DCOM is required for certain corporate apps to communicate properly. It's probably OK to shut it off on your home PC, but anyone in a business setting should not just shut it off without knowing what it is or what it does.
I know you meant well, John, but you have to be careful telling folks to shut stuff off without fully understanding what it does.
Sorry, Zixar. Don't want anyboby to screw up at work. From what I understand, a computer at work belongs to the company. So, yes, check with the computer guru at work before doing anything out of the ordinary.
A person needs administrative rights to be able to do this anyway. In a work environmnet there should be restrictions in place that prevent changing much.
They make these bold statements:
Since no typical Windows user has ever needed to have DCOM enabled, it should be shut down immediately and disabled
it's of absolutely no practical use other than to adorn Microsoft's "We Have That Too" chart. There may be some custom corporate application developers who have managed to make some use of it, but mostly no one ever has.
However, they have this disclaimer in tiny print as you suggest:
Corporate users with network-aware custom applications should check with their corporate IT personnel to see whether DCOM is being used within their organization. If DCOM is ever needed after being shut down, the DCOMbobulator's "Enable DCOM" button will bring DCOM back to life.
I don't claim to know any more anbout this that the scope of their web site discusses. I have had no problems so far.
I used to get strange DCOM error messages in my Event Viewer on occasion such as:
Event ID 10010
"The server did not register with DCOM within the required timeout."
At least those will no longer appear.
Do you know of any applications that rely on DCOM?
How complicated do you want the answer? :)--> DCOM is used in business apps as an adjunct to CORBA or Enterprise JavaBeans. The advantages to DCOM are that it requires no additional object request broker software (like CORBA objects do) and it is not language-specific for development (like EJBs are.)
What all these things do is a nifty and useful trick called remote method invocation or RMI. A program running on one machine may pass data to and call routines ("invoke methods") in another program running on a different ("remote") machine on the network. Thus, you don't have to reinvent the wheel--if you have another program that already does something that your program needs, you don't have to program your own way to do it, you just invoke theirs. Very handy.
This happens all the time in Windows, except that the two sharing programs are usually on the same machine. For example, if you use Outlook Express as a mail client, you may get emails that look like web pages from time to time with all the graphics and whatnot. What you don't see is that OE is really calling the browser functionality of Internet Explorer in the background to actually display that email like a web page! Whenever you click on a "mailto" link in a web page, Internet Explorer calls the mailing methods in OE to send the message! These are called COM objects, for Component Object Model.
DCOM objects do the same thing, except now you could call the mail bits of OE from the IE on a completely different machine. (The "D" stands for "Distributed.") Ordinarily, you wouldn't go to the DCOM overhead of passing IE mail requests to OE on another machine, but if you had an application that had to, say, shoot off a million emails at a time, and you had a special server that could handle that kind of traffic, you could stick the mailer bits on the superserver while all the piddly user-interface bits remained on your machine.
DCOM objects are used quite heavily in Microsoft's programming and database environments (VisualStudio and SQL Server). As long as the computers sharing DCOM info are behind a firewall, there's nothing inherently unsafe about it, and it's quite a useful technology in multi-tier programming environments.
I can not see myself (or our small business) ever needing DCOM.
But in a corporate environment, of course, one should check with those in charge of the computer configurations.
GRC's advice appears to be geared to home users and everyday users. I still know quite a few people who have no protection between their high speed internet connection and their home computer. They have no firewall of any kind. I'll bet this is prevalent across the country.
Dcombobulator (and many other things) would appear to be sound advice for them.
[This message was edited by igotout on October 08, 2003 at 10:35.]
I may have found a way to prevent most spyware from getting to your computer.
It's a little tricky but I believe it is good to do this, especially on kids computers. I am not smart enough to have figured it out but I read about this and tried it and like it.
Download a free program called SpySites. It is found here.
It says the following:
Stop Web Sites from installing Spyware, Sleazeware and Cookies on your PC
SpySites includes a database of over 4,600 known Spy/Sleaze sites and guides you through the simple process of including them in Internet Explorer's Restricted Zone and setting policies to prevent them from performing intrusive acts on your PC. By setting the policies for the Restricted sites zone to a very high level of security, you can be assured that any web sites added to the Restricted sites zone cannot do certain things which could compromise your privacy and security
Once you download and install SpySites, open it. Look on the menu at the top ...Options. Click on "Add All Sites to Restricted Zone"
Congratulations. You just restricted more than 4600 known spy sites from affecting your computer in any way. This includes some of the worst known offenders.
