Re: should i install windows xp service pack 2

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

Today Kerry Brown commented courteously on the subject at
hand

[snip my own comments]

I know my pc well enough to know exactly what's happening,
what's running, and what is connected to where. If I
suspect something is wrong there are built in tools to find
most of the needed info to figure out what is happening.
www.sysinternals.com has some other good ones.

Never heard of this, what is it?

BTW, Kerry, your being an MVP may have something to do with
your knowing more about your PCs goings on their the average
bear, do ya think? Yeah, and your M$ inside knowledge may
help, but probably not much. But, at the risk of blowing our
rather fragile friendship, you just gave me another data point
for my anti-MVP campaign by saying that Windoze has all the
tools you need. Wonder what all those people selling utilities
do to sleep at night, since they're screwing the paying public
for no good reason?

(I really do wish Bill the best of success, as I have a bunch
of his crap stock that I bought before he screwed up his own
company, so I actually have a vested interest in seeing my
stock recover from its current half value)

ZA and other
similar programs are really only useful if you know what to
answer when a warning pops up.

Even though I don't have ZA I still have to say "well, duh!".

No kidding, you really have to not only know what ZA is saying
but what to answer? Better to let Bill the Gates muddle on
with SP1's non-firewall? Until yesterday, I didn't even know
SP1 had a firewall!

Most people who know what to
answer don't need the warning in the first place. I can't
tell you how many computers I've worked on that were
riddled with malware and all the malware was allowed in ZA.
The vast majority of people just pick allow so things keep
working and they can surf. For most people the Windows
firewall works because once it's set up there is nothing to
fiddle with. Add an ant-virus and an anti-spyware resident
scanner, logon as a limited user, and most people are as
safe as they'll get.


--
ATM, aka Jerry

"Whether You Think You CAN Or CAN'T, You're Right." ? Henry
Ford
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Win Firewall off briefly
    ... Sorry to be so wordy, but this may be the last I can try to assist you becuase from what I've read in your post, you are dismally protected from malware due to the way you use the computer and a lack of facilities to keep Security levels in place. ... I can even see the possibility now that the off/on of the firewall could be a game controlling the firewall and exposing one or several or all ports to the public. ... And since it's a media center machine, only recover it using the mfr's instructions or you could lose the media center features. ... Go to the MS support web stie and get the instructions and preps and requirements for installing SP3. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Internet Security Problems - I dont know how to fix
    ... It's possible you have malware. ... it might have affected your firewall settings. ... Looking at the General tab, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: Recurrent question
    ... >> PFW, anti-virus, spam filter. ... Some people have installed a PFW which has ... >If the malware is not written too dumb, ... how exactly a "Personal Firewall" looks ...
    (comp.security.firewalls)
  • Re: newsgroups
    ... see if disabling ZA *and then* enabling the Windows Firewall makes any diff. ... bill wrote: ... I have avg 7.5 I had 8.0 but removed it to many problems. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)
  • Re: newsgroups
    ... Turned off ZA and enabled windows firewall still ng. ... I use adware anti spyware, ... That definitely suggests a connection/network issue, Bill. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress)