Unfortunately, Mr or Mrs Jones appears to have misunderstood the request and
reply as Daryl does appear to have security in place, although a firewall is
a good idea for future protection (if he hasn't already got it) - my concern
as is the authors, is to get rid of the spyware/malware as per my comment
"this may help in the short term".
Messenger service is part of the general and overall problem that Microsoft
has in regard to security issues. This is written about more times than I
care to remember in the good press, unfortunately not often on a Microsoft
owned website. This is not abusing Microsoft, merely pointing out well
documented fact. I install MS OS/Office software on many, many computers,
and I only intended to point out what is regarded as a flaw in the system
because it opens the proverbial back door. I would agree that the flaw may
be because the system has Messenger enabled as default and should be disabled
by default - this would solve many problems.
Microsoft's firewall with SP2 is very thin at best and we never recommend
those in business use it because it is not very powerful I would recommend to
domestic users who use the web a lot that they consider using a dedicated
software application such as NOD32, Symantec, Panda, CA, Bit Defender etc.
SP2 Firewall is a lot better than having no protection but lets not get all
warm and fuzzy thinking it offers flawless security particularly when other
software can turn off aspects of it when you install them, sometimes without
you knowing!
Country Boy