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The suspicious death of XP support | 34 comments (34 topical) | Post A Comment
Beware service packs and Windows Update[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous User on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 09:04:39 AM PDT

This story contains a "background" lesson: don't trust recent patch offerings from Microsoft, and don't use Windows Update. I'm old enough to have seen lots of problems with the first release of any service pack, and plenty of hotfixes that have unintended consequences. Although Windows systems may be less secure when they're not on the latest SPs and hotfixes, a good set of security hardware/software (virus & spyware scanner, firewall) means installing the "latest" patches will not be an emergency unless you are experiencing an issue directly addressed by the patch. And yes, it takes awhile to rebuild an XP system from scratch, but I start the process in a heartbeat if I even remotely suspect a bad patch or an undocumented virus. Most people can return to productivity in a lot less time that what it took for this reader to talk with MS support.

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The suspicious death of XP support | 34 comments (34 topical) | Post A Comment
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