Friday, July 07, 2006

Software Validation - Microsoft Windows

It would be nice if Microsoft would create a tool that runs through your operating system and verifies that all the components are valid.

For instance recently a server was hosed and they ultimately had to replace the TCP/IP software. Was it hacked? Corrupted? Registry problem?

They could turn on the server but could not connect to the firewall. In this case it would be neat to have a nifty tool to run over the machine to verify all the networking components. It should list everything that is not "standard" Microsoft and mention that if you did not change this on purpose - it's probably a hack.

It would also be nice to have a record of which programs, when installed, have altered Microsoft base components to help track down problems.