XP Service Pack 2 bombs ADSL

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kaspaas

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Hi,

An unhappy friend called this morning - he can't download e-mail.

Turned out that his 6 XP workstations started updating with SP2, and half way through the 24-hour disconnect happened. And he got capped.

Now he can't complete the XP updates via the web - fortunately I had a CD.

But worse, he can't download his email from a cheap overseas ISP :-(

Shows the reality of the damage Telkom's cap causes: One can't even secure a few PC's without killing your bandwidth.

And the worst part of it: Telkom can't provide another 3GB of bandwidth before 1 October because of their inefficient systems!



South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.
 
He should have downloaded 1 copy and shared it apposed to all pc's updateing but he has odviously already done it so that is unfortunate. *cough* check this http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=free+proxies+south+africa&spell=1 *cough* I do not promote illegal use of proxies but i do however happen to know that the dept of trade and industry has a very very slow but usable proxy, well rumour has it that way anyways. here is a nudge in the right/wrong (u choose) direction that may help ur friend out till the month end.

There is no peace without war!!!
 
You're surfing on the net with your brand new 56k dial-up modem when, without warning, your bandwidth drops to 0 and you're thinking - ag no, someone is playing with a faaking portscanner again!! Just when you're about to punch your pc screen, a nice system tray notification pops up and inform you: 'Your update is ready to be installed.' WTF??!!!

And then you realise: Automatic Updates. Argggghhhhhh!!! Time to visit the System icon in the control panel and disable Automatic Updates'! [:0]

*That's normally the first thing I disable after a clean XP installation, especially when using a dial-up modem!
 
heres a solution for your friends problem DON'T DOWNLOAD SERVICE PACK 2
Don't even install it off the CD, rather stick with SP1 and his own choice of firewall.

I made this decision since seeing RC2 of SP2, and decided not to install it on my machines, and I am the most glad about that choice, already since its release, I've come across at least 8 separate instances of SP2 making a mess of associates computers, be it that the can't open remote files anymore, or popup blockers hanging up explorer, for the real annoying one, popup blocker not allowing downloads to occur, and the best one I've heard so far, "I'm getting so sick of this annoying popup blocker popping up all the time" [:)]

the other night, another mates machine just froze completely, and kept freezing after a few minutes of activity, I suggested removing SP2, and all got better since!

don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those anti MS people - although If the continue on their current path, I soon will be - I just think that service pack was a cry for help after they had too many attacks and vulnerabilities, and instead of fixing the OS at the root, they disable all useful functionality, and do not allow the advanced users to add the functionality.

To see something interesting, try the following
go to a workgroup share on a nearby machine, Open MS ACCESS, create a blank database, and save it to that share. (ie, should now be the owner of file)

NEXT, navigate to share, and try open .mdb,
yeah, I was also pissed when I couldn't, When I saw this, it was tickets, I'm sure the same <i><b>security FEATURE</i></b> ie PROBLEM exists with executables, so no more installing winzip off a remote share.

this seems to be their current trend at safety, they are moving towards a system so anal retentive that NO IDIOT USER can FSCK it up, and in the process, losing all advanced users that want to customize security.
the best part is knowing someones going to find a way in by the years end, and they'll be back to square one! If any hardcore crackers out there want to give it a bash, heres a good starting point, uPNP!!
 
Unfortunately MS didn't have much choice in the matter. If you had millions of customers and they were constantly getting affected by worm outbreaks you would also take drastic measures. MS tried telling people to turn on the firewall and install anti virus software but people didn't listen thinking they wouldn't be affected so they decided just to turn on security options by default, a good move in my opinion. I haven't had many issues with SP2 so far, the only thing I needed to do was disable the firewall and the Security Center service and all is good.
 
Good post Dorris.

I have been using the RC of Sp2 for some time on several of my machines. It's very buggy. I am going to format all of them one day when I get a chance.

The one machine I have has XP with no Service Packs on at all, with only a Firewall and a Anti Virus installed, connected to my network through a switch and then on to the Server Machine which is Fire walled as well. This connects then to the ADSL Router. The server has two network cards. One card for the network and the other as the gateway to the internet.
So anyone trying to hack that machine is going to have a huge problem. I also never use Internet Explorer. I rather use Firefox and lately I have tried Avant.
So unlike what MS says, running XP without any service packs is possible as long as you set it up correctly. Well at least I hope I know what I'm doing. : P





<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">
 
Perdition, you missed the point, I'm all for extra security features, but when you don't provide a means to disable them, Particularly the network shares (another example of this is Outlook XP's .exe handling, or should I say inability to handle).
As you say, disable firewall and security console, but when you cant enable some of the functionality, its just plane annoying, another quicki, remember the good old "net send", IT IS NO MORE!!!!!

BTTB, in regards to no Service packs, I think SP 1 is an essential tool, XP on its own is terribly buggy, the difference is, SP1 only fixes bugs, and plugs security holes.

In regards to your setup, you are one paranoid FREEEEK, 2 daisychained firewalls behind a NAT firewall (ie router) thats frikkin fort knox, hope u changed your rooter password [:)]
 
Points taken. You can disable the firewall and windows update from the Security Center but the other stuff is hidden far away in the registry and admin consoles. I guess MS didn't want the average user disabling the other "fixes".

I had to patch TCP/IP to raise the 10 connection limit, not sure which brightspark at MS decided 10 connections would be enough.

btw I'm not having any problems opening files on network shares and cannot replicate your MS Access issue. I've only tested this on my home network which is a workgroup setup, perhaps domain security plays a role in this one.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In regards to your setup, you are one paranoid FREEEEK, 2 daisychained firewalls behind a NAT firewall (ie router) thats frikkin fort knox, hope u changed your rooter password <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ROFL. Must I change my password. You mean the "1234" password. Eeek.... Yes I did. But good point. It was on default for several months before I realised it isn't a good thing. [;)]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">BTTB, in regards to no Service packs, I think SP 1 is an essential tool, XP on its own is terribly buggy, the difference is, SP1 only fixes bugs, and plugs security holes.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Agreed. SP1 is essential for USB 2.0 support for instance. Maybe I will run my setup with SP1 and wait for SP3. Make back ups and test it first.





<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">
 
I've slipstreamed XP with SP2 and glad that I don't have to download DirectX 9.0c and Media Player 9 again - hell, you don't want to reach your cap in one day!!! [:I]
 
You never had to download WMP 9, it came standerd in Windows XP or with SP1.

Are you maybe talking about WMP10?

Counting down...
130 days till the end of Hellkom
 
no there was an update to WMP. But hell to me WMP it the worst program ever invented, can stand it, winamp/itunes for sound and only and i mean ONLY vlc player (open source playe) for video. never hd a problem with, green pictures, files not opening, errors with a codec you know you have, it just playes anything and every thing and at 800Kb or something space saced it great cause you don't need all that fancy crap that you never use.

There is no peace without war!!!
 
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