With XP and 2000 I believe you must log on to each user who is using the computer and do the same thing with their browser. Each user has his own unique browser settings.
You can then close the SpySites program. This is only a trial demo version. You have added the basic needed protection. You may not need SpySites again for a while but if you do you can simply download another trial version or purchase the registered version for $20.
Comments about this appreciated. I have just tried this for the first time.
ok, John, but which one to install? I know how to turn my PC on and do homework, but it's obviouse that there is something that 'peeks' at my information, given the emails I get, as well as a few other things.
It gives me the download option, but it's called spyino and doesn't open to anything else. Sigh
Shellon - Just click on the link above. Scroll Down to Download.
It takes you to ano0ther site with lots of downloads. Scroll down and choose to download the one named SPySites.
Then follow my instructions above to help prevent Spyware from getting to you in the first place.
For Spyware that already exists on your computer, Shellon, you should run the free program called Ad Aware. Download it here.
Once you get to that page look on the right column for "Download our Software".
If you are getting a lot of junk email (Spam), consider changing your email address and keep your new address off the internet as much as possible. Try not to give it out except to friends and family. Use a junk email account for internet related purchases or registrations.
It is all the plug-ins that are enabled by default which slows Acrobat reader down. After removing all but 3, it loads pretty much instantly. Here's how to do it:
Go to C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 6.0Reader
Move all files from the plug_ins folder to the Optional folder except EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api. There should only be these 3 files in the plug_ins folder.
You're done.Now Adobe Acrobat 6 will load almost instantly.
PS - Go to options in Acrobat and disable the splash screen for even better performance.
Hmmmm. My 3, I do not get any error. I can not duplicate your error. In fact it opens real fast like it should.
I am no expert but obviously you can move those 3 plug ins bac and see what happens.
I am using Reader 6, patched.
Try this:
Be sure to uninstall any old versions such as 5 or 4. then uninstall your version 6. Then find the Acrobat Reader folders and delete them too in Explorer.
Download and install the free version 6. Go to Help / Updates and make sure you have the recent updates for it.
Go to Edit / Preferences / Startup and uncheck Splash Screen crap.
Now try my method above moving all those plug ins and see if it works.
Include the escript.api file in the plugins directory.
There are 2 subdirectories to plugins - annotations and multimedia. Move "annots.api" and "multimedia.api" from those directories to the optional directory, and you should be all set.
That is addressed specifically to m3c, but in general to anyone who is playing along at home.
What I did was I took out the plugins one at a time and then started and shut down Reader. I did this until something broke, then I figured out what to do to fix it.
I believe that the plugin that you want to put back in is "updater.api".
Garth - good tip. It goes right along with "nothing is foolproof because fools are ingenius" and "You've got a PEBCAK error - 'problem exists between chair and keyboard'".
Well here is another one I liked because I hate the invasiveness of Real Player and Quicktime. (qttask.exe is my enemy in msconfig) Just be sure to uninstall the crappy Real and QT before you install these free programs:
Real Alternative v1.23
"Many audio and video files are offered only in Real Networks' formats. If you like the files, but you don't like being tied to Real, you may prefer Real Alternative. This player plays RealAudio (.ra and .rpm) and Realmedia (.rm, .ram, .rmvb, .rpx) files just like RealPlayer and RealOne Player do--but without the hassles of dealing with Real. It offers limited support for Real's .smi and .smil formats. Real Alternative's RealMedia browser plug-in supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera."
"QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player. It also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages."
Your patch and apparant need for speed loading of AR60 disables much of it's functionality, besides causing the error messages that were noted.
To make this hack work without error messages do what Steve! suggested.
But now realize that all the functions that you removed will no longer work. All in the name of "speed" to save about 2 seconds of loading time. I suppose this is OK if all you do is read plain jane pdf files.
Also there is no need to remove AR 5.0 - both versions can work quite well on the same system if one want to be able to do so. I like to use 5.0 at times because I find the GUI less clunky that 6.0.
