Service Pack 2

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill Hintz
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Bill Hintz

When I install service pack 2 Should I leave my current firewall and
virus checker intact or remove them?
 
Disable them. It should not be necessary to remove them unless you get a
message stating that your virus program is incompatible with SP2.
 
Leave then, if they work properly. SP2 does not have
anti-virus. The firewall will be turned ON automatically
unless you have a recent version of a firewall, such as Zone
Alarm, then it will be detected and you will be able to
choose which firewall to run.

If your firewall is not detected, you can manually choose to
use it.


| When I install service pack 2 Should I leave my current
firewall and
| virus checker intact or remove them?
|
 
In
Bill Hintz said:
When I install service pack 2 Should I leave my current
firewall and
virus checker intact or remove them?
Click to expand...


First of all, leave the virus checker alone. There is no virus
checker in SP2 and you still need the existing one.

The firewall is slightly more complicated. First of all, note
that the presence of a firewall is not new to SP2; Windows XP has
always had one. What's new in SP2 is that the firewall has
improved configurability and it's turned on by default. So you
could have asked the same question about whether to use your
third-party firewall or the Windows one even before SP2.

The Windows firewall (both original and SP2) monitors incoming
traffic only, and does nothing about rogue programs trying to
call home. Almost all third-party firewalls monitor traffic in
both directions, and are therefore better than the Windows one.
Since running both wastes system resources, adds no extra
protection, and creates a risk of conflicts between the two, I
would use just the third-party firewall, and not the Windows one.

You may find that the Windows firewall isn't turned on, since you
have a third-party one, but if not, I would turn it off myself.
 
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