InfinityLimited » windows

Mysterious hidden proxy settings

Jake — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:41:42 +0000

Well OK, not mysterious, and not really hidden. And I did cause it, but since I had forgotten what I did, I had a hard time finding it.

Normally, to configure a proxy, you go into Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN settings. At least that’s how you do it on XP; Windows 7 is different.

These settings are stored in the registry thus:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
"MigrateProxy"=dword:00000001
"ProxyEnable"=dword:00000001
"ProxyHttp1.1"=dword:00000000
"ProxyServer"="http://ProxyServername:80"
"ProxyOverride"=""

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/819961

I was trying to find a way to modify these settings from the command line, and include it as part of my “fix_routing” script (which needs a write-up). So I tried some stuff, and it didn’t work, and I gave up and moved on.

This weekend, we set up a SlingBox at a friend’s place, and I found that I couldn’t connect to it. TCPVIEW showed the program trying to connect to a bogus proxy, and I couldn’t find this anywhere in the configuration file. Then I remembered my previous attempts, and had to search around for that information again. Luckily, I found it.

There is another set of settings, stored in the WinHttpSettings key. These settings do not show up anywhere. If TCPVIEW is showing that an application is trying to connect to a proxy, and you can’t find where that is configured, try here.

Note: It appears that the REGEDIT search tool will not search inside a REG_BINARY key, which I suppose makes sense. This was why a search of the registry for the proxy address resulted in no matches.

The only way to modify these settings, is via the PROXYCFG tool in the system32 directory.

C:\Documents and Settings\aujaha>proxycfg
Microsoft (R) WinHTTP Default Proxy Configuration Tool
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Current WinHTTP proxy settings under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections\
WinHttpSettings :

Proxy Server(s) :  10.10.0.229:8080
Bypass List     :  *.local;*.big.corp;10.10.*;

I zeroed out this key, and things seem to be working again.

Old dog, new tricks: Windows XP task bar

Jake — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:52:48 +0000

Did you know you can have a two row task bar in XP? Yeah, so did I. But did you know that you can arrange the icons like this?

My XP taskbar

And iTunes supplies a pretty nifty little toolbar app too. Pity it doesn’t do mouse-over track info though….

Must be time to clean out the registry….

Jake — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:33:00 +0000

The LinuxHater has very good points, a lot of the the time, and about a lot of things. I was actually starting to get used to the idea of not running a Linux desktop.
After the big computer rebuild, the machine was running better, but still had some slow areas.
I realised it had accumulated a lot of cruft! Lots of badly un-installed software that you thought you had uninstalled, there were a tonne of services starting up that just no longer required at all!
Well, that’s no real difference to something LinuxHater accused Linux of having to do: namely, get stuck in and maintain your distribution.

I actuality, I wonder if the LinuxHater really runs windows at all, something I’ve always assumed, and I bet I wasn’t alone in doing so.

Update: Turns out he does, a Ubuntu desktop

Because honestly, sometime I really hate computers. You know? Why can't they Just Work. This is usually when people tell me to try a Mac. I've thought about it so much, but I never quite get to the point of actually doing anything about it.