Help! ccsvchst.exe is killing my machine!

[Bwana]

<deleted>

[DiscoStu]

Boot into safe mode, uninstall all the Norton crap.

Install Microsoft Security Essentials.

Job done

[suityou01]

Who's sockie is this?

[Bwana]

<deleted>

[DiscoStu]

Bonza!

I had a quick look on Microsoft's website and it says:

"...guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software."

What about firewall? Or do I just use the built-in Microsoft firewall? And how good is this stuff? I know the Norton software can be very resource-hungry, but I've found it's done a good job of keeping my machine safe.

The built-in firewall's fine. I've been using MSE for about a year now on three machines and haven't had issues on any of them.

[Bwana]

<deleted>

[doodab]

I use the MS stuff. It's pretty good.

I've not had anything serious but the desktop (still running XP) did pick up a java nagware thing a couple of times, basically due to having a very old java version on it. I cured that by uninstalling java and cleaning it up. My windows 7 machines have all been totally fine.

[DaveB]

By and large a Firewall is a Firewall is a Firewall.

For a home network where you don't need remote access from your office or hotel room you can just rely on your router (assuming it has one, most of them do now) in it's out of the box config. It will block all inbound traffic by default unless it's a response to a request from your network. You can run windows firewall if you really want, but if you have a firewall on your router there really isn't much point.

[suityou01]

By and large a Firewall is a Firewall is a Firewall.

For a home network where you don't need remote access from your office or hotel room you can just rely on your router (assuming it has one, most of them do now) in it's out of the box config. It will block all inbound traffic by default unless it's a response to a request from your network. You can run windows firewall if you really want, but if you have a firewall on your router there really isn't much point.

Zone alarm stops outbound vectors so rogue processes can't dial home with your details. A router firewall only blocks inbound.

[PAH]

Zone alarm stops outbound vectors so rogue processes can't dial home with your details. A router firewall only blocks inbound.

I think the Windows 7 firewall does that too. It has outbound rules that by default block programs/services unless you specify otherwise. A warning appears if something attempts to make an outbound call so you can decide whether to add it to the safe list.


I've been using MSE since its release but it isn't good enough on its own to catch everything. I recommend also using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware which is free for manual scans (have to pay to get live monitoring), which is good enough for periodical checking unless you routinely browse dodgy sites. In which case a virtual PC or other sandbox to browse in isolation is probably a good idea.