Wow, this reminds me of viruses that infect legitimate windows 2k/xp services set to load on startup, and are therefore loaded with full system access privileges.

Regarding the system directories, will setting admin-only access privileges on the WINNT directory deny non-admins to write to anything below WINNT, recursively, or will it only deny access to files already existing? I know it won't stop direct system-called writes (dunno if this is the correct term), but will it stop users? If so, it may be a way to reduce the risk of such a vulnerability.

Thanks for the info!

[edit]
Have you heard about Citrix Metaframe XP? It uses a terminal-server-like environment, and cheap dummy terminals can connect to the server--with only an ethernet wire, a little box the size of a couple pizza-pockets, and a mouse/keyboard/monitor. Amazing, and the overall cost savings, according to an ITS guy from a nearby hospital considering implementing this setup, is roughly 40%. I've seen somewhere an online demo of Metaframe, and it loads visio for people to try, but I can't for the life of me find the link. Hope this info is useful to someone.