What functionality (besides downloading ability from their site) does this disable, Goey? I am not getting any error messages and neither do several other people I know who have tried this. In fact they are pleased with saving the seconds. Most people I know are just readers of PDF's and want to print them out sometimes.
I am not doubting what your are saying and I am sure you know more about these things than me, having previously been a technician.... I just want to lean more about this.
5 was definitely faster than 6.
JR
PS - What do you think about the Real and QT alternatives mentioned above?
When you remove a "plug-in" you are removing at least one or more functions from the Reader.
You loose stuff like the abiliity to click on a link within a pdf file, automatic updates, send mail, play audio and video, manipulate and view images, fill out an electronic form, or reflow the text when you resize a window.
Your patch disabled or crippled all these functions (and more) because as far as the Reader was concerned the files didn't exist so it couldn't load them. These files just don't load up needlessly.
Sure, it loads fast now because 80 percent of its features were disabled. Might as well go back to AR-4.
If you want to know what you are crippling or disabling, open the Reader and click on help then "About Adobe Plug-Ins". Each plug-in is explained as well as it's dependencies. With your patch - the list will be short. Put the files back where the were and then look again. You will see what the ones that you removed were doing.
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Zixar
DCOM is required for certain corporate apps to communicate properly. It's probably OK to shut it off on your home PC, but anyone in a business setting should not just shut it off without knowing what it is or what it does.
I know you meant well, John, but you have to be careful telling folks to shut stuff off without fully understanding what it does.
...scratching the itch of the mortal unknown...
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igotout
Sorry, Zixar. Don't want anyboby to screw up at work. From what I understand, a computer at work belongs to the company. So, yes, check with the computer guru at work before doing anything out of the ordinary.
A person needs administrative rights to be able to do this anyway. In a work environmnet there should be restrictions in place that prevent changing much.
They make these bold statements:
Since no typical Windows user has ever needed to have DCOM enabled, it should be shut down immediately and disabled
it's of absolutely no practical use other than to adorn Microsoft's "We Have That Too" chart. There may be some custom corporate application developers who have managed to make some use of it, but mostly no one ever has.
However, they have this disclaimer in tiny print as you suggest:
Corporate users with network-aware custom applications should check with their corporate IT personnel to see whether DCOM is being used within their organization. If DCOM is ever needed after being shut down, the DCOMbobulator's "Enable DCOM" button will bring DCOM back to life.
I don't claim to know any more anbout this that the scope of their web site discusses. I have had no problems so far.
I used to get strange DCOM error messages in my Event Viewer on occasion such as:
Event ID 10010
"The server did not register with DCOM within the required timeout."
At least those will no longer appear.
Do you know of any applications that rely on DCOM?
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Zixar
How complicated do you want the answer?
:)--> DCOM is used in business apps as an adjunct to CORBA or Enterprise JavaBeans. The advantages to DCOM are that it requires no additional object request broker software (like CORBA objects do) and it is not language-specific for development (like EJBs are.)
What all these things do is a nifty and useful trick called remote method invocation or RMI. A program running on one machine may pass data to and call routines ("invoke methods") in another program running on a different ("remote") machine on the network. Thus, you don't have to reinvent the wheel--if you have another program that already does something that your program needs, you don't have to program your own way to do it, you just invoke theirs. Very handy.
This happens all the time in Windows, except that the two sharing programs are usually on the same machine. For example, if you use Outlook Express as a mail client, you may get emails that look like web pages from time to time with all the graphics and whatnot. What you don't see is that OE is really calling the browser functionality of Internet Explorer in the background to actually display that email like a web page! Whenever you click on a "mailto" link in a web page, Internet Explorer calls the mailing methods in OE to send the message! These are called COM objects, for Component Object Model.
DCOM objects do the same thing, except now you could call the mail bits of OE from the IE on a completely different machine. (The "D" stands for "Distributed.") Ordinarily, you wouldn't go to the DCOM overhead of passing IE mail requests to OE on another machine, but if you had an application that had to, say, shoot off a million emails at a time, and you had a special server that could handle that kind of traffic, you could stick the mailer bits on the superserver while all the piddly user-interface bits remained on your machine.
DCOM objects are used quite heavily in Microsoft's programming and database environments (VisualStudio and SQL Server). As long as the computers sharing DCOM info are behind a firewall, there's nothing inherently unsafe about it, and it's quite a useful technology in multi-tier programming environments.
