Worthiness of updating?
I've been wondering what everyone here thinks, this seems like the proper forum to discuss it. I for one am very anti-updating. The only thing I update is my antivirus. I'm running one of the original XP Pro build's without any type of problem whatsoever. I don't have SP1 and I don't plan on getting it any time soon. I really haven't been able to figure out the real purpose of updates. How does everyone at SM go about updating?
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Plus, people who don't update are responsible for the spread of things like MSBLAST last year, the huge RPC worm that tore through the internet. All of my customers' computers were up-to-date and were not affected by it. Can't say the same for their home computers, and I spent many hours killing the MSBLASt worm because people didn't update.
On a side note, supposedly quite a few people at my University are still affected by the worm. That's what the ingenius techs say at least...
Service packs are a good idea to always update to, with the following caveat: wait a couple of weeks after it comes out. Let others find some problems with it first, let MS get some fixes, then update your service pack. But service packs are not just fixes, they usually contain significant new features, such as Prime pointed out, and if you like to have the newest hardware, you will often need the newest OS updates to run it.
Optional updates, etc, are just that: discretional. If you don't think you need them, don't update. But if you are running some of the "cutting edge" games, high-end software, etc, it is always a good idea to apply any patches that affect video settings, runtime libraries, etc.
Dexter...
So what happens when the next worm writer decides that after 30 minutes it executes "format c:" or such?. I hope you at least have a firewall. Running an unpatched system (windows, linux, mac or otherwise) on a broadband connection without firewall and virus scanner is nothing short of absolute negligance. Its this attitude that contributes to the massive scale of damage caused by worms on the internet. I hate to sound harsh but this sort of ignorance really bothers me :/
I don't install all the sissy extra stuff but security patches are an absolute must for a system on the internet. Dexter's plan is pretty much what I follow on my windows boxen. I look forward to the day when ISP's scan for open and accessible vulnerabilities and shut down the connections of those people.
When i first heard of rpc i got really scared untill i noticed that i had installed a patch for it 2 weeks prior to reading the warning. I was safe. Sofar it seems that unpatched systems have had more problems than patched ones.
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=125925#post125925
Dexter...
If there are bugs I want to know first.
I am less agressive with driver updates. I am usually one or two behind. And the same goes for BIOS.
The other reason to update is that if you want to use some new functionality you don't want to have to go throught the pain of applying multiple updates to multiple programs all at once just to bring you to current standards.
The only downside to updates is this: Some legitimate old programs are not compatible with them in strange ways. BUT, there are other ways old programs can conflict. I had an old very slow eMachines box come in. Video locked sporadically. FIX, and this one is interesting, was not to update the video driver, rather to REMOVE Compuserve 2000 and 2000A which had never been used-- it was not letting the ATI video event handler handle video events without MAJOR delays. The reload\upgrade to XP on the P4 required the removal after reinstall of an old WinFAX Pro, the modem handlers were obsolete big time. Modem was newer than the WinFax Pro software was....
The only other downside to Windows Updates, is once in a blue moon Microsoft will get tib overaggressive and fix something too well for some box's drivers or software. KB823894 is a case in point, Microsoft had to release a "fix" for that which appeared as KB831167 (also ref'd with Q preefix, or just the number). The problem was with IE, in that case, other code in it that resulted in IE losing track of DNS caching witht he patch present. Fixed.
NOBODY is perfect, but they are working harder not to fubar boxes with patches more successfully than before. I side with Dexter, criticals you NEED. LOTS of the spyware\trojanware, which Norotn knows about 1\4 of AT BEST, are blocked by the latest criticals, but they need older patching in some cases ALSO. There IS a way to do this safely, with XP. You CAN make a restore point first before patching, and should. THEN, you can roll back if needed. Second, most of the modern patches of critical type are individually uninstallable, right in Control Panel's Add\Remove Programs applet.
There are TWO patches I would consider NOT installing, the one mentioned above (although if you got hit by an IE slowdown the fix is now available), and if you have an older video card, the DirectX 9.0b update unless you have drivers installed for your card that support DX9.0b FIRST.
