XP SP-2

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rick & Darlene
  • Start date Start date
Yes.

Barry Watzman said:
If it screwed up one of your machines and not another one, has it
occured to you that the problem might be in the machine that got screwed up?
Click to expand...
 
Re: "The version that will be on the XP update site will not be as large"

That's not exactly right.

The windows update version will download a 1.6 MB program that will
examine your system and then further download only and exactly what your
system needs.

The 270 MB version has everything in it that ANY system might need. All
files that the 1.6 MB program might possibly download and install.

BUT, what actually ends up getting installed on any given system under
these two installation schemes is EXACTLY the same, in the end. There
is no difference.
 
As I understood the size thing ...if you are up to date on your updates it will
not be as large an update as the 270mb that you download
which has all the updates in it since SP1
?????
peter
 
Depending on where you were up to: no SP, SP1, RC1, or RC2, the further back
in time, the more will be downloaded. For my system it was about 35MB, for a
normal up to date SP1 I believe it is 60 - 80 MB so is achievable via dial
up as the downloader will resume interupted downloads from the point where
it last stopped & use spare bandwidth.

- Tim
 
Well, since we all need or will contemplate getting it, it has everything to
do with this group! If you are running XP....nuff said!!! (However, I did
not think it would generate this much interest!)

Rick
 
ALL need it?
that remains to be seen.
I heard that when SP1 came out...........
I never bothered with it and I never had any problems
 
Face it Tim, if those ****wits at MS had of coded a proper OS at the
start, the Internet wouldn't be bogged down with all these viruses and spam.
Click to expand...

You are right, it'd be bogged down with copletely different viruses
and spam.
 
Anyone get the SP-2 update for XP? "Is it safe yet"?

Rick
Click to expand...

I have the administrative (full 250Mb) version, and have applied it to
four machines (two PIIIs, an AMD XP 1900+ and an AMD 64 3400+) without
noteable incident.

It will complain if you don't have XP Firewalling turned on, or if it
can't detect your Antivirus Software's active status. I have an IPCop
firewall that covers my LAN, and I always disable autoprotect before
applying things like this service pack, so I told it as much and it
became happy.

It closes a load of ports that should have been closed by default
before, so many things that relied on open ports will complain. It
will also reset some security related settings to a more secure
default, which may change the behaviour of some apps. All of these
things are configurable however - this won't surprise you if you have
Read TF Manual, but has caused a number of the Microphobes to froth a
little.

In conclusion I would say that it makes the OS safer, and is a sound
update. Of course, any tool is potentially limited by whoever wields
it :)

Cheers
 
Charlie said:
You are right, it'd be bogged down with copletely different viruses
and spam.
Click to expand...

There have been less than 20 *nix viruses, and Windows/DOS account for
more than 60,000

Care to rephrase your statement?

Even if Unix/Linux was deployed in place of Windows, it /does not/ allow
for a whole host of viruses that Windows does, the fact that attachments
are /EXECUTABLE/ is a Microsoft brainfart, the fact that the 'default'
install of anything other than XP-SP2 by default leaves /many/ services
and holes open that have /no/ use to a private individual not on a
domain etc....


The SPAM, I could understand, but without zombie boxes to SPEW all that
spam, it still wouldn't be as much.
 
There have been less than 20 *nix viruses, and Windows/DOS account for
more than 60,000
Click to expand...

But there are new holes found in applications that run on Nix boxes
every month, many of which give the attacker root access - just look at
all the postings from HP about HPUX and the apps that run on it.

There is no such thing as a secure platform.
 
Leythos said:
But there are new holes found in applications that run on Nix boxes
every month, many of which give the attacker root access - just look at
all the postings from HP about HPUX and the apps that run on it.
Click to expand...

Yes, but unlike in Windows, its not a security advisory for a whole
FAMILY of products, like 9x/ME or 2K/XP kernel, then an exploit hits 95,
98, 98se, me etc, where in *nix a virus is too dependant on require very
specific versions of programs to exploit.

/Most/ of the security advisories for *nix machines that are local root
exploits, assume that a person has an account already, and is within
your firewall, /AND/ runs that precise version of a service.

So a vulnerability in sendmail version 1.5.1 cannot be hit on 1.5.0 or
1.5.2 normally, it is this diversity and not a monoculture that has
stopped *nix viruses from becoming larger than they are, there is not as
many vulnerable machines to exploit, and even if you hit every box
running said version of a service, it's still a dead end, as you have no
more to infect, the rest aren't able to be infected.

If you can't trust people on the internal net, no OS will save you.

Infecting *nix from the outside is a lot harder than Windows where
everything is executable.
There is no such thing as a secure platform.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but *nix and its model is inherently a better security model for
a NETWORKED os, which is pretty much a requirement for most devices
nowadays.
 
There have been less than 20 *nix viruses, and Windows/DOS account for
more than 60,000

Care to rephrase your statement?
Click to expand...

I'd be delighted to:

If the most popular OS out there were something other than Windows,
then that OS would be the ones that the virus writers would target.
 
