Stop Christmas-Gift PCs From Feeding Worms

An Anonymous Reader writes "If you recently set up a new PC with Windows XP, or if you had the pleasure to do a 'reinstall from scratch,' you probably found that many XP systems as they are shipped today are not patched against common issues like Blaster. Given that these worms are still going strong, it doesn't take long for a new system to be infected. In particular, if you have to connect it to the Internet to download all the patches. Well, help is in sight. The SANS Institute released a paper entitled Windows XP: Surviving the First Day." (Read on below.) Update: 12/24 17:59 GMT by T : Thanks for reader Bill Curnow for the updated link. Update: 12/24 19:15 GMT by T : Besides the workaround suggested below, Roblimo has a good suggestion on avoiding the first-day-of-Windows altogether.

"With many screen shots, it will walk you through the procedure to enable the XP firewall and downloading the patches without getting infected while doing so. This could be the (free) stocking stuffer that may save Christmas for your folks ;-). Given that its probably to late now to start downloading your favorite Linux distro."

But if you do have the time and bandwidth, and you're stuck on Windows, a nice live-CD distro like Knoppix or Mepis means you can download patches without racing the worms, and install your patches while offline. (And if you have time to download 50MB, you have time to grab Damn Small Linux.)

Comments

Re:The Easy Way

[NanoGator]

"Or you can just do what I did & get your Mom an iMac...."

Think of the productivity boost they'll have with no games to play!

Good idea Roblimo

[KingRob]

"Besides the workaround suggested below, Roblimo has a good suggestion on avoiding the first-day-of-Windows altogether."

Yeah, avoid the first day cause it's gonna take way over a week to get Linux on the 'net. Fcuken Linux.. stupid idea.

Re:How to sfix WIndows XP patches

[ajs318]

Reat the flaming article, dude. He gave her a PC with Linux -- pre-installed and configured by him -- on it. It worked. Other people gave other people PCs with Windows on them. They didn't work. Windows is not reliable, Linux is. Unless there is a specific piece of software you want to use that only exists for Windows, and you really really can't do without it, there is no excuse to use that sorry excuse for an OS.

The worst part with Linux is still the installation {though Mandrake is probably the easiest for a n00b}, and installing Windows on a new PC is no fun either {it always seems to want the Windows CD and the mobo CD at the same time}. If someone else has already done that, then it's not an issue.

And the fact that Windows is unreliable actually suits Microsoft et al. They get paid for fixing problems. If one day they managed to write the perfect operating system, making the computer electronically incapable of crashing and absolutely immune to unsolicited outside interference, they would be out of a job. Whereas, nobody gets fat on Linux bugs. If you write a piece of free software, you still have to support it -- unless it's already perfect and therefore needs no technical support. Not being paid to fix it in the first place kind of removes the disincentive against fixing it.

You probably think you are "cool" because you rip off copies of software with a street value of hundreds or thousands of pounds. You probably think you're sticking it to the Man. But what you're really doing is no different than those people who do the exact opposite of whatever is fashionable {thereby being influenced by fashion} so they can claim they aren't influenced by fashion and therefore "cooler" than everyone else. But while you're ripping off expensive proprietary software, other people have taken the trouble to write software that does more or less the same things, and give it away for nothing. Just check out what Slackware {to pick a distro at random} gives you on one CD, and see what it would cost you to put together a proprietary equivalent. You may feel big and clever because you've installed thousands of pounds of software and not paid a single penny, but at the end of the day your computer doesn't do anything positive that mine doesn't do, and I still haven't spent any more than you. You haven't stuck anything to the Man. If you pay for proprietary software, the Man's been sticking it to you. Pirating it is just a nil-nil draw.