessing the 64-bit version of xcopy, I accessed the 32-bit version of xcopy. Same with attrib. So....with the command:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64>attrib c:\windows\system32\GroupPolicy

because I'm in SysWOW64 directory running the 32-bit version of attrib, it points any requests that are made to c:\windows\system32 to c:\windows\SysWOW64\

When I went and checked the c:\windows\SysWOW64\GroupPolicy directory, I found the missing files.

This probably isn't a Windows 10 specific thing but more or less a 64-bit version of Windows feature I'm guessing. This is probably how Microsoft provides backwards compatibility to 32-bit applications.

This is absolutely correct.
And it's been like this ever since WoW64 was introduced with Windows XP x64.

The group policy editor is not necessary to add to an OS that does not support it, you can still do the same things by modifying stuff in the registry.

And yes, EDGE is a new browser, but it's sucking quite badly, because Microsoft can't do stuff properly, ever.

[rhomanski]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

That's why I've stuck with firefox, as bad as it is, it's better in most ways then the rest.

[keeney123]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Have you tried this to remove IE in windows 10 http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-t...0-488800.shtml

So any time you get a warning like this from Microsoft it is a good idea to pay attention to it.

Look for Internet Explorer in the list and uncheck it. The operating system will then display a notification saying that “turning off Internet Explorer 11 might affect other Windows features and programs installed on your computer, including default settings,” so you need to confirm that you want to remove the browser.

Read more: http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-t...#ixzz4DCWmjOz2

But, know I have not tried to uninstall it on Widows 10. I have known from experience with Microsoft Programs, when they give one a warning such as this it usually is a good idea not to purse it. I am not a programmer perhaps a programmer with a computer science degree from a College with 4 to 5 years experience in writing operating software could accomplish doing this but would have to rewrite some of the OS to get it to work.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

This is absolutely correct.
And it's been like this ever since WoW64 was introduced with Windows XP x64.

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. Can you confirm another one for me? I'm guessing it's not the applications themselves that do the redirection but the actual OS. Do you know how this works? For example, if I were to write a 64-bit application that wrote a file to the c:\windows\system32 directory and I put this file in the C:\windows\SysWoW64 directory, would it write the file to c:\windows\system32 or c:\windows\SysWoW64? What about if it was a 32-bit application that did the same but instead of me having it put in the c:\windows\SysWoW64 directory, I just had it stored in the root of the c: drive. I'm guessing it's based on whether the app is 32-bit or 64-bit and the application has no idea the redirection is happening. The 64-bit app will probably put the file in c:\windows\system32\, the 32-bit app would probably put the file in c:\windows\SysWoW64\.

The group policy editor is not necessary to add to an OS that does not support it, you can still do the same things by modifying stuff in the registry...

The PC is now done, but are you positive about the registry part? I always figured the policy editor just changed the various registry keys for me...in the versions of Windows that don't support the policy editor, do the various registry values still work or are they ignored?

If they do work, this is great news! Thanks for sharing.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Have you tried this to remove IE in windows 10 http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-t...0-488800.shtml

Thank you R_J. Although a bit late, I wanted to say this is how I accomplished removing it. Sure enough, it was right there. No options for that Edge program though, but there was one for IE 11. It isn't hard to turn it back on, but at least it's gone. Everything seemed to run fine after disabling it. Maybe if people didn't have another browser, it'd cause issues?

I'm sure there's some programs that might specifically depend on IE, but I couldn't find anything that seemed to break. I told the customer that there was a notification saying it could break stuff and to let me know if something didn't appear to work, that we could always enable it.

I never found the real reason as to why he wanted it removed. I asked him and he said he just didn't want it on there anymore. He was okay with Edge staying on and he wanted both Firefox and Chrome. I thought that was a little odd, but being a customer, I didn't say anything except okay, good to go.

Usually, people just use one or the other I think, not both Chrome and Firefox.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

So any time you get a warning like this from Microsoft it is a good idea to pay attention to it.

