[softwarelist] Re: Another Windows horror story

In message <ce8b4b554f.Brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
          Brian Howlett <brian.groups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 22 Dec, David Pilling wrote:

>> Last week it became obvious my PC had a virus. I was lucky that it
>> caught something designed to be irritating and promote virus detecting
>> software.

>> I watched what happened and I could find where the rogue code was in
>> Windows. However I could not unhook it from the insides of Windows and
>> neither could the anti virus software I tried.

>> How did this happen? - I'd turned off Windows automatic updates,
>> because I didn't want my computer changing configuration without me
>> knowing about it.

> You can tell Windows XP to download updates when available, but not
> install them without prompting you for permission. This way, if you
> are doing something and would prefer not to have to restart the PC,
> you can put of the updates to a time that suits you.

> Go in to your System Properties, click on the Automatic Updates tab,
> and chose either of the two middle options - Download but don't
> install, or notify but don't download until I tell you (paraphrased).

I have a suspicion that you can only then accept the updates if you 
are running as an Administrator. I could be wrong. However as most 
Windows users are administrators, it doesn't make much difference.

I had to reinstall a PC the other week. First install Windows with 
SP2. Then run Windows updates - 91 updates to go.
After the reboot, two more (for IE7).
If I had installed anything which installed .NET 1.1 or .NET 2 there 
would have been even more.
I understand SP3 for XP is coming - it can't be soon enough.

Incidentally the .NET automatic updates are a pain - they are the ones 
which pop up a box saying "This machine will reboot in 5 minutes - do 
you want to reboot now or later". Most people click later, and are 
then surprised when the PC reboots at the end of 5 minutes.

What puzzles me about this, is that I can't see why it can't wait 
until shutdown, like all the other updates - if it can wait 5 minutes, 
why not a bit longer? Fortunately these only seem to come out every 6 
months or so (up to now at least).


-- 
Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire
alan.adams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.nckc.org.uk/

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