Roger Hamlett said:
Yes, but they would not find things so easy...
XP, is improving, but is still 'burdened', by the problem of history.
Windows, originally had no security at all. Unfortunately, many of the
programs in popular use, started out in this enviroment, and are written
in a manner to take advantage of this. This results in MS, even when they
have reasonable security, 'turning it down', to allow packages to run. The
sheer number of core entry points to the OS, also increases the
probability of problems. The problems with SP2, illustrate this exactly,
with MS, making some default 'secure' decisions, which then result in
problems. It is possible to build a pretty secure Windows system, but it
is then common to find that a lot of applications won't run. MS, are led
by the 'marketting men' in this, and downgrade the default security to try
to get most applications to work. The same marketting men, encourage new
'features', which then add their own loopholes (various forms of
automation in particular). SP2, may actually reflect MS realising that the
problem is sufficiently important, that some functionality may have to be
sacrificed for security...

Best Wishes
Click to expand...

I do think they could have implemented it much better with a wizard or the
like to walk non tech savvy people through some items like Firewall
implementation. Even with the XP firewall switched off some many things will
be affected.
 
Charlie said:
I'd be delighted to:

If the most popular OS out there were something other than Windows,
then that OS would be the ones that the virus writers would target.
Click to expand...

Agreed, virus writers will always target the OS with the most market
share. However, it would not be as easy as it is with Windows currently,
where many 'point and click' virus creation kits exist, and numerous
flaws that people have left open, from not excercising diligence about
patches.

There are flaws on *nix systems as well, but not many of them have the
equivelant access that windows grants them, and are unable to spawn,
this doesn't prevent machine A from infecting B, but it does mean all
the infecting has to be done by A, as B wont 'hand it off' so to speak.

Patching on a regular basis is a good practice regardless of platform,
I'm just lucky enough to not need to continually update virus
definitions as well ;)
 
Charlie King said:
and spam.



I'd be delighted to:

If the most popular OS out there were something other than Windows,
then that OS would be the ones that the virus writers would target.
Click to expand...
Yes, but they would not find things so easy...
XP, is improving, but is still 'burdened', by the problem of history.
Windows, originally had no security at all. Unfortunately, many of the
programs in popular use, started out in this enviroment, and are written
in a manner to take advantage of this. This results in MS, even when they
have reasonable security, 'turning it down', to allow packages to run. The
sheer number of core entry points to the OS, also increases the
probability of problems. The problems with SP2, illustrate this exactly,
with MS, making some default 'secure' decisions, which then result in
problems. It is possible to build a pretty secure Windows system, but it
is then common to find that a lot of applications won't run. MS, are led
by the 'marketting men' in this, and downgrade the default security to try
to get most applications to work. The same marketting men, encourage new
'features', which then add their own loopholes (various forms of
automation in particular). SP2, may actually reflect MS realising that the
problem is sufficiently important, that some functionality may have to be
sacrificed for security...

Best Wishes
 
If you can't trust people on the internal net, no OS will save you.

Infecting *nix from the outside is a lot harder than Windows where
everything is executable.


Agreed, but *nix and its model is inherently a better security model for
a NETWORKED os, which is pretty much a requirement for most devices
nowadays.
Click to expand...

The point to all of this is that a single system, on any OS, is
susceptible to being compromised before you patch and secure it. Most
default installs by non-IT types have way more than needed - most Nix
distro's provide MANY things that are not the OS code, as does Windows.
If you start from a somewhat protected environment you can save a lot of
pain.

SP2, while fixing a lot of things, is only a placebo. The people that
install it are the ones that are already doing their updates. It's the
people that don't have a clue, don't do updates, and can't even
understand the difference between the Internet and the web (or email),
that we need to get help for.

If ISP's where to implement NAT on their devices as the default install,
and most can easily do it, it would save a lot of people from a lot of
problems, and it would not cost the ISP anything.
 
That's true, because you will already have much of the upgrade.

But my view of things is that I WANT the whole 270 meg file, for burning
to a CD where I can then use it on other systems of unknown windows XP
version (home, Pro, media Center, tablet PC) and "windows update" status.

So say the windows update version only ends up downloading 90MB of the
total 270 MB. I don't want to have to do that ???? times. Give the the
CD, once, and I'm set.

Also, with the full 270 MB version, you can make a "slipstream" Windows
XP install CD that has SP2 integrated. You cant do that via windows update.
 
Exactly. Most of the XP code was written in 1997 to 2000. It's very
hard, anywhere in that timeframe, to write code that will be impervious
to every possible threat that will occur in 2003 when systems are
running versions of Windows Media Player, IE and Direct X that won't
even exist for 2-5 years into the future.

Some people are very short-sighted and narrow-minded.
 
Well, phil, if you were writing a virus, would you go after an OS used
on 2% of all PCs, or one used on 98% of them?

The statistics that you sight may be absolutely true and correct, but
they don't imply that Unix systems are any more secure or impervious to
attack. In fact, I've seen some very sound analysis that the system
have even more holes than Windows, but that this fact is counterbalanced
by the fact that, so far, not many people have tried to exploit them.
 
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