Windows 7 TalkZ

We love Microsoft Security Essentials, and we think it is a great anti-malware product from the software giant with no cost related. It’s absolutely free and lightly runs in the background doing its job against the bad guys like viruses, spyware, and many various malicious software. I personally have been using it pretty much on every computer I have my hands on.

Now, it was announced that the beta for the next version of Microsoft Security Essentials have been released to the public. And you can get it from here on the Microsoft Connect page. You will need a MSN live account in order to download the beta software.

The installation process is smart enough knowing if you have a previous version running. And it will run the upgrade process instead of a brand new installation if it does. The process takes about a few minutes to finish and once it’s finished you may need to reboot your computer before you can use the tool.

The user interface in the new beta still remain the same with only two differences in the Settings tab.

One is in Real-time protection section, where it adds three options for monitoring file and program activity and network protection option.

And the other is in Microsoft SpyNet section, where it gives you the option whether or not you want to join the Microsoft SpyNet.

What’s more changes or new features though are actually in the backend.

• Windows Firewall integration, which now ask if you would like to turn the Windows firewall on or off.
  
• Enhanced protection for web-based threats – which is more integrated with IE to provide more protection against online threats. It adds another reason telling people why you should pick IE as the primary internet browser. However, I am hoping that later on it can adds the support to other browsers as well.
• New protection engine – which offers a more advanced detection and cleanup capability with better performance in the back.
• Network inspection system – a new feature that is only available to Windows 7 system adds another layer of protection against network-based exploits.

The beta program offers both 32-bit and 64-bit version of MSE for testing but so far seems to be limited only in US, Israel (English only), China (Simplified Chinese only), and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).

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One of the tools I often use to check the DNS records is the command tool nslookup, an ancient tool that has been around in Windows since Windows XP. Now, for those who are not that used to the command prompt window and command line, there is a GUI version of tool available for you. Thanks to 4sysops for reviewing the tool for us.

NirSoft’s DNSDataView is a free portable DNS look up tool that allows you to easily retrieve all kinds of DNS records for any given domains, including MX, NS, A, SOA, TXT, and AAAA records. However, as Michael pointed out, CNAME, PTR, and SVR records don’t seem to be supported in this tool.

The tool is deadly easy to use. Simply download the tool from the website, and extract the executable file to your local computer. Since it’s a portable tool you don’t need to install it first in order to run it. Once it’s launched,

First, type in all domains you want to query for the DNS records in the the Select Domains window.

And hit OK button, the tool will start querying the DNS data automatically and displays the results in the window once it’s finished.

You can then output the data to a plain text file. If you have a long list of domain searched, you can search the specific item you are looking for.

What other than a GUI interface actually makes this tool better than the classic NSLOOKUP is that it not only allows you to query a list of domains from one run but also gives you the option to use the different DNS server instead of the default ones assigned to your network card in case you have the suspicious that the bundled DNS server may not perform the query equally same as the other external ones. Just tick the option “use the following DNS Server” in the Select Domains window and specify the IP address of DNS server before hitting OK button to perform the query.

If you are the one like me who often need to use the classic NSLOOKUP to look up the DNS records, you should try out this tool. It’s more convenient.

The tool works perfectly on Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit.

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