Look for Internet Explorer in the list and uncheck it. The operating system will then display a notification saying that “turning off Internet Explorer 11 might affect other Windows features and programs installed on your computer, including default settings,” so you need to confirm that you want to remove the browser.

Read more: http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-t...#ixzz4DCWmjOz2

But, know I have not tried to uninstall it on Widows 10. I have known from experience with Microsoft Programs, when they give one a warning such as this it usually is a good idea not to purse it. I am not a programmer perhaps a programmer with a computer science degree from a College with 4 to 5 years experience in writing operating software could accomplish doing this but would have to rewrite some of the OS to get it to work.

Keeney123,

It seemed to work fine for the customers PC. I found this information though on a site I don't really like quoting but it was there, so I'm quoting it (wikipedia):

Starting with Windows 2000, it is possible to disable Internet Explorer: The user can no longer launch it but its web browser engine remains operational for applications that use it.

The instructions provided seem to disable it. I'm guessing the engine is still accessible. I disabled it, Windows had me reboot. I rebooted the machine. I tried various things, trying to see what broke, if anything, couldn't find nothing. So I then tried to reenable it, that required a reboot and the system appeared to be the same, just with IE being back. I then went and redisabled, rebooted and went on with the other stuff I had to do.

If you want to give it a shot, maybe you could run a test I didn't think of. You said you have Firefox. Maybe you could download the Firefox plugin, if you don't already have it, called IE Tab V2 ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...e-tab-2-ff-36/ )

Once you have it installed and IE disabled, go into Firefox to a site like badcaps.net or google.com, right click on the page and go down to open in IE Tab (or something like that). The program should load the webpage in a Firefox tab but use the IE engine (not IE, but the actual engine). This might be why nothing broke when I disabled IE. I also found this on wikipedia:

The idea of removing Internet Explorer was proposed during the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case. One of Microsoft's arguments during the trial, however, was that removing Internet Explorer from Windows may result in system instability.

Here's access to that United States v. Microsoft Corp. case that they talk about. It's a very long read.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-mic...-findings-fact

I searched for the word instability in that article there and only found one case. It made me chuckle a bit. Here's what it says:

First, Microsoft itself creates some degree of instability in its supposedly uniform platform by releasing updates to Internet Explorer more frequently than it releases new versions of Windows. As things stand, ISVs find it necessary to redistribute Microsoft's Internet-related APIs with their applications because of nonuniformity that Microsoft has created in its own installed base.

I like the part about Microsoft creating some degree of instability in it's supposedly uniform platform part. That made me smile a bit

If you do disable IE for a bit (remember, you can always reenable it), let me know if you find any problems that arise. Maybe backup your important files first or something just in case.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Spork: the wikipedia article explains the WoW64 system quite well, but it works like you have seen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
A Google search for the same also brings up some good articles.
As for the group policy settings, yes it only changes registry settings.
And not all settings will work, because for example Active Directory support is not available on the Home editions.
But that's for corporations so for the most part this is not something end-users will notice.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

[snip] because Microsoft can't do stuff properly, ever.

MS Hearts for the win. Or for the loss, because all three computer opponents gang up on you; even the deals are rigged! Yet somehow you can still manage to have a much higher than 25% win ratio because the AI is pathetic (on both the original one from Windows 3.1/Win32s through XP, and the Oberon version from Vista onwards).

[kaboom]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

I like the part about Microsoft creating some degree of instability in it's supposedly uniform platform part.

Which was a load of shit.

Shane Brooks of 98Lite fame proved/showed otherwise. (How many times have I said this? I'd have better luck getting water from a rock.)
I ran 98SE with the win95 shell till 2008.


