Do you have SP2 Installed?
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I have SP2 installed but have the firewall and virus check turned off. I have another anti-virus solution. The one annoying thing is every time I get a Windows update they turn on the firewall, why do they have to mess with the settings! :mad: I have recently had to re-install windows xp on a few of my family/friends computers and I always make sure to turn all that stuff on. They don’t realize what they are doing and mess stuff up with in weeks of a fresh install. I would always advise to have everything turned on for someone who is not technical or know what they are doing, otherwise you can just stay out of trouble and not need it all.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
I make sure I install virus checkers and firewalls on family and friends pcs, set them up correctly so they are always up to date with all the latest definitions, but in the end it makes no difference. As with most things, virus checkers and firewalls are only as good as the person using them, if they open up that dodgy email out of curiosity or just always click yes when the firewall prompts them then it's pointless having them. To back this up I was taking a look at a friends machine last night and thought I better run the virus checker just in case and it turned up 20 viruses!! I then run Ad-Aware and it came up with 100s of reg keys, files, cookies etc. I only built the machine fresh for him a month or so ago :omg:
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Not long after it was released, I tried it on my laptop, and it completely screwed my wireless. Not sure if that's SP2's problem or an incompatibility with the particular wireless client I have... but regardless, I'm back to SP1. I haven't installed it on my desktop for fear something might screw up.... that and the fact that the sysadmin here is not a fan of SP2 and frowns upon those who install it. The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
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I make sure I install virus checkers and firewalls on family and friends pcs, set them up correctly so they are always up to date with all the latest definitions, but in the end it makes no difference. As with most things, virus checkers and firewalls are only as good as the person using them, if they open up that dodgy email out of curiosity or just always click yes when the firewall prompts them then it's pointless having them. To back this up I was taking a look at a friends machine last night and thought I better run the virus checker just in case and it turned up 20 viruses!! I then run Ad-Aware and it came up with 100s of reg keys, files, cookies etc. I only built the machine fresh for him a month or so ago :omg:
Paul Cole wrote: To back this up I was taking a look at a friends machine last night and thought I better run the virus checker just in case and it turned up 20 viruses!! I then run Ad-Aware and it came up with 100s of reg keys, files, cookies etc. I only built the machine fresh for him a month or so ago I did the same thing over the weekend. I was checking out two pc's, one had 30 viruses and about 20 reg keys, files, cookies and the other had about 5 viruses and 10 reg keys, files and cookies. Some things we just can't prevent!
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
My first thought when I saw this thread: What the heck did you write to cause such a low vote? :-O
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Marc Clifton wrote: So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? I have SP2 installed on my XP Home Edition. It prevented me from upgrading to XP Professional, the setup program says my operating system is newer and refused to run the upgrade (wasting my $199). There are complicated ways to get around this, none of them worked for me.[
My articles and software tools
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I have it loaded on my laptop, but not on my desktop, since I just reloaded that machine. I've had no issues on the laptop since loading it. I have run from time to time run with no firewall or virus checker for weeks, and luckily never got any viruses. It felt crazy doing it, like streaking down Main St., but those thrill-seeking days are over.:sigh: BW
I want pancakes! God, do you people understand every language except English?
Yo quiero pancakes. Donnez moi pancakes. Click click, bloody click pancakes!
-- Stewie Griffinbrianwelsch wrote: It felt crazy doing it, like streaking down Main St. A symptom of virus infection? :laugh:[
My articles and software tools
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Marc Clifton wrote: So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? I have SP2 installed on my XP Home Edition. It prevented me from upgrading to XP Professional, the setup program says my operating system is newer and refused to run the upgrade (wasting my $199). There are complicated ways to get around this, none of them worked for me.[
My articles and software tools
Have you tried formatting, and booting from the update CD? This might prompt you for the original CD then continue, like other software updates. Top 10 Geek Resulutions: 5. To decipher what that big room is, which has the blue ceiling and poor climate control.
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Hmmm. I'm going to buck the trend here. I've got two machines I'm responsible for, my development box and a build machine. Both are running XP Pro SP2, with the firewall enabled and Norton AV running. This is true even though these boxes are both inside the corporate firewall. Why you ask? Why, to protect myself from my coworkers! Even with virus filters at the server level on our e-mail system (Novell GroupWise X| ), we still have virii/worms/etc. running rampant inside the building. When we do an XP install, we leave the network cable disconnected until after we've got SP2 and the AV software installed and running. I've done installs before where the box was infected before the XP install was completed. The only part of the available security I have turned off is Norton's 'real time software protection', which is supposed to watch file activity in real time for virus-like behavior. Our problem with it is that it slows build times by a factor of 5 or more. It's been replaced by nightly full scans.
