After sensibly resisting the upgrade to Windows XP SP2 for such a long time now you've caved in to the might of those brutes from Redmond. I'm in a quandry on this matter -- I've done very well for a long time by using freeware tools to block the security holes created and left un-fixed by Microsoft's crack team of software engineers. I'm not completely certain I need their assistance at this point since their track record leaves much to be desired. I'd prefer to get along without them if I could.

To pay credit where it is due, I first read about the potential of the spyware threat which is now such a burden for wary and novice computer users alike in a column written by a local computer journalist in The Age Green Guide a few years ago. Yes, years ago.

The Bleeding Edge column may be popular but it seems to me that certain aspects of the style of presentation employed within it continue to go right over many, perhaps most, reader's heads. There is only so much that can be sqeezed into about a thousand words once a week and quite aside from being a treat to read nuanced understatement is a necessity. When readers were first invited to have a look at software firewalls, like ZoneAlarm and later Sygate, and anti-spyware tools, like Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D, I wonder what proportion of them actually bothered to investigate them? Then there's Firefox: unquestionably more secure than Internet Explorer yet in the forum it continues to draw criticism. (The contentious detractors of this milestone in browser development have a whiff of conspiracy about them, if you ask me.)

New threats to computing security can come from any direction and I suppose I'll have to bite the XP SP2 bullet sooner or later but self-reliance will never go out of style for me. I've never had one of my computers affected by a virus or trojan, spyware has never been a serious issue and since I began using Firefox it isn't an issue at all, and I recieve zero spam -- and I used to think that all of that was accidental, but it wasn't, it happened because I followed some sage advice.

Me? Install XP sp2? Maybe later.

MicroSoft Anti-Spyware is causing angst in our household. The program does not recognise that different Microsoft XP users have different profiles with different start-up settings, including browser settings. The result is numerous alerts when a new user logs on. There does not seem to be any setting in Advanced Tools to prevent this happening.

Good point. I chose not to use the option to have it monitor your system. Too intrusive, and too much of an overhead in my opinion. So long as you do a periodic scan, I think you're pretty safe.

Well, with great fear, and after backing up files, running spyware and adware programs and cleaning up the computer, I looked for that old SP2 CD I had from one of the magazines and couldn't find it. Hopeless at filing.
So with even greater trepidation I went to Windows updates, Custom install and downloaded SP2. I went away thinking it was going to take ages and came back to my screensaver and nothing else. Panic. Panic. I had to turn the computer off in the way it doesn't like. I had to uninstall SP2. And then I did it all again and watched what was happening. It needed to get through my Zone Alarm once and I had to click on something in the process also. But it is now successfully downloaded, so it tells me.
I hope it is all worth it.
There were quite a few updates that I hadn't downloaded because I had turned off my automatic update, but it is back on now.
Why do we have to fear Microsoft so much.
Of course I had heard other hideous stories about downloading SP 2, so I hadn't done it before now.
Your blog about having to do it soon got me going though.

As a pragmatist who pre-kids was an enthusiast but now struggles to keep up with all the changes I have now reached my level of incompetence. We have two non-networked XP computers; the one with SP2 is connected to the internet, the one without has the printer. On Friday, without warning, the printer began to freeze at the start of printing and new driver installation did not help. Changing the printer to the SP2 computer makes it work perfectly. Is this likely to be related to the deadline you mentioned and is it possible to run a computer without updating it to SP2 if it doesn’t access the internet (It is mostly used for word-processing a PhD).

You frequently recommend Zonealarm as a free firewall. However, the free version is intended for use on stand alone computers and the B...'s have written it to block access to other computers on a XP network, forcing for example, users on a home network to pay for the full version.

It can be very frustrating trying to find the network problem. Users get no indication of why they cannot network to other computers or even ping them. Simply disabling Zonealarm does not change things, it is necessary to carry out a full uninstall using the Zonealarm uninstall program.

I suggest that you warn your readers/listners of this problem as it could save them a lot of anguish. The free version of Sygate works perfectly on a home network.

Buried in the Microsoft knowledge base is a paper on this networking problem with the recommendation to uninstall Zonealarm.

Is there an External Hi Speed USB host controller on the market