On 10/7/2002 at 9:46 AM De Velopment wrote:
> So, my question to this list: Exactly what should I tell my friend?
>How dangerous it it to have an unpatched Windows XP Home system on
>the Internet? How many steps does it take to secure it? And, does
>anybody have an estimate on how long it takes with Dialup? Can this
>upgrade be done at night while she is sleeping? (Or does it take
>several reboots and answers to questions (i.e. EULA) along the way?)

Turn on ICF and start downloading.

If you can wait a while (ICF will protect you from most if not all the network based stuff) and stay on mainstream web sites to avoid IE based problems and practice some safe computing, you can just order the SP1 CD and avoid most of the the downloading. If you want to go with downloading, turn on ICF, go with the fixes that affect user apps like IE as the first priority and get the others later.

I believe the auto update feature can do the downloading in the background and pickup the download at the point it left off during the last disconnect.

> Finally, has Microsoft been approached with the idea of releasing
>a bug-fix version of Windows XP that has the patches pre-applied,
>at least for the OEM distributers?

The OEMs have access to the SPs. Still have time to market issues. Some of the systems in the stores today where shipped prior to SP1 being released. I'd think the made to order folks like Dell could ship with all patches up to shipping date but the stuff in the stores are going to be behind unless the retailers start installing things.

Mike Lyman
CISSP
mlymanwest-point.org
pgp keyid 0xD7BBADAD

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]