Perhaps worth mentioning that not all current (i.e. subscribed) anti virus programs are quite so happy to converse with Security Centre. If anyone finds that their AV is showing as not installed/updated, worth checking the vendor for a patch.
Don\'t believe all the nay sayers with SP2 - without it, your PC isn\'t going to be as well protected as it could and should be so get on with installing it! Good to hear RF has found it works well.
{aside}
But, RF....
What about the IBM PC Jr? I\'m sure that was aimed at home users - www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/ibm-pcjr/page...m
:-)
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Lee
MINI adventure over. Now having a Fabialous time.
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Don\'t believe all the nay sayers with SP2 - without it, your PC isn\'t going to be as well protected as it could and should be so get on with installing it! Good to hear RF has found it works well.
All well and good, and indeed when I installed SP2 it made it completely safe from any form of outside interference. Mainly, because it wouldn't work! On start up it reached a screen which invited me to;
Start in Safe Mode,
Start in Safe Mode with Command Prompts,
Start in Last Known Working Configuration,
And possibly one other. Each one in turn took me back to exactly the same screen, and the result was a full re-install of XP. And before anyone suggests how I could have fiddled around in the registry or the BIOS I would no more do either than I would operate on my own brain.
So I shall keep my AV and Firewall up to date, and Microft can stick there SP2 till they sort out the well documented flaws in it.
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Tom
"So I shall keep my AV and Firewall up to date, and Microft can stick there SP2 till they sort out the well documented flaws in it."
My feeling is that it's your loss, which MS won't even notice...
I'd suspect that there is some underlying problem in your PC causing this rather than a flaw in SP2.
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I bet that now you have done an XP reinstall, so its a fairly clean system, that SP2 will install ok on it now.
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I installed SP2 via Microsoft's automatic update. I have wondered if it would make any difference if it was installed from a disc.
Any thoughts on that?
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Oughtn't make any difference, so long as the download and installation completed properly. It's conceivable but unlikely that your copy got corrupted in some way during transmission - there isn't a good way to check.
I have automatic updates set to download then notify, rather than immediately apply, so that I have some control over when and how they are done, and make sure the reboots etc are done properly. However with SP2 I downloaded it then burnt it to CD which I then installed from, painlessly.
You don't have a Umax scanner do you?
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You don't have a Umax scanner do you?
No, Packard Bell.
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For major updates (and a SP is nearly always a major update) I always download the update executable and files and burn to CD, and do not allow it to update online.
This way I can make sure nothing is running, and the machine reboots properly at the correct times, and the media it requires is always on hand in the cd drive or hard disk rather than thousands of miles away on the end of wet string.
Like Smokie I dont allow auto update either, just have notify set on. That way you get to research and prepare a little bit about whats going to be updated and not research what went wrong!
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Tom Shaw wrote
So I shall keep my AV and Firewall up to date, and Microft can stick there SP2 till they sort out the well documented flaws in it
Yeah, that'll teach them.
I can't emphasise enough how important it is to get SP2 on - without it, your PC is vulnerable.
I tend to use the network install from a USB key (can be found on technet), but my PC at home did it automatically and happily.
Sure, you might have problems with the upgrade but without it you'll be exposed to many others.
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Lee
MINI adventure over. Now having a Fabialous time.
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>>without it, your PC is vulnerable.>>
I see the point you are making, but SP2 was really aimed at those who DON'T take suitable precautions against virus and spybot attacks - you can disable all these features in the Security Center if you wish and continue to rely on your own chosen alternatives.
SP2 provides many other benefits, including all the SP1 updates, and providing your system is already running properly, shouldn't cause any upsets.
Easiest way to install it is from one of the special cover disks being provided by many computer magazines at the moment.
This is the first time for some time that Microsoft has allowed its products to be included on magazine cover disks - that's how important it rates SP2 installation.
In fact its website suggests, if you have acquired the free SP2 disk from the company, to give it to a friend afterwards.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What's for you won't pass you by
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Stuartli wrote
I see the point you are making, but SP2 was really aimed at those who DON'T take suitable precautions against virus and spybot attacks - you can disable all these features in the Security Center if you wish and continue to rely on your own chosen alternatives.
This is my last post on this as I don't think this is the place to argue the finer detail of what SP2 does - I would just point out again that it will put a PC running XP in a much better position to resist attacks than one not running it, even with default settings.
