Saturday, March 14, 2020

Disable Windows 10 Netbios and SMB

On Microsoft Windows 10, SMB 1 should already be disabled. To enhance security, you may want to also disable SMB 1 and 2 and NetBIOS.

Open PowerShell as Administrator by pressing the Start button, typing powershell, and pressing Run As Administrator:






















Read the Microsoft post about how to disable SMB

In PowerShell, get the setting and disable it with:
Get-SmbServerConfiguration | Select EnableSMB2Protocol
Set-SmbServerConfiguration -EnableSMB2Protocol $false















Disable SMB v1 in PowerShell with:
Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName smb1protocol

If you see an error of "Access is denied", ensure you run PowerShell as Administrator.




To disable NetBIOS, in Control Panel go to Advanced TCP/IP Settings and press the radio button:



Saturday, February 22, 2020

Uninstall Windows 10 Apps

Microsoft is aggressively pushing some unwanted applications during Windows 10 upgrades. Some of the applications may be uninstalled in Windows Settings --> Apps & features. Many can not be removed or uninstalled there.

It is possible to use the command line to uninstall some of these unwanted applications.

Press the Start button and type: windows powershell
Click on "Run as Administrator" to open the Power Shell.




To uninstall "Your Phone", in Power Shell type: Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.YourPhone -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage




To remove xbox, type: get-appxpackage -allusers *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
Three more lines to remove xbox are: get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like “*xboxapp*”} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online
And: get-appxpackage -allusers *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
And: get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like “*xboxapp*”} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online 
To remove the Xbox Game Bar application, type: get-appxpackage -allusers *xbox* | Remove-AppxPackage

To remove 3D Builder type: Get-AppxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage 
Also remove the 3D Viewer: Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer | Remove-AppxPackage

To remove the Camera application type: Get-AppxPackage *windowscamera* | Remove-AppxPackage

To remove Maps type: Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage

To remove Microsoft's People app, type: Get-AppxPackage *people* | Remove-AppxPackage




If you want to re-install the applications, open the Windows Store from the Start menu and install the applications.

After the applications are removed, you may want to create a restore point. Press the Start button and type: restore point. Then Configure and Create a restore point.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Opt-Out Of Web Browser Data Collection

Update February 25 - Opt out of Full Story very invasive tracking. https://www.fullstory.com/optout



Ad Choices presents an ability to set web browser cookies which some advertisers use to indicate they will not collect data from your site visits.

To use the Ad Choices service of opting out of ad tracking, go to Ad Choices.
After the status check is complete, click CONTINUE.
Press the SELECT ALL text.


Press OPT OUT OF ALL.
You may have to press TRY AGAIN to get all of the settings saved correctly.


Go through this process for every device logon, and for every web browser for each user on the device.