Soluto
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From: hummingbird on 30 Jul 2010 11:09 On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:17:46 +0200, HTH wrote : > John Corliss wrote: > >I know this program was discussed here briefly in late June, but I > >just read about it again. Looks like the kind of program which, if > >safe, I wouldn't mind have call out to a server. > > > >Soluto installs on your system and then the first time you reboot, it > >analyzes how long your system takes to start. It then calls home for > >information about all the modules and programs which start up during > >bootup and offers you advice about whether or not you really need that > >program or module to start and run in the background. > > You probably won't be reading this because of your censorship habits, > but I'll post it anyway for others to read. You'll get no thanks from the censors. I never did. There's a lot of prejudice in this group. Most posters blacklisted me when I tried to enlighten their ignorance by telling them the truth. Now I have to post under different names to avoid their killfiles. You will have to do the same if you want to be heard. Newcomers don't have any preconceptions so they will read your posts. > I'm not saying that Saluto is trash but I'd want to see some serious > results published before I let it loose on any system of mine. > > Here's why: > It's not clear from the website if Soluto analyses 'applications' > or ALL modules that get loaded. In the case of the former it is not > difficult for anyone awake to manage themselves w/o Soluto. A simple > look at 'Autoruns' or Mike Lin's 'Startup CPL' will show what's being > loaded automatically at boot. In the case of the latter, it gets more > complicated. Windows loads many scores of modules at boot and many have > interdependent-relationships. Some are plain unnecessary and others are > dependent on what apps you start at boot or later on. Saluto would need > to be a very sophisticated program to analyse and manage such modules > without screwing things up. In theory, you could end up with a system > that won't boot. > > FYI: my current system takes about 35-40secs to boot and that includes > XP-Pro-SP3 and about 15 essential apps. > > YMMV :-) > > HTH > -hb- (the REAL hummingbird) -- "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident" (Arthur Schopenhauer)
From: Craig on 30 Jul 2010 13:54 On 07/30/2010 07:41 AM, John Corliss wrote: > John Corliss wrote: .... >> The program uses "Get Satisfaction": >> >> http://getsatisfaction.com/ >> >> which I'm not familiar with. I hope it's not adware. No. No adware. It's a web-based forum thingy. A number of F/OSS projects use it as an outsourced support forum. Nothing malevolent in my experience but... I find the servers to be dog-slow and the web-design to be too ajax-heavy. To me, it looks like a solution in search of a problem but <shrug> >> >> Soluto's home page is here: >> >> http://www.soluto.com/ What I found interesting about this class of software is that this resembles a virtual "crowd-sourcing." But instead of getting people together at a single time and place for a single purpose, this gets data-sets together (irrespective of time/place) for a single purpose. And it's happening outside the normal OEM support-chain. It was a while ago that I read the article on Soluto but I believe this is just their first project. They'll be re-using this methodology for other "problems." I like the model a lot but it does involve yet more trust. John, thx for the feedback. -- -Craig
From: B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson on 30 Jul 2010 15:34 On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:50:28 -0700, John Corliss wrote: > Soluto installs on your system and then the first time you reboot, it > analyzes how long your system takes to start. I use SysInternals Process Monitor for this purpose ("Boot logging"): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx From help file: | Process Monitor can log activity from a point very early in the boot | process during the initialization of boot-start device drivers. | Configure Process Monitor to log the next boot by selecting Enable Boot | Logging from the Options menu. Process Monitor's driver will log | activity at the next boot into a file in the %Windir% directory and will | continue logging through the shutdown or until you run Process Monitor | again. Thus, if you don't run Process Monitor during a boot session you | will capture a trace of the entire boot to shutdown cycle. Best, to run SysInternals AutoRuns, beforehand, to disable the obvious cases. This limits the efforts required to skim through the log file: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx [Back to Soluto] > It then calls home for information [...] The advice the program offers > is based on user participation. This is a matter of trust - as you know, already... ;-) Not only trust in the secureness of the product, but also with regard to the expertise of the crowd offering explanations to the various processes. Personally, I prefer to manually check the logs against installed system files, drivers, tools, and so on. This eliminates most of the valid entries. Afterwards, cases of doubt can be analyzed with more rigor. Instead of following the advise of *one* user group, information can be gathered (and pondered) from *anywhere* on the Net (and elsewhere). As a last resort, questionable files go straight to in-depth analysis (dependency viewer, hex editor, ..., disassembler, debugger). Although you probably won't touch a disassembler or debugger, using Dependency Walker and a hex editor like HxD (look for strings like program message texts) can help you to get a gist of the character of the files pertaining to a process: http://www.dependencywalker.com http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd Packed executables may need to be extracted before these last steps, though. Using an online service like Virustotal, which not only shows results of multiple Malware scanning engines, but also some additional information about the files, can therefore be an alternative: https://www.virustotal.com BeAr -- =========================================================================== = What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? = ===============================================================--(Oops!)===
From: za kAT on 30 Jul 2010 20:08 On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:33:05 +0200, HTH wrote: > the late great "hummingbird", bigged up his ego and spluttered Well at least you got that bit right. -- zakAT(a)pooh.the.cat - Sergeant Tech-Com, DN38416. Assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for denigration!