And yes I agree, if you've got a disk you don't need anymore pass it onto Auntie/Gran/Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all!
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Lee
MINI adventure over. Now having a Fabialous time.
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On a related topic...since installing SP2 I get a prompt every time I shut the PC down from the security centre 'your computer is unsafe!!! click here to download...' blah blah.
I update AVG & S&D on a daily basis; and this nag screen is confusing the rest of the family & annoying me. How do I stop it doing this? I can't see an obvious setting in the security centre to turn these warnings off.
Before anyone asks I do download and install all MS critical updates; but not every single patch : I turned 'auto update' off about 1 daty after installing SP2. My system works fine as it is, and I don't want my OS remotely re-configured on an almost daily basis.!
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Is it actually a Microsoft screen or is it just intended to appear as such ?
Have you tried ad-aware ? I use S&D and Ad-aware and it is not unusual for one to find something the other did not.
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& BTW, what options does it give you ?
If one of them is "fix" or "update" or something similar - unplug the network/internet/phone cable so that it can't download anything and see what it tries to do.
If it attempts to access a web address, note that address down and investigate it.
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Thanks Mark; I'll run adarware when I get home; to check it is really security centre that's nagging me :-/
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Yes you can make security centre stop all this nagging. I dont have it active on my work machine so I cant tell you exactly where this is done at the moment, but I have done it to Security centre on the home machine as it was whining about not having auto update active. I seem to recall you can tell it what the whine about and what not to whine about.
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Security Center is in Control Panel. You can *try* turning off checking there...
However, I have a hardware firewall so have disabled firewall checking in Security Center but each time I boot up it warns me (via an icon in the system tray) that I'm at risk etc. No warnings at close down though. That's a pretty pointless time to warn you, so it's possible it isn't legit.
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Well I only had time for a quick play last night; but adaware & AVG couldn't find anything nasty on the PC; so I think it's a genuine MS nag screen. Will try playing with security centre settings tonight, once I've fixed the leaky guttering :-(
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Hi Tom. I installed SP2 yesterday. Every time I managed to get to this forum and others IE6 locked up.. Not being able to do anything about it. managed this morning to get to system restore. then take back to before SP2 install. this was after umpteen restarts.. Now works fine so as you say will leave it for a while
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Steve
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I have one! A PCjr. What an abortion that was! Its in the loft along with my original IBM PC, IBM PCAT, and and the first IBM portable PC complete with clip on printer, modem and carry case.
All in perfect nick, complete with manuals and software and all wainting to appreciate in value.
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Now that's worth having. I see that for a good ZX80 you'd pay well over £300. The set you have there will definitely be worth something, a good investment methinks!
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Lee
MINI adventure over. Now having a Fabialous time.
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"The set you have there will definitely be worth something, a good investment methinks!"
You would think so and certainly will at the price I paid for them, However when you look back, the first IBM PC's fully loaded (and that wasnt much!) sold in the UK for nearly 2 Grand in the early 80's if I recall. Thats 2 grand in 1980's money!
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A very gentle hint towards the title of this thread. (questions rather than discussion).
I emphasise \"gentle hint\".
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Fair enough
{pulls self back into line}
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Lee
MINI adventure over. Now having a Fabialous time.
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Yah boo sucks, I got an Amstrad PC1512 with MS-DOS 3.2 AND DOS Plus, not to mention GEM windows long before old Bill thought his version up. I paid from memory about 550 quid in Bahrain in 1986. It has never ever gone wrong, unlike all the others I have owned since, and when the world has been unkind that day I can go play PacMan and Space Invaders.
It still works perfectly: OS on one 5.25 drive, data disk in the other. Great for WP and simple tasks. Dot matrix printer. I still do spreadsheets on it with Lotus, so simple.
Since this a computer question thread: Is this a record?
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Any prospect of my vast collection of Commodore PETs and associated drives and software providing worthwhile returns?
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"Is this a record"
No it's a computer
Actually I would think that it might be close to a record for a personal PC, if only because it seems to get occassional use. I have an old Speccy in the loft which gets dragged down occassionally. Favourite games were Manic Miner, Jet Pac and Jet Set Willy. At least I understood what was going on in them...mind you the Medal of Honor games for the PC are amazing, and I wish I had the dexterity to play them well.
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