Spyware / SP2 hazard warning
p2pnet.net News:- Windows XP users should check for spyware before installing SP2, says Microsoft.
Some spyware could cause computers to freeze if the update is loaded, warns Barry Goff, a group product manager quoted by Associated Press here.
"Microsoft recommends that users clean their PCs of spyware and back up their data before turning on the auto update feature that automatically downloads Service Pack 2, or SP2," says the report.
"People who download SP2 also may need to check whether legitimate programs, such as third-party security software, need to be updated."
September 5th, 2004 at 12:43 am
this fits well with use it and pay for this free upgrade and oh by the way if you are’nt using our spyware you’ll have to purchase our software anyway.
THANKS FOR THE FREE UPGRADE,MY REAREND HURTS AGAIN,MICROSOFT.
September 5th, 2004 at 12:52 am
Spyware is getting so bad these days I’d have to say there should be a law about it. And No, I’m not saying this because I am pro MS but because its a really, REALLY bad problem.
September 5th, 2004 at 4:33 am
“Remove their Spyware to make room for ours”
September 5th, 2004 at 6:16 am
Higher Ed caught this one two weeks ago when all the students returned to campus. I guess we’re now Microsoft’s ace beta testers.
September 5th, 2004 at 10:59 am
*&^% U Bill gates
September 5th, 2004 at 12:06 pm
microsoft sucks my pc is a shity machine with the sp2 as i can even restore to earlier time unless reformate it,google has pop up blocker and let go through pop ups and pay people by cilcks on advertising
September 8th, 2004 at 5:35 pm
Happened here. I installed SP2, it locked up during the install. I had to powerfail the machine.
When it rebooted back into Windows (I use Linux normally, Windows XP is for games), it acted as if everything was fine. Not being comfortable with that, I tried to uninstall SP2. It refused to do so.
I left it for a few days, then tried to uninstall again. It happily complied. When I rebooted Windows, it was b0rked. After a few short while, I would get the ‘Services has crashed, rebooting in 60 seconds”
Even Safe Mode was useless (big surprise there). The only thing that was mostly stable was the Command Prompt safe mode. From there I ran TrendMicro’s small virus remover, Norton’s Sasser worm removal. I also (while in Linux) run f-prot, clamscan, and housecall on that drive.
Norton’s Sasser removal tool found no worm. TrendMicro’s virus remover was not able to complete, as a shutdown began after about 10 minutes and I was unable to get to a command prompt in time to stop it (FYI: c:\windows\system32\shutdown -a).
Under Linux, one virus scanner found one spam file, another one found another one, and only f-prot found both. I can only assume the presence of these two files with names not used by the system normally was able to bring down MSFT’s crappy SP2 “security release”.
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. What a joke…