Windows All XP users need to read this!

I don't know, when i first installed sp2 on my comp. I hated it, but my mom just got a new laptop for xmas w/ sp2, and i must admit it seems to be a great imporvement to sp1 especialy wireless and after disabling security center & stuff it is great.

 

never had a problem myself. The only thing i don't like is the security center, but thats easily turned off.

 

I installed XPSP2 on several computers. Most installs were successful. However, I did find a problem that reoccured a couple of times before I realized what was going on.

On computers that had spyware that impersinated certain DLLs XPSP2 refused to start up. It would display a small message saying the name of the DLL being impersonated and it gave the name of the company that produced the DLL and said to contact them to get the problem resolved. I just reinstalled windows in those cases.

The only other thing that resembled a problem for some of my users was that they had no familiarity with firewalls(and SP2 turns the firewall on). They saw this as a problem. I saw it as an overdue change since they would have otherwise continued to run on the internet with no protection at all.

 

...that you know of...

 

Dude... you seriously dont know anyting about my pc.

 

Let me take a guess... its a

AMD Xp 2600+, Abit NF7, WD 80 gig, Antec 430 ps, Radeon 9600SE,16x DVD

 

lol...

It also doesnt have a floppy, Cd, web connection, network connection...and that DVD must be disabled... This is the only way to make it bullet-proof...

 

cjmwork2, You are so stupid.

Floppies- NO one uses them now.. exept newbies.

Cd Drive- Hmmm maybe my DVD Drive can READ them?

WebConnection- How am i posting on this forum?

Network- Whats the point if you are going to have 1 pc?

Btw, you make NO sense soo far.

 

And you calling him stupid (hey, I *think* he may have been joking)? Just look at the contradictions and stupid unfounded assumptions (combined with a aroma of stupidity) that you have written:

 

At least those are true..

 

I was pointing those out because they are ********:

- Never had any problems for a year and a half yet infected a few months ago - Contradiction?

- "My pc is SECURE" - The first mistake is to ever assume this.

- Floppies - Still very much used, this in itself is a very 'newbie' (god I hate using that) thing to say.

Microsoft wrote those 40 odd million lines of code, people spotted and sometimes famously and devastatingly abused flaws, Microsoft fix them - You know better? Maybe you should write to Microsoft and tell them to put their feet up for a bit cos everything is fine, there are no flaws in XP or any Microsoft software. Maybe you could even offer Bill some of that crack you are smoking...

 

Dude, quit taking this **** so seriously



Its my problem I dont have the latest Why do you people have to care?

Its true i havent gotten infected or that **** ... its just the the "certain" type of people who think they are the best and all that crap don't believe anything.

 

everybody look at the smiley face and CALM DOWN!!!

there is no need to be calling each other stupid, and if you do have crack, sharing is polite.

i just posted this to try and help people who want to protect themselves from SP2, i did not do this to offend the SP2 fanclub, i also did not do this to cause riots on the scale of the Rodney King Riots (or blatant attack on civil liberties riot, like the right not to get your ass kicked by the people that are supposed to protect you. but that issue is a different thread)

keep it civil people, or i'll ask a mod to close the thread, the info is still there, but somepeople want to discuss the pros and cons of SP2 civilly

 

lol.

Ok, enough baiting of the unfortunates...

On a more serious note, here in the UK we are required to have our cars checked annually for safety - the MOT test. It's not a comprehensive test of the whole car, but more of a test for the safety related features only. While you might be happy driving around in a old banger, and might even be happy risking life & limb out on the Queens highways, there is a possibility your crappy old car might cause an accident that injures or kills other people. Even if you only injure yourself, it's still the state that picks up the cost of your medical treatment. Therefore the MOT test is mandatory.

Oh, that we had a similar test for PCs!

While some guys might be happy not to secure their machine to the best of their ability, if their machine is compromised, it's not just them that suffers. While it's a PITA for them, it's also a bit of a problem for the other guys who get deluged in spam/worms/viruses/etc.

The reason we get drowned in spam and the like is because there is a swathe of PC's owned by uneducated or irresponsible users who dont practice 'safe hex' and dont keep there machines up to date.

There would be mitigation if SP2 was a complete crock of **** but it is not. It's a fairly good SP - certainly one of the best I have seen from MS. The vast majority of problems with SP2 are actually problems with poorly developed software that depended on the weeknesses inherent in the XP code.

Dont complain to Microsoft if, when asked to secure their code, they do so.

For the record, there are very few new features in SP2 - they are virtually all bugfixes and security enhancements. And if you have an XP PC, you need them. In some situations it might mean a rebuild, in others... a little bit of tweaking. But the vast majority of upgrades go smoothly.

For every problem upgrade you can give me, I'll give you 5 that went smoothly.

So quit whinging & upgrade. It might require a bit of effort, but it will be worth it - besides, I think it is your responsibility.

PS. I admit that my MOT analogy falls down when you consider that cars less than 3 yrs old are exempt!

 

^^^ Hit the nail on the head

 

Im sorry cjmwork2, and kermet

Hopefully, we all learned something fomr this

 

Indeed, I have a slipstreamed CD with SP2 as well as my SATA drivers, necessary for installation since I have no floppy drive. SP2 is fine once configured properly. I haven't noticed any difference in performance or memory usage. Maybe there is a difference, but people love to pull the memory footprint card out of their ass to support their arguments. It's like Foobar vs Winamp. "Foobar takes less RAM! Winamp takes 10 MB!! HOLY ****, 10 MB!!! Out of my 1024 MB, I NEED that 10 MB, so I use Foobar" etc. Foobar is really awesome, but I don't think memory footprint is a really valid argument. I mean, at least not the only argument.

But anyways...yeah, some people have severe problems with SP2. SP2 destroyed my friend's XP installation on his AMD64 laptop.

 

I know what you mean by the Foobar/Winamp argument. These days RAM is so cheap, who really cares how much Winamp uses? Svchost.exe and Explorer.exe can use up almost 50MB or maybe more. If you haven't got at least 512MB in your PC, why the hell not?

 

The memmory argument is bunk. If anyone here has used linux you will realise that rarely does Ram usage dip bellow 95%!. Linux's pholosophy is if you have it use it. It might not be used for programs but its being used for caching files. If you have ram why not use it and it this day an age we have lots and lots of ram.

 

And I haven't been hacked or infected EVER.

As for ram, on my EPIA system which would resemble a lot of home users PC at least in the ram department, usage rarely goes above 100/256mb (some of which is dedicated to the graphics anyways), and that's running a personal web and teamspeak server and my little cental "it just needs to work" thing for syncing my palmpilot and whatnot.

I've yet to find a program that doesn't work with SP2. An older version of nero gave me a warning but never an issue, that's it.

And yes, a ton of people still use floppies. Of course it's these people I won't let within a mile of my machine but that's aside the point. People have yet to figure out you can get a 1gb USB key for just over $60, or heck get an iPod just for the portable 20 gigs for $300. Let's face it, if you can fill an ipod with music you either have a) way too much music or b) ripped your tunes to wav or something with a rediculously high bitrate (I have my normal playlist, several soundtracks and 5 large audiobooks and haven't used 1/4 of the space). Point being people don't seem to get that floppies are small, unreliable and stupidly overpriced and all could be eliminated by getting even a 32mb key for the price of that 10pk of floppies.

I totally agree with whoever said that about those who refuse to update are the ones spreading virii. I hate giving credit to MS but they are good at fixing their mistakes even if they can't do it before the software is released. And I'd like to see anyone who won't update design a more secure and stable OS from the ground up.