Software Zen:
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
I've not had a bad experience with SP2 at all. However I've turned off the firewall and virus checking stuff too. It's installed on two machines on my home network and so far my router's firewall has been up to the task of preventing anything from entering or leaving. :) My oldest daughter though has been away at university and will be returning home in another week or so. I suspect I will have to quarantine her PC for awhile and install numerous updates and patches before I let it loose on the home network. :) Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Gently arching his fishing rod back he moves the tip forward in a gentle arch releasing the line.... kersplunk [Doug Goulden] Nice sig! [Tim Deveaux on Matt Newman's sig with a quote from me]
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I tried it on my laptop a couple of months after it was first released. I was initially scared off because it messed up a friends machine I took on to install for them (they don't have broadband so it would have taken ages to download). It took me a couple of hours to get their PC running again, but on my laptop it worked very well with zero hicups. I installed it on my other XP PCs about a month after that because at the time not a lot of updates were coming through on Windows Update and I was concerned it was holding some back because I hadn't upgraded to SP2. I had a couple of configuration problems, but once I had the policy stuff set up correctly to disable the firewall and its ilk (especially that fucking information bar that blocks local XML files in IE from loading stylesheets) I haven't even noticed it is installed. I also don't use AV or software firewall solutions, and when I've been forced to do so for jobs or whatever I always find them annoying and ultimately not worth the effort. I have a hardware firewall between my network and the Internet, and common sense to protect me from getting viruses through user-action. It's worked so far, even running stuff like Ad-Aware every month or so it only picks up some harmless cookies. If you don't trust other users to be secure, don't let them use a computer. Easy. :)
Ðavid Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Audioscrobbler :: flikrDie Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen
I can understand not using antivirus stuff; I've never run one at home and have never gotten one. But not using a firewall makes me scratch my head. Even the old XP firewall, which was all or nothing, would have prevented almost all of the most nasty virii that became widespread. Of course, MS used to have it OFF by default, which was stupid. The new firewall is better, and makes it easy to customize. I like it more than ZoneAlarm, which was just a nuisance. Still, a rant if I may: just this morning I got the "updates are available" notification on both my home PC's (both of which are behind the same router/firewall running XP Home). I don't have it automatically download anything, but I like knowing about updates. Anyway, I tell it to go ahead and download. On each PC, the icon sat there for a second, then disappeared without downloading anything, let alone updating anything. WTF? No error message, nothing. A regular user probably would have thought it worked. It also no longer told me I needed an update. So I manually do the update via Internet Explorer and it works ok. But this is the kind of crap that gives computers (and Microsoft) a bad name. Why no error? Why did it fail? This actually happened on my laptop before, but never my desktop. It's the worst kind of failure: it LOOKS like it may have worked, but it didn't actually do anything. As a programmer, I get pissed off at MS for this sort of thing. Sigh. I was going to post a more forceful rant in the Soapbox, questioning Microsoft's parentage, but this thread seemed more appropriate. :)
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Hmmm... I refuse to install XP until I can't reinstall Win2K anymore. There's nothing of value offered by the "upgrade" and it's known to interfere with my wireless hardware. At work, however, all of the machines shipped with XP installed, and I have all of them on SP2. The installation seems to work best on new machines with little software installed. Adding SP2 to an older machine with many apps installed appears to break the PC more often than not. "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
On my non-development machine, I installed it shortly after it became available. I've had no troubles with it.
"Opinions are neither right nor wrong. I cannot change your opinion. I can, however, change what influences your opinion." - David Crow
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I can understand not using antivirus stuff; I've never run one at home and have never gotten one. But not using a firewall makes me scratch my head. Even the old XP firewall, which was all or nothing, would have prevented almost all of the most nasty virii that became widespread. Of course, MS used to have it OFF by default, which was stupid. The new firewall is better, and makes it easy to customize. I like it more than ZoneAlarm, which was just a nuisance. Still, a rant if I may: just this morning I got the "updates are available" notification on both my home PC's (both of which are behind the same router/firewall running XP Home). I don't have it automatically download anything, but I like knowing about updates. Anyway, I tell it to go ahead and download. On each PC, the icon sat there for a second, then disappeared without downloading anything, let alone updating anything. WTF? No error message, nothing. A regular user probably would have thought it worked. It also no longer told me I needed an update. So I manually do the update via Internet Explorer and it works ok. But this is the kind of crap that gives computers (and Microsoft) a bad name. Why no error? Why did it fail? This actually happened on my laptop before, but never my desktop. It's the worst kind of failure: it LOOKS like it may have worked, but it didn't actually do anything. As a programmer, I get pissed off at MS for this sort of thing. Sigh. I was going to post a more forceful rant in the Soapbox, questioning Microsoft's parentage, but this thread seemed more appropriate. :)
David Kentley wrote: But not using a firewall makes me scratch my head. I use a hardware firewall, a device (I think it runs some flavour of Linux) that sits between the network and the Internet and prevents anything I don't want getting in from getting in. It is pointless to have additional firewalls behind that because they were only blocking network services. It was getting to be a pain to have to reconfigure it all the time so I disabled it across all machines in the domain. I've never seen your Windows Update problem, but then all my machines are set to download automatically and only notify me to actually install them (it saves time, I like being able to log onto each machine in the morning and instantly install any needed updates in one go).