...scratching the itch of the mortal unknown...
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igotout
Thank you Zixar. I sort of understand.
I can not see myself (or our small business) ever needing DCOM.
But in a corporate environment, of course, one should check with those in charge of the computer configurations.
GRC's advice appears to be geared to home users and everyday users. I still know quite a few people who have no protection between their high speed internet connection and their home computer. They have no firewall of any kind. I'll bet this is prevalent across the country.
Dcombobulator (and many other things) would appear to be sound advice for them.
[This message was edited by igotout on October 08, 2003 at 10:35.]
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igotout
I may have found a way to prevent most spyware from getting to your computer.
It's a little tricky but I believe it is good to do this, especially on kids computers. I am not smart enough to have figured it out but I read about this and tried it and like it.
Download a free program called SpySites. It is found here.
It says the following:
Stop Web Sites from installing Spyware, Sleazeware and Cookies on your PC
SpySites includes a database of over 4,600 known Spy/Sleaze sites and guides you through the simple process of including them in Internet Explorer's Restricted Zone and setting policies to prevent them from performing intrusive acts on your PC. By setting the policies for the Restricted sites zone to a very high level of security, you can be assured that any web sites added to the Restricted sites zone cannot do certain things which could compromise your privacy and security
Once you download and install SpySites, open it. Look on the menu at the top ...Options. Click on "Add All Sites to Restricted Zone"
Congratulations. You just restricted more than 4600 known spy sites from affecting your computer in any way. This includes some of the worst known offenders.
With XP and 2000 I believe you must log on to each user who is using the computer and do the same thing with their browser. Each user has his own unique browser settings.
You can then close the SpySites program. This is only a trial demo version. You have added the basic needed protection. You may not need SpySites again for a while but if you do you can simply download another trial version or purchase the registered version for $20.
Comments about this appreciated. I have just tried this for the first time.
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Shellon
ok, John, but which one to install? I know how to turn my PC on and do homework, but it's obviouse that there is something that 'peeks' at my information, given the emails I get, as well as a few other things.
It gives me the download option, but it's called spyino and doesn't open to anything else. Sigh
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igotout
Shellon - Just click on the link above. Scroll Down to Download.
It takes you to ano0ther site with lots of downloads. Scroll down and choose to download the one named SPySites.
Then follow my instructions above to help prevent Spyware from getting to you in the first place.
For Spyware that already exists on your computer, Shellon, you should run the free program called Ad Aware. Download it here.
Once you get to that page look on the right column for "Download our Software".
If you are getting a lot of junk email (Spam), consider changing your email address and keep your new address off the internet as much as possible. Try not to give it out except to friends and family. Use a junk email account for internet related purchases or registrations.
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Shellon
Thank you John
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Goey
Testing
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
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igotout
To the top, for a friend who has never visited this site. Hi Chuck!
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igotout
Make Acrobat Reader 6 load faster
Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 loads much too slowly!
It is all the plug-ins that are enabled by default which slows Acrobat reader down. After removing all but 3, it loads pretty much instantly. Here's how to do it:
Go to C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 6.0Reader
Move all files from the plug_ins folder to the Optional folder except EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api. There should only be these 3 files in the plug_ins folder.
You're done.Now Adobe Acrobat 6 will load almost instantly.
PS - Go to options in Acrobat and disable the splash screen for even better performance.
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My3Cents
Thanks John. It does load faster.
However I get 3 error messages when it's trying to load. If I click OK on them it loads fine. It's looking for
annots.api, multimedia.api, escript plugin
Do you know if there's a way to keep it from looking for those, or do I need to move them back to the plugins directory?
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igotout
Hmmmm. My 3, I do not get any error. I can not duplicate your error. In fact it opens real fast like it should.
I am no expert but obviously you can move those 3 plug ins bac and see what happens.
I am using Reader 6, patched.
Try this:
Be sure to uninstall any old versions such as 5 or 4. then uninstall your version 6. Then find the Acrobat Reader folders and delete them too in Explorer.
Download and install the free version 6. Go to Help / Updates and make sure you have the recent updates for it.
Go to Edit / Preferences / Startup and uncheck Splash Screen crap.
