seaport.exe

The SeaPort.exe file is signed by Microsoft and looks legitimate to me. Is there some malware/trojan/spyware out there that use the SeaPort.exe name, or is there any other reason for removing this file? More than 75% of the visitors FreeFixer file library visitors say they remove this file:

Does Windows Firewall block outgoing connections on Windows XP?

No, according to Wikipedia:

XP's Windows Firewall cannot block outbound connections; it is only capable of blocking inbound ones.

Nathan "Flutebox" Lee and Beardyman @ Google, London

prnet.tmp

About two week ago a FreeFixer user added prnet.tmp to the online file database. I've not had the chance to analyze this file myself, but from the large number the searches it must be a major problem right now.

This file is dropped in C:\WINDOWS\system32\ and adds itself to the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, prnet, which starts the prnet.tmp process every time a user logs on to the machine. Those infected by this malware reports a large numbe of unwanted pop-up windows.

If you need assistance to remove prnet.tmp, please post a FreeFixer log at the FreeFixer User Group.

View the raw HTTP request body in PHP

I'm currently working on a bug where some Japanese characters are not appearing correctly on the FreeFixer web site. In the process of tracking down the problem I needed to view the raw HTTP request body that FreeFixer sends when posting information about a file or some registry data. In PHP, this can be done by calling the http_get_request_body() function. Unfortunately, this function requires a PECL extension which was unavailable in my current setup. However, this solved the problem:

$request_body = @file_get_contents('php://input');

WordPress' .htaccess file explained

If you have configured your WordPress system to use pretty permalinks the following will be added to the .htaccess file:

# BEGIN WordPress

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Explaining the .htaccess, row by row

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
This line checks if the mod_rewrite module is available on the server. If not, none of the enclosed Rewrite commands will be processed.

RewriteEngine On
This directive enables the runtime rewriting engine.

RewriteBase /
Let's the server know that the .htaccess was reached via / and not through any other path prefix.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
This condition is true if the the path REQUEST_FILENAME not refers to an existing file.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
This condition is true if the the path REQUEST_FILENAME not refers to an existing directory

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
If the two RewriteCond's listed above evaluated to true the server will load index.php. [L] indicates that no further rewrite rules should be processed.
If any of the RewriteCond's evaluated to false, the server will load the actual file or directory instead of index.php.

How to start a command prompt in administrator mode on Windows 7

Some days ago, while playing around with Windows 7, I needed to run a couple of command line programs with administrator privileges. To start a command prompt in elevated mode, type cmd.exe in the run box and instead of pressing enter, press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER. This key combination works on Windows Vista too.