WinPatrol Help: ActiveX

WinPatrol: ActiveX

An overwhelming majority of all browser plug-in vulnerabilities are due to problems discovered in ActiveX controls. It seems like every week more problems are reported in Quicktime, RealPlayer, Adobe Flash, Sun’s Java or other 3rd party controls. Once the vulnerability is known the risk increases exponentially until a patch is available.

WinPatrol takes the worry out of waiting for a patch to become available. When a vulnerability is found Scotty will let you disable or set the “kill-bit” on the appropriate control until a new one is made available.

Managing ActiveX

WinPatrol lists the existing ActiveX controls used by Internet Explorer. Using WinPatrol you can learn more about what controls are installed and why.

This feature is only available if you've upgraded to WinPatrol PLUS.

Monitor

This button allows you to configure how frequently Scotty checks for new ActiveX control. You can set this frequency in minutes, and even set it to 0 minutes to disable monitor. Upgrading to WinPatrol PLUS ignores monitoring at certain times and instead uses real-time monitoring based on internal triggers. This provides better performance.

Filtering ActiveX

Many if not most of the ActiveX controls will be Microsoft operating system controls. You can just list;non-Microsoft controls. To filter out normal Microsoft control from the list, check
[ ] List non-Microsoft Services only

By default only those controls used by Internet Explorer are displayed. To view all controls installed on your system check the box
[ ] List all ActiveX controls including those not used by Internet Explorer.

Info...

WinPatrol provides additional information on Programs, including the company that created the program file as well as the program version. Most legitimate files will usually include copyright and company information that can be displayed by WinPatrol, when available. When it does exist, this information will help you decide if the program is a valid program or not and whether you want to Remove, Disable or keep it.
Some Info screens have additional functionality depending on the type.

As it is often difficult to tell just from a file name or company name whether a program is legitimate, you can click the PLUS Info... button to learn more about a program. Access will connect you to the online WinPatrol database for more information including information collected by the decisions of other WinPatrol fans. WinPatrol PLUS upgrade is required to access the PLUS Info... button.
Click Here for more Info Help

Disable

WinPatrol allows you to disable ActiveX controls by setting the "Kill-bit" found in the Windows registry. Disabling a control will not delete any files from your system. Instead it will just prevent that version of the ActiveX fontrol from being used and can protect you from the vulnerability. You can Enable a killed control at any time in the future.

To close or Exit the WinPatrol tab interface click the X in the upper right hand corner or the Close button. WinPatrol will continue monitor changes but the main interface will be removed from memory.