07-01-2004, 02:03 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 234
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???? every XP instalation I have ever done has booted for the first time with XP's firewall already enabled :? XP's firewall doesn't patch up any of the RPC holes anyways, so I don't see what difference it would really make. My best suggestion is throw SP1 on a CD, then patch up to at least sp1 before plugging into the internet. Oh, and the 240 megs not being much, well, no, it really isnt (ive got 2 gigs in my box), but to play a DVD in XP, 128 megs is more then enough for a system that isn't bogged down with adware or a virus. DVD playback doesn't much in the way of RAM, and doesn't use any space from the swapfile that I am aware of, even if you are really short on ram. Heh, one more option we are forgetting, is there could be a scratch on the DVD, or his lens could need cleaning
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07-01-2004, 05:17 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
Originally Posted by milkman dan
???? every XP instalation I have ever done has booted for the first time with XP's firewall already enabled
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Interesting....every install I've seen/heard of hasn't had it activated. I wonder why you're seeing it and I'm not? Hmm.
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07-01-2004, 05:56 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
Originally Posted by milkman dan
???? every XP instalation I have ever done has booted for the first time with XP's firewall already enabled :?
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I've done about 10-15 in the last month, fresh installs from CD, and it absolutely did not. I don't know what kind of XP install you're using, but it's not the standard one as far as I can tell.
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XP's firewall doesn't patch up any of the RPC holes anyways, so I don't see what difference it would really make.
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It prevents outside connections to the RPC ports. I can tell you with 100% certainty that if you throw a ICF-enabled XP box on the Internet, it won't get hacked by a worm. (IE vulnerabilities are an issue, on the other hand, so the ICF is useful to enable you to run Windows Update.) Perhaps you're thinking of a different firewall, because the one built into XP certainly does what it advertises.
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My best suggestion is throw SP1 on a CD, then patch up to at least sp1 before plugging into the internet.
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This is no longer sufficient. There are patches post-SP1 that must be installed to avoid the latest worms.
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Oh, and the 240 megs not being much, well, no, it really isnt (ive got 2 gigs in my box), but to play a DVD in XP, 128 megs is more then enough for a system that isn't bogged down with adware or a virus.
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... or most anything running in startup. If one is comfortable enough, running "msconfig" is a useful debugging step.
--janak
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07-01-2004, 02:33 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 234
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wow, that is insane. I have onstalled 90% of my XP instalations from an oem preinstall, which could account for 90% of the systems, but one of the first things I do on a personal machine after loading a system on XP is disable the firewall. As far as xp's firewall blocking the RPC ports, I don't understand that becuase last time I reloaded my main PC I got blaster half way through downloading sp1 while the firewall was enabled
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07-01-2004, 05:47 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
Originally Posted by milkman dan
wow, that is insane. I have onstalled 90% of my XP instalations from an oem preinstall, which could account for 90% of the systems, but one of the first things I do on a personal machine after loading a system on XP is disable the firewall. As far as xp's firewall blocking the RPC ports, I don't understand that becuase last time I reloaded my main PC I got blaster half way through downloading sp1 while the firewall was enabled
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Something is very wrong with your setup, then. It sounds like the firewall is off, but "checked" anyway... or something. We literally just reinstalled a bunch of Dells here, and firewalled each of them, plugged them in (public IP network), and off they went to Windows Update with nary a Blaster infection. My boss was the only one who forgot when she was installing a PC of hers, and it was promptly infected.
(FWIW, this was not an OEM install -- we blew those away and used our own XP Volume License.)
--janak
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07-02-2004, 12:55 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 234
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in the words of beavis....
"well I'll be damned"
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