installing latest Critical update on Windows XP

B

Bob Epstein

I just went to the update section and was told to
download the update to add a registry key to I believe
disable the adodb.stream so my computer would be safe
from a possible outside control of my computer. Here is
the introductory research that Im pasting here to
describe why this download is deemed necesary. Im quite
sure other users of XP have also received this and prob
is ok or else the update would not have been recommended
but here it is for someone to give me some much needed
help before I download it!!!

An ADO stream object represents a file in memory. The
stream object contains several methods for reading and
writing binary files and text files. When this by-design
functionality is combined with known security
vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer, an
Internet Web site could execute script from the Local
Machine zone. This behavior occurs because the
ADODB.Stream object permits access to the hard disk when
the ADODB.Stream object is hosted in Internet Explorer.

Here is more information:

MORE INFORMATION
Any line-of-business Web application that requires a file
to be loaded or to be saved to the hard disk may use the
ADODB.Stream object in Internet Explorer. For example, if
an intranet server hosts a form that an employee must
download and fill out, the ADODB.Stream object is used to
obtain the file and to save the file locally. After the
user edits the file locally and submits the file back to
the server, the ADODB.Stream object is used to read the
file from the local hard disk and to send the file back
to the server. We strongly recommend that you use
different methods to provide this functionality. For
example, you may use an application or a control that
requires the user to deliberately access the hard disk.
Now I dont know if the above paragraph applies to me
since Im not a business but the last thing the article
said was this:

After you apply the update, you will receive the
following error message when you try to use an ADO stream
object from an HTML page in Internet Explorer:

ActiveX component can't create object: 'ADODB.Stream'

If you are running an application in a corporate intranet
environment, and the corporate intranet environment
currently uses the ADODB.Stream object with Internet
Explorer, applying this update may cause the application
to break. To restore application functionality, Microsoft
recommends that you first set your Internet Explorer
browser security level to High, and then you must clear
the compatibility flag of the ADODB.Stream object. Now Im
not running an app in a corporate environment but my
question is if I do the download will I have trouble
using an ADO Stream object from certain HTML pages or
will I not have to worry about this. In other words will
I have any aggravation from any disabling features not
being able to use my computer to its full extent because
I certainly do not want any error messages to come up!!!
I dont pretend to understand most of this so I hope
someone can explain it to me and let me know if I can
download the update without fear of losing any
functionality on the computer especially when viewing
certain web pages. I trust someone understands all of
this and can help me as soon as possible. Thank you very
much!!!!
 
R

Roger Abell

If you do not do database development or have installed
applications that use IE as a frontend interface, then you
will likely only experience interception of attempts to
create Ado.Streams in cases where you would want them
to be intercepted/prevented.
 

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