Oh, and nothing was "uniform" til NT5- aka "windows 2000." Those bullshit "checkboxes" to "remove" IE was just something to shut people up; in win2k and later, you couldn't shell swap in the same way as with win9x- IE was the shell, stoopid.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Spork: the wikipedia article explains the WoW64 system quite well, but it works like you have seen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
A Google search for the same also brings up some good articles.
As for the group policy settings, yes it only changes registry settings.
And not all settings will work, because for example Active Directory support is not available on the Home editions.
But that's for corporations so for the most part this is not something end-users will notice.

Thank you.

I understand that some policy settings wouldn't be valid for certain things, like Active Directory, but when I tried blocking notepad from running via the policy editor, it was still allowed to run. If I had tried setting the registry value manually, do you think notepad would have been blocked successfully, or because it was a Home edition that didn't support Policy Editor, the registry key would have just been ignored?

When things cool down around here a bit, I'll try this on a 7 machine and see what happens. I know there was some giant excel sheet (I think excel) that listed the various options and the registry keys / values that needed to be set in order for those policies to take effect. I'll see if I can find that excel sheet and try manually setting some registry keys and see what happens on a 7 Home machine.

Thanks!

[Topcat]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

wait a minute, WoW64 isn't just a 64-bit version of World of Warcraft?!

j/k

[stj]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

lol

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Thank you.

I understand that some policy settings wouldn't be valid for certain things, like Active Directory, but when I tried blocking notepad from running via the policy editor, it was still allowed to run.

I would put that down to being a AD feature, blocking apps is something you would be interested in doing in a corporate environment, not on a end-users machine.

wait a minute, WoW64 isn't just a 64-bit version of World of Warcraft?!

j/k

How to confuse your computer

F:\Spel\World of Warcraft>dir Wow-64.exe
 Volume in drive F has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 3EB9-A52B

 Directory of F:\Spel\World of Warcraft

2016-05-20 16:17    21*129*704 Wow-64.exe
        1 File(s)   21*129*704 bytes
        0 Dir(s) 476*662*988*800 bytes free

F:\Spel\World of Warcraft>copy Wow-64.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64
    1 file(s) copied.

[keeney123]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

Spork I wonder if that worked for all versions of IE? My computer is working fine right now and I do not want to possibly cause a problem with it. It is good to know that one can at least turn it off without much effort. Back about 4 years ago when I wanted to turn it off because it keep on failing. It was totally useless to me so my nature is to get rid of baggage. Now I can go out on if without constant failure. I very rarely use it. Actually that was in 2011-2012 when I had just got a laptop with Windows 8 on it. I called Microsoft and asked them if I could turn it back to Windows 7 and they told me they no longer controlled the license for Windows 7 and it would cost me $400 to have them turn it back. I told them I have always bought from Microsoft for the last 10 years. I have a Windows 7 desk sitting right here and I want to run that program on my laptop I just bought and they said you only get one license to your computer. They suggested that I call the person I bought it from that they might help me. I called Tiger Direct and they would offer to sell me and OS for it at $100. This was just the start of my ill feelings toward Microsoft. They then came out with a Windows 8.1 and it came on my machine and it would boot up asking me to upgrade and did not offer any choice to disable or stop it and go on. The computer was useless and every time I press a key I would get a beep. I then went down to the computers in the lobby and started to chat with their service support people as I could not call them or they would charge me. I chatted with their supposed tech for 45 min. He keep on insisting I upgrade and why would I not upgrade if that was the only choice? I in the end told them what they could so with their bleeping OS and that I would never buy from them again. When I got back to my computer I turning it on one last time before I threw it in the garbage and wallah there on the far right hand side it say something to the affect to postpone the installment.

[stj]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

i ripped that shit out in the past.

you need to remove all references to it in the registry, then reboot the machine first.
then rename / remove the IE folder.

if you dont clean the registry and reboot first, something will lock it so you cant remove it.

as for afterwards, it *will* break the "check for updates" function and spyware / online-registration in some 3rd party programs.
because they call IE functions in the background because the programmers are lazy bastards!!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and magically hidden files.

wait a minute, WoW64 isn't just a 64-bit version of World of Warcraft?!

j/k

That is pretty funny!