Torrent Spy's Demise-Quick Resurrection

One of the most popular torrent search engines, TorrentSpy, has met it's end. Officially having closed on March 24, 2008. The pressure from privacy laws, constant threats of lawsuits and other various infringements on the law took their toll. Recently in February of 2007 TorrentSpy was sued by Motion Pictures of America for typical copyright infringement, only the latest of a long line of problems with various companies. TorrentSpy was an online search engine for P2P programs that use data on the torrents to locate files from other users to be downloaded. These types of programs are most commonly used for sharing pirated software, videos, operating systems, and much more.

Although only one pawn in a mass of other engines, TorrentSpy was a large leader in torrent sharing. The business of hosting these types of files constantly places pirating websites in the cross hairs. Even if they are not the specific target of a lawsuit other victims will commonly point the finger towards these services. The cycle will continue until stricter laws are put into place by the US and various other countries to control websites that promote pirating.


The cycle can be be seen by observing a former employee of TorrentSpy, Jason Hughes. Who did not hesitate in starting his own torrent website, movietorrents.info, shortly after the end of TorrentSpy. Apparently the revenue from this type of website is worth all of the hastle and large amounts of media attention for those out for money.

Deleting and Accessing Files in Safe Mode

One utility that all computer users have most likely seen or used in their lifetime on the Windows OS is Safe Mode. Safe Mode is Windows without the excessive components, just what is required to run Windows. The graphics are usually reverted back into a low class VGA, many start up items are excused, and many programs will be inoperable. Safe Mode is great for having no restrictions in making changes to your computer. You can delete, rename, move, and modify more files then on the normal windows operating system.

When you log into safe mode you can rest assured that viruses will be able to be deleted. Along with other malicious programs and remnants of unwanted files. The only obstacle will be locating where they are hiding at, in which you can just use a free program like Spybot or AVG.

All Windows Operating Systems
1. Reboot your computer
2. When it begins to start booting, tap f8 repeatedly until you get a screen similar to the one on the right.
3. Pick the appropriate Safe Mode option.

Safe Mode with Networking is safe mode with whatever your networked with (computers,servers,Internet, etc.) Basically all of the components you are connecting to with an Ethernet cable. (Possibly USB also)

Safe Mode with Command Prompt is self explanatory ;)

Boot Logging will create a boot log when you restart your computer in Safe Mode. The file will be saved in the directory your OS is installed in. The file will be named Ntbtlog.txt.

VGA Mode is when you load into Safe Mode with other graphics drivers. This is infrequently used because 99% of all graphics cards and chip sets will be VGA compatible.

Last Known Good Configuration may help you to revert back to a state before you installed drivers that you may not want. Unfortunately this is not very useful, because if you rebooted at least once successfully with bad drivers installed then the computer will have no memory of the good driver configuration. The system uses the previous start up settings and loads with them instead of the most recent changes before your last restart. Somewhat confusing, but bottom line this boot option probably won't help you solve anything other then driver installation problems.
NOTE: You will boot into normal Windows with this configuration, NOT Safe Mode.

The last two 99% of my readers will not use. Those that will probably know enough not to read about it. The first deals with maintenance towards Domain controllers, and Debugging is analyzing your computer with a secondary computer. Safe Mode is easy to use and can be very helpful in situations with your operating system. You will probably find yourself being directed towards safe mode for troubleshooting at once in your computing career.