[thechat] microsoft rant (part 2)

[Joel Canfield]

><RANT>
>how is the **average** person supposed to know what "At a
>command prompt" means???? and how long is it supposed to take
>them to figure it out? </RANT>

Rough week, eh? Apply a strong analgesic sedative to those nerves, my
friend.

The average Windows user wouldn't be using this tool. It's designed for
network administrators. And they know not only what a command prompt is, but
that if you type 'cmd' in the little box, it doesn't go away. They also know
that if you type

                                      > path\file.txt

(including the greater than symbol) after a DOS command, resulting in,
f'rinstance, this:

hfnetchk -v -z -s 1 > c:\file.txt

the results will be written to a text file instead of displayed to the
screen. And then you can read it at your leisure.

>
>* WINDOWS 2000 SP2
>
> Patch NOT Found MS02-001 Q311401
> File C:\WINNT\system32\advapi32.dll has an invalid checksum
>and its  file version is equal to or less than what is expected.

FYI, this is a disclaimer of sorts. They're not saying the patch isn't
installed, they're saying that this file should be different if the patch IS
installed.

>
> Patch NOT Found MS02-013 Q300845
> File C:\WINNT\system32\msjava.dll has an invalid checksum and
>its  file version is equal to or less than what is expected.
>
> * INTERNET EXPLORER 5.5 SP2
>
> Information
> All necessary hotfixes have been applied.
>
>
>would somebody kindly like to interpret whether or not my
>win2000 is okay?

Probably, but go get those patches and install 'em anyway.

Any time you see a 'Q' number you can type that number, as is, in the
address bar of Internet Explorer, and it will take you to that Microsoft
article. Just learnt that yestiddy. Those articles will describe what each
patch fixes. If you're not absolutely certain they DON'T apply, just patch
'em in (unless you have the time to learn Windows security, in which case,
you can just apply the ones that you need ;)

>
>these patches that it didn't find -- how come it didn't find them?
>

Because the latest version is outdated about 3 days after it's released.

If you run the Windows Update regularly, you should be good to go. There's a
subscription service to e-mail you every time there's a new Windows security
patch (I get them, no kidding, about three times a week) but I think that's
overkill for a home user. Windows Update should do the trick.

With your antivirus, make sure it's set up to auto-update. If your annual
license has expired, Symantec (Norton) will make you either renew it (about
$4US) or install the virus updates manually.)

If you ever wanna discuss a new tool before you try it out, I'm right here
:)

joel