One reason longhorn is being pushed back, is public and cuatomer support demands resulted in an extremely seen need by Microsoft to fix major things before releasing it. Second, I think they want the early betas tested on and supporting devices for which no WHQL cert'ed drivers are even available yet.
They are getting better at this, much better. Not perfect, but BETTER. The latest four, I would apply NOW-- ASAP! They are majors, BIG TIME majors. They make rollback points (system restore points) BY DEFAULT as they install now, on XP. This in and of itself is encouraging.
John D.
with that said, the number is 137 gb, not 160
137 in pure GB, 160 GB in HD mfr sense. HD mfrs use 1000 bytes per K, 1 million bytes per Meg, 1 billion bytes per Gig. Windows thinks of a Meg as 1024 squared, and a gig as 1024 cubed. THAT is also as far as USABLE space goes, there is also some overhead in file system creation, adn the NET has to be less than 160 GB in HD mfr's terms or 137 GB in Widnow's accounting for GBs for drive to work.
Both numbers are right within their own context-- if you look at it from HD MFR's way of counting up size, its 160 GB really, and if you look at it from Window's O\S sense, it is 137 GB of global physical USABLE data space per HD mech without the patch. Software folks use the one, hardware folks use the other. *nix folks can and DO use either....
John D.
The term meant 'not knowing'. No one's saying your stupid. You started this thread with a good question.
I would always install the Windows Critical Updates.
Yeah, ignorance does not always mean dumb, just means you have not learned that one thing or set of things\ideas\concepts yet. MOST of us here do not use it meaning "dumb." We ALL know, hopefully, that forums work by us each learning from each ohter.
Dexter is a server admin who is dang good at details, Leo and I have been around IT for a long time, but we still like teaching folks things. One such thing is that when most of the fixes work, you figure out how to handle the exceptions rather than not eat anything in the barrel becasue it has one bad apple in it-- you remove just the bad apple and raise cain with the folks that gave it to you so they will check better next time. In Microsoft's case, you raise firm but polite cain...
primesuspect is a server admin and hosting company owner. csimon is a server admin capable person. mmonnin is good with electronics. Geeky1 knows good hardware, and how to make hardware sets work together. Omega65, though I do not agree with all his opinions in detail sense, finds one heck of a lot of news items that put together give good perspectives on issues.
One funny thing about ALL of us, we started as enthusiasts. So, we try to NOT insult enthusiasts.
With the case of critical microsoft patches, they there for a very good reason, they close holes in use by viruses or trojans for the most part. Recommends you can pick and choose from, BUT criticals you need in some cases because your box is less likely to get taken to the shower and drenched with bad code becuase those patches are there.
In most cases, viruses and trojans are out there "in the wild" on the web that ARE able to use the holes being patched by the time definitive critical patches are available. And the problems being patched are ones known about in some cases for almost a decade (the IE not checking file types hole, which has been partly patched) or more, or known for as little as 3-5 months for some.
John D.-- who used to hate patching Widnows, never was sure what would happen, now does critical REGULARLY and fixed messed up boxes brought in by folks who did not patch and forgot for a year or so to update their AV which mysteriously stopped updating itself. Those folks simply did not know things-- one is a very rich man, knows finance but not IT. He is paying me decent rates from time to time simply to teach about the things you get here for free.
I swear, that guy puts so much information in it's posts, I'm beginning to think that I have a low attention span.
Problem is, there are many ways to get to certain symptoms with Windows. I could hijack a thread with one post per possibility, chose instead to compact them into a single post per thread, mostly, so those who want can ignore or skip past the post.
John D.-- who gets lots of his income from fixing the ODD-appearing things average or younger techs bring to him for fixing, usually caused by odd-appearing sets of circumstances. For instance, one way to make a taskbar unfunctional is to get the video drivers set to a tiny bit too HIGH a vertical refresh rate, so that the hot area to unhide it is off the bottom of the screen totally.... BTW, not an IT, am a HE, 51 years old right now. Started using computers when I was 15 or 16.