If I could choose only one MS Windows program to deal with malware - viruses and trojans - autoruns would be it. Mark Russinovich, the principal author, has been stirring the entrails of Microsoft Windows since it arrived on the world's desktops and is arguably the world's leading expert on Windows internals.

Mark sold out to Microsoft and joined their staff after holding Microsoft's feet to the fire for years by exposing unpatched vulnerabilities in Windows and Internet Explorer. Although the voice crying in the wilderness has grown silent, to his credit and Microsoft's, he continues to improve the tools he gave Windows users.

Samba is long for SMB which is short for Server Message Block which is also known as Windows Networking. Samba enables, among many things, a Linux machine to be a peer member of a Microsoft Windows network. This case describes the process using Ubuntu Linux.

Although it is one of the options available when installing an Ubuntu server, you can add it later with "tasksel" at the command line (Applications, Accessories, Terminal)

sudo tasksel

All the machines on the network need names and IP addresses. The simplest mechanism to mapping addresses to names is to edit the "hosts" file. On Ubuntu that file is /etc/hosts. My home network has four machines, a router and a printer. My hosts file looks like this:

With 90% of the desktop operating system market, Windows is a fact of life like plaque, heartburn and indigestion. It comes with most retail desktops such as those from Dell and HP much like the indestructible plastic packaging surrounding many products at WalMart. Usually these computers come with bloatware trial versions of software from manufacturers such as Norton and McAfee. Fortunately, there is a lot of "free software" for Windows. Much of it is "cross-platform" and appears in the category software/cross-platform. Windows-only software appears here.