XP decay

Probably we have arugued a lt on M$ Patches and the price user pays for these....or otherwise...this article is an addition to it...It highlights the problems faced after patching the system and launches a very good question :

"I got to wondering whether or not anyone at Microsoft or anywhere else actually knows how these patches work. Are these fixes just huge blocks of code that replace other huge blocks of code? Are they true patches or are they module replacements? "

and moreover we need to ponder over the analomies we face after patching our system. Still we need to look into what is M$ doing regarding patches....the site posted by thehorse13 which lists the unpatched holes in IE...which can be easily exoploited to install malware..infact of the sites on net has links to such pages which install malware in the background using these unpatched exploits....so what the M$ thinks its upto???

And more importantly what is the alternative with us if we are to leave this patching system...

Ok no more from read the article here : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1304370,00.asp

This article is XP centreic and highlights the problems in XP after patching.

I've been running 2000 for about 3 years now. I patch it every week if patches are available for it, and have never had a problem yet. The security guru at my college applies patches and ghosts every desktop in the school every week, all running XP, and they never have any problems. Anybody who tells you not to patch your system because it might be a little unstable after the fact is on crack. I was hit with Blaster 3 days after an update. In less than three minutes it infected 94 files. Consider the alternative.

As far as I know, MS patches the source code and recompiles the affected module in order to patch thier systems.

I have to confer, at my job, my System Admin aplied the MS039 and that droped like 3 of the systems on the Network. So that is an instance.

I have just seen to many times that the Patches eitther don't do what they are suppose to or don't do anything at all. I personnally will only install a patch after I try it out, on a BS box of mine to make sure it doesn't crash anything, I also wait to see if anything, adverse is said about that Paticular patch.

On a different note.

Striek how many post do you have, your Profile says I think 112, and your Screen shows, 97.
Just curious, and the fact that you have no, Status.

Well that was my 2 cents

We have been maintaining the XP and 2K criticals all along on the desktops and servers. Since we are almost entirely one vendor on the hardware side, we have few oddities to deal with, but have only had a couple instances where patches applied have caused a problem. That is a risk in any system, though.

That, of course, is why Microsoft recommends patching in a test environment. We don't have the luxury of a test environment ($$ are tight), but we are careful to run patches when we can quickly respond to problems.

There is another aspect of the patching that needs to be considered. While keeping up with the criticals is important, it is also important to make sure you are keeping the rest of the system up to date. There are also Windows system updates and driver updates that should be done along with the critical security updates.

These also depend a lot on keeping up with vendor updates on firmware. Time marches on and things get improved, fixed or changed. Firmware and BIOS updates are on our list of things to do in server and desktop maintenance. Sometimes, these are required before we can successfully perform driver updates or system updates.

Try to take a whole-system view of the issue, and you will be more successful keeping the systems stable and running well.

When was the last time you flashed your BIOS, your SCSI controller, or your server backplane? Got redundant power supplies? Running a hardware based RAID?

I also find that a 20-minute downtime once every six months or a year when cards, memory and cables can be reseated and dust bunnies can be moved to new homes.

Hmmm... That's strange. I see 97 posts in my profile and under my name, but you are right, no status under my name. There were some recent hassles with my account, it might have something to do with it. The status tag doesn't show up in my profile, either. I guess I'll have to start another bug thread, dammt.

The company I work for has recently learned the value of keeping up with the updates and the problems that can be caused if things are constantly watched. We have never had any problems once the updates are installed but when not things can get very nasty! I would second the suggestion to always keep up to date on the lastest patches not only for the OS but for applications and hardware.