A cautionary tale for you all.

[scottyman]

too true!
I suppose the main benefit out of all of this, is to get everything you need downloaded first, or at the very least, chuck your machine behind a router/firewall! saves immense pain and confusion!

[Howard]

/me loves Athlon 700 internet gateway sitting next to him, taking all the flak

Deckard (and indeed anyone else) you should consider slipstreaming Service Pack 1 into your XP disc. It makes things so much easier, and your OS doesn't slow down the minute you install SP1.
Look for a tutorial on the net, it's rather easy.

Of course you'll have to do it all again when SP2 comes out, but in the mean time...

One of the first things I do install when I reformat (and Windows does actually detect my drive with all my drivers, etc, on ) is install Norton.

[megah0]

you can send off to M$ for a CD with all the updates on it, might be worth having if you re-install regularly

[Kezzer]

I click through to Windows Update, it scans my PC, comes up with a gazillion files to install and I tell it to just get on with it. So we've started installing SP 1 when I get a message telling e that the PC will be shutting down in one minute.

Yep, I'd got the MSBlaster worm.

lmao, i told so many people about this. You're meant to get the fixes before you go on the windows update site via your own methods. I loads of windows updates on a seperate partition. I got the MSBlaster worm as well but fortunately i had ghosted so it only took two minutes to find out what the problem was, restore then do it again properly the second time round.

Bad luck though. Even with a firewall you still get the blaster worm iirc because it opens the port from the windows update site which is how the blaster worm gets in. I remember this 'cause i had my firewall installed at the time i got the blaster worm and the only port it wasn't blocking was the port to connect to the windows update site.

Windows are releasing that security CD though and SP2 should be coming out some time this year we can only hope.

[directhex]

http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp

it's free, it has all the updates needed to stop you getting shafted.

everybody order one NOW.

[Jonny M]

/me lubs duron 750 on chaintech 7aja, with custom debian firewall setup

Any more details on this Hex?

And can you slipstream that security CD?

[directhex]

it's just a cut-down debian install with IPTables & a couple of other doodads. works good.

[steve threlfall]

http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp

it's free, it has all the updates needed to stop you getting shafted.

everybody order one NOW.

done

cheers dude

[daniel_owen_uk]

"The Windows® Security Update CD contains security updates released by Microsoft through to 15 October 2003."

15th of October what use is that then, its miles out of date, 2-4 weeks shipping and it will be even more out of date, ok maybe if you dont have broadband and its gonna take 50 hours to download the updates then fair enough, but its still gonna take 24 hours to do the last 4 months of updates anyway.

[steve threlfall]

"The Windows® Security Update CD contains security updates released by Microsoft through to 15 October 2003."

15th of October what use is that then, its miles out of date, 2-4 weeks shipping and it will be even more out of date, ok maybe if you dont have broadband and its gonna take 50 hours to download the updates then fair enough, but its still gonna take 24 hours to do the last 4 months of updates anyway.

thing is mate it'l stop blaster a which is the one that gives you all the hassle after a fresh install

I know what you mean though you will need all the latest updates.

[Lee H]

Check www.theeldergeek.com as there is a small guide on there for doing an SP1 slipstreamed CD and hopefully that will stop the blaster worm.

On a lighter note - the welchia virus was designed to removed the blaster and actually download the update to FIX the hole, then it scans from your PC to see if there is other PC's with the security flaw before patching these as well

Best Regards

Lee

[directhex]

October 2003 still covers, say, SP1(xp) & SP4(2k), blaster, every update EVER for older systems (e.g. 98, me). microsoft have released about 4updates since then. it's still a damn sight more defence that ytou'd have otherwise

and remember kids, slipstreamed XP SP1 cds don't accept non-SP1 CD keys