Now try my method above moving all those plug ins and see if it works.
JR.
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Steve!
Include the escript.api file in the plugins directory.
There are 2 subdirectories to plugins - annotations and multimedia. Move "annots.api" and "multimedia.api" from those directories to the optional directory, and you should be all set.
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igotout
Are you addressing that to My3 Cents, Steve, or to this topic in general? I am not having any probs with the above original method.
But I was not the original author of this tip either.
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igotout
Update on this tip: After doing this I now find that when I go to Help / Updates I get no response from Adobe's auto download feature.
It is good to upgrade once in a while. The latest updates can be downloaded manually from their site.
The latest patch for 6 can be found here:
6.02
I wonder what plug-in would need to put back for causing update to work automatically?
A workaround I suppose is to load all the plug ins back to the plug ins floder, do the updates then move them all back out again except the 3 above.
Oh well. Small price to pay for the much faster opening speed.
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GarthP2000
I came across this 'tip' from the W2KNews newsletter:
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My3Cents
The problem is that the condition that causes one to need such a patch also makes it impossible for them to realize they need it.
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Steve!
yougotout -
That is addressed specifically to m3c, but in general to anyone who is playing along at home.
What I did was I took out the plugins one at a time and then started and shut down Reader. I did this until something broke, then I figured out what to do to fix it.
I believe that the plugin that you want to put back in is "updater.api".
Garth - good tip. It goes right along with "nothing is foolproof because fools are ingenius" and "You've got a PEBCAK error - 'problem exists between chair and keyboard'".
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igotout
Well here is another one I liked because I hate the invasiveness of Real Player and Quicktime. (qttask.exe is my enemy in msconfig) Just be sure to uninstall the crappy Real and QT before you install these free programs:
Real Alternative v1.23
"Many audio and video files are offered only in Real Networks' formats. If you like the files, but you don't like being tied to Real, you may prefer Real Alternative. This player plays RealAudio (.ra and .rpm) and Realmedia (.rm, .ram, .rmvb, .rpx) files just like RealPlayer and RealOne Player do--but without the hassles of dealing with Real. It offers limited support for Real's .smi and .smil formats. Real Alternative's RealMedia browser plug-in supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera."
Download here:
Real Alternative
QuickTime Alternative v1.23
"QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player. It also supports QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages."
Download here:
QuickTime Alternative
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Goey
John,
Your patch and apparant need for speed loading of AR60 disables much of it's functionality, besides causing the error messages that were noted.
To make this hack work without error messages do what Steve! suggested.
But now realize that all the functions that you removed will no longer work. All in the name of "speed" to save about 2 seconds of loading time. I suppose this is OK if all you do is read plain jane pdf files.
Also there is no need to remove AR 5.0 - both versions can work quite well on the same system if one want to be able to do so. I like to use 5.0 at times because I find the GUI less clunky that 6.0.
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igotout
What functionality (besides downloading ability from their site) does this disable, Goey? I am not getting any error messages and neither do several other people I know who have tried this. In fact they are pleased with saving the seconds. Most people I know are just readers of PDF's and want to print them out sometimes.
I am not doubting what your are saying and I am sure you know more about these things than me, having previously been a technician.... I just want to lean more about this.
5 was definitely faster than 6.
JR
PS - What do you think about the Real and QT alternatives mentioned above?
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Goey
John,
When you remove a "plug-in" you are removing at least one or more functions from the Reader.
You loose stuff like the abiliity to click on a link within a pdf file, automatic updates, send mail, play audio and video, manipulate and view images, fill out an electronic form, or reflow the text when you resize a window.
Your patch disabled or crippled all these functions (and more) because as far as the Reader was concerned the files didn't exist so it couldn't load them. These files just don't load up needlessly.
Sure, it loads fast now because 80 percent of its features were disabled. Might as well go back to AR-4.
If you want to know what you are crippling or disabling, open the Reader and click on help then "About Adobe Plug-Ins". Each plug-in is explained as well as it's dependencies. With your patch - the list will be short. Put the files back where the were and then look again. You will see what the ones that you removed were doing.
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Steve!
Okay, for me, the speed makes a difference.
With all of those plug-ins in there, it seems to take FOREVER to load a pdf page, but without them it's almost lightning fast.
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