It’s 9:02; do you know where your computer’s been?

So. I went to a client’s site this afternoon to set up several brand-new Power Mac G5 systems. Apple Cinema Displays, Adobe Creative Suite Professional, Quark 6, the works. Beautiful systems; I wish I had one.

And then the client asked me to look at his Windows XP laptop, because it’s been “acting funny.”

He has broadband at his house. He’s never run Windows Update.

It’s after 9:00 at night and I’m still here. Why am I still here? 1,524 copies of the W32/Bagle.z virus and counting. Plus about 6,000,000 Windows security updates that need to be installed. And did you know that Bagle blocks Windows Update from doing its job? Isn’t that lovely?

If you are reading this on a Windows computer, and you have never run Windows Update on your computer, you are infected with a virus. Or more likely, thousands of viruses. Yes, I mean YOU. Right now, the average life expectancy of an unpatched Windows box connected to the Internet is less than twenty minutes.

I could be at game night right now. I could be hanging out with cool people and playing Are You a Werewolf? But no.

18 thoughts on “It’s 9:02; do you know where your computer’s been?

  1. I’m so sorry! I’m sure that can commiserate after doing much the same on his sister’s PC. Unlike him at least you have the consolation of getting paid. Right?

    Maybe you can use this to convince the guy to get a TiBook instead….

  2. I’m so sorry! I’m sure that can commiserate after doing much the same on his sister’s PC. Unlike him at least you have the consolation of getting paid. Right?

    Maybe you can use this to convince the guy to get a TiBook instead….

  3. For added enjoyment, run Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Hijack This. Hopefully your AV software will be able to clean all the viruses out of Windows system executables, or you’ll be in the fun place where you can’t log in.

  4. For added enjoyment, run Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Hijack This. Hopefully your AV software will be able to clean all the viruses out of Windows system executables, or you’ll be in the fun place where you can’t log in.

    • I’m not sure that qualifies as Microsoft being “smarter” or not.

      I can understand Microsoft not wanting to support bootleg software, but at the same time an unpatched Windows box is a threat to everyone on the Internet, not just to the software pirate. I fact, it’s likely to cause more damage to everyone else than it causes to the pirate!

      If Microsoft wanted to do the right thing, they’d issue security patches to every copy of Windows, regardless of serial number, and just cut off access to non-security-related patches and upgrades for people with bootleg systems.

  5. Assuming that you have to install Windows at all, I’d suggest installing Windows 2k. I have yet to see a genuinely useful feature in XP that’s missing in 2k, I seem to get noticably higher frame rates with the exact same hardware as a friend running XP, and (to address your point) Windows Update for 2k doesn’t check serial numbers at all.

  6. Assuming that you have to install Windows at all, I’d suggest installing Windows 2k. I have yet to see a genuinely useful feature in XP that’s missing in 2k, I seem to get noticably higher frame rates with the exact same hardware as a friend running XP, and (to address your point) Windows Update for 2k doesn’t check serial numbers at all.

  7. I’m not sure that qualifies as Microsoft being “smarter” or not.

    I can understand Microsoft not wanting to support bootleg software, but at the same time an unpatched Windows box is a threat to everyone on the Internet, not just to the software pirate. I fact, it’s likely to cause more damage to everyone else than it causes to the pirate!

    If Microsoft wanted to do the right thing, they’d issue security patches to every copy of Windows, regardless of serial number, and just cut off access to non-security-related patches and upgrades for people with bootleg systems.

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