From: John Corliss on 30 Jul 2010 20:59
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote: > John Corliss wrote: >> >> Soluto installs on your system and then the first time you reboot, it >> analyzes how long your system takes to start. > > I use SysInternals Process Monitor for this purpose ("Boot logging"): > > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx > > From help file: > | Process Monitor can log activity from a point very early in the boot > | process during the initialization of boot-start device drivers. > | Configure Process Monitor to log the next boot by selecting Enable Boot > | Logging from the Options menu. Process Monitor's driver will log > | activity at the next boot into a file in the %Windir% directory and will > | continue logging through the shutdown or until you run Process Monitor > | again. Thus, if you don't run Process Monitor during a boot session you > | will capture a trace of the entire boot to shutdown cycle. Yes, I've used this method before. It was okay, I guess. Was kind of hoping that Soluto would point out something I missed. However, that it requires and tried to install MS dotnet makes it all moot. I canceled the installation and removed the leftovers. > Best, to run SysInternals AutoRuns, beforehand, to disable the obvious > cases. This limits the efforts required to skim through the log file: > > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx > > [Back to Soluto] >> It then calls home for information [...] The advice the program offers >> is based on user participation. > > This is a matter of trust - as you know, already... ;-) Not only trust > in the secureness of the product, but also with regard to the expertise > of the crowd offering explanations to the various processes. It does, but since the process is not automatic (or wouldn't be), I figured I'd have a chance to evaluate the recommendations. In any event, according to Soluto's video, any changes you make are reversible. > Personally, I prefer to manually check the logs against installed system > files, drivers, tools, and so on. This eliminates most of the valid > entries. Afterwards, cases of doubt can be analyzed with more rigor. > Instead of following the advise of *one* user group, information can be > gathered (and pondered) from *anywhere* on the Net (and elsewhere). Yes, I've been doing it this way for a long time. I really didn't expect Soluto to find much, since my system is already running with as few startups and processes as possible. For instance, right now I have only 24 services running (that I'm aware of.) > As a last resort, questionable files go straight to in-depth analysis > (dependency viewer, hex editor, ..., disassembler, debugger). Although > you probably won't touch a disassembler or debugger, using Dependency > Walker and a hex editor like HxD (look for strings like program message > texts) can help you to get a gist of the character of the files pertaining > to a process: > > http://www.dependencywalker.com Heh. You may have forgotten or don't know, but I originally pointed that program out to this group years ago. As for using a disassembler or a debugger, you're right. They're both way too much trouble IMO. > http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd > > Packed executables may need to be extracted before these last steps, > though. Using an online service like Virustotal, which not only shows > results of multiple Malware scanning engines, but also some additional > information about the files, can therefore be an alternative: > > https://www.virustotal.com Good idea. Virustotal has been my favorite online scan site for several months now and yes, they do provide a little info about files you upload to them. -- John Corliss BS206. Because of all the Googlespam, I block all posts sent through Google Groups. I also block as many posts from anonymous remailers (for example, usenet4all.se, x-privat.org, dizum.com, tioat.net, frell.theremailer.net) as possible due to forgeries posted through them. No ad, CD, commercial, cripple, demo, nag, share, spy, time-limited, trial or web wares OR warez for me, please. |