Ðavid Wulff The Royal Woofle Museum
Audioscrobbler :: flikrDie Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen
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Hmmm. I'm going to buck the trend here. I've got two machines I'm responsible for, my development box and a build machine. Both are running XP Pro SP2, with the firewall enabled and Norton AV running. This is true even though these boxes are both inside the corporate firewall. Why you ask? Why, to protect myself from my coworkers! Even with virus filters at the server level on our e-mail system (Novell GroupWise X| ), we still have virii/worms/etc. running rampant inside the building. When we do an XP install, we leave the network cable disconnected until after we've got SP2 and the AV software installed and running. I've done installs before where the box was infected before the XP install was completed. The only part of the available security I have turned off is Norton's 'real time software protection', which is supposed to watch file activity in real time for virus-like behavior. Our problem with it is that it slows build times by a factor of 5 or more. It's been replaced by nightly full scans.
Software Zen:
delete this;100% of our workstation machines are now running XP SP2, all are configured for Automatic Updates with automatic download and application of updates, and all should be configured with Windows Firewall enabled (this is hard to enforce as a lot of the users need to be able to be administrators - while I use a low-privileged account I can't enforce this). We have AVG 7.0 Network Edition anti-virus; we've found that its on-demand scanning is very low impact. One machine is currently not installing updates properly. It downloads them successfully but cannot install them. I'm not sure why. This computer is the only one to be upgraded from Windows 2000; all our other systems were either clean-installed or came with XP preinstalled. Of our two servers one is running Windows 2000 SP4 and the domain controller is running Windows Server 2003. This will get upgraded in due course but not in the middle of a large project, and not without testing on a spare box. Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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My first thought when I saw this thread: What the heck did you write to cause such a low vote? :-O
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
Same :-O:-O Joel Holdsworth Wanna give me a job this summer? Check out my online CV and project history[^]
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
The best thing about XP SP2 is the uninstall... The tigress is here :-D
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
I have SP2 installed on my desktop and laptop. No real problems once I turned off some of the nag messages. I run Norton AV and ZoneAlarm firewall. I am tempted to ditch Norton AV. I have had it for about 6 years and it has never detected a virus. This is mainly because I don't get viruses (I think I have only had one virus in all that time and I quickly killed it by manual means once ZoneAlarm told me it was trying to connect to the Internet). I think Norton AV slows things down noticeably (especially on machines without a lot of memory). John Carson Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to replace a light bulb? A: None. As the President and Secretary Rumsfeld have made clear, the light bulb is doing a great job and we and our coalition allies are encouraged by the progress it is making. Mike Carlton
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V. wrote: had to manually delete entries in the registry Which is ironic, because these detectors are supposed to do that automatically. :~ Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Marc Clifton wrote: Which is ironic, because these detectors are supposed to do that automatically. Some spyware/viruses target detectors. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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So, today is the day the SP2 is jammed down your throat, or shoved up your... ah, yeah, anyways. So, if you're running XP, do you have SP2 already installed? 1 - yes 5 - no I've got it installed on one machine but not on the other. In fact, automatic updates is turned off on both (I do this as a general practice). I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? :rolleyes: Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Marc Clifton wrote: I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? You're not just flirting... you've kicked disaster in the shins and insulted its mother. Honeypot Test[^] Running XP RTM or XP SP1 and connecting to the internet w/o a firewall or AV software is a fools errand. Good Luck. :~ "Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it." Philip K. Dick
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Marc Clifton wrote: I also disable the firewall stuff and virus checkers. Can't stand the things. Maybe I'm flirting with disaster? You're not just flirting... you've kicked disaster in the shins and insulted its mother. Honeypot Test[^] Running XP RTM or XP SP1 and connecting to the internet w/o a firewall or AV software is a fools errand. Good Luck. :~ "Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it." Philip K. Dick
Mike Mullikin wrote: you've kicked disaster in the shins and insulted its mother. I guess disaster must be very, very angry then. :-D Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO