SP2 and XP Home, McAfee, Wisdom Requested!

[Margaret Wilson]

A friend has a Gateway PC (somewhat new Celeron, 384MB RAM), which is
running XP Home edition with no service packs, though she's been installing
Windows critical updates regularly. Her kids use this machine for net
browsing, email, etc., and so it's become full of spyware. I installed
Ad-Aware 6.0, SpyBot 1.3 and Spyware Blaster 3.2, and the machine is
relatively clean now, though I have some more work to do on it. She's also
running a McAfee product which appears to have a firewall in addition to
antivirus. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check out the machine
(yet), and I'm not a fan of McAfee products, so I'm not exactly sure what I
will end up doing to get the machine running cleanly again. But I do have
some questions before I proceed further:

1. Will I need to install XP SP1a prior to installing SP2? My guess is
no, that I can install SP2 on top of the base OS (once the machine is
properly cleaned up).

2. It seems that this McAfee product (sorry I don't know exactly what the
PC's running) has a lot of processes. Are there any "gotchas" I should look
out for with McAfee software and SP2?

So far I've installed SP2 successfully on two WinXP Pro SP1a machines, but
I've maintained both myself, and so they're in good runnning order (no
spyware, etc.). The first machine is a member of a domain and runs CA's
ETrust 7.0 antivirus as well as BlackICE PC Protection. The second machine
is not a domain member and runs Panda Titanium Antivirus as well as
BlackICE. On both machines, I've turned off the antivirus and firewall
prior to installing SP2, and then I've disabled Windows firewall prior to
re-enabling BlackICE and my antivirus software. It's been smooth sailing
with these machines, but as I said, they are maintained regularly, and I was
able to make a Ghost image prior to installing SP2. With my friend's
machine, I won't be able to make a Ghost image, and I know it's got issues
that I'll need to resolve before I install SP2.

Anyway, all tips much appreciated!

Regards,

Margaret

 

[Rock]

A friend has a Gateway PC (somewhat new Celeron, 384MB RAM), which is
running XP Home edition with no service packs, though she's been installing
Windows critical updates regularly. Her kids use this machine for net
browsing, email, etc., and so it's become full of spyware. I installed
Ad-Aware 6.0, SpyBot 1.3 and Spyware Blaster 3.2, and the machine is
relatively clean now, though I have some more work to do on it. She's also
running a McAfee product which appears to have a firewall in addition to
antivirus. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check out the machine
(yet), and I'm not a fan of McAfee products, so I'm not exactly sure what I
will end up doing to get the machine running cleanly again. But I do have
some questions before I proceed further:

1. Will I need to install XP SP1a prior to installing SP2? My guess is
no, that I can install SP2 on top of the base OS (once the machine is
properly cleaned up).

2. It seems that this McAfee product (sorry I don't know exactly what the
PC's running) has a lot of processes. Are there any "gotchas" I should look
out for with McAfee software and SP2?

So far I've installed SP2 successfully on two WinXP Pro SP1a machines, but
I've maintained both myself, and so they're in good runnning order (no
spyware, etc.). The first machine is a member of a domain and runs CA's
ETrust 7.0 antivirus as well as BlackICE PC Protection. The second machine
is not a domain member and runs Panda Titanium Antivirus as well as
BlackICE. On both machines, I've turned off the antivirus and firewall
prior to installing SP2, and then I've disabled Windows firewall prior to
re-enabling BlackICE and my antivirus software. It's been smooth sailing
with these machines, but as I said, they are maintained regularly, and I was
able to make a Ghost image prior to installing SP2. With my friend's
machine, I won't be able to make a Ghost image, and I know it's got issues
that I'll need to resolve before I install SP2.

Anyway, all tips much appreciated!

Regards,

Margaret

No, SP2 can be installed without SP1. The system needs to be clean
though and working properly or there could be problems. Don't know
about McAfee...don't use it.

 

[Steve Colburn]

A friend has a Gateway PC (somewhat new Celeron, 384MB RAM), which is
running XP Home edition with no service packs, though she's been installing
Windows critical updates regularly. Her kids use this machine for net
browsing, email, etc., and so it's become full of spyware. I installed
Ad-Aware 6.0, SpyBot 1.3 and Spyware Blaster 3.2, and the machine is
relatively clean now, though I have some more work to do on it. She's also
running a McAfee product which appears to have a firewall in addition to
antivirus. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check out the machine
(yet), and I'm not a fan of McAfee products, so I'm not exactly sure what I
will end up doing to get the machine running cleanly again. But I do have
some questions before I proceed further:

1. Will I need to install XP SP1a prior to installing SP2? My guess is
no, that I can install SP2 on top of the base OS (once the machine is
properly cleaned up).

2. It seems that this McAfee product (sorry I don't know exactly what
the PC's running) has a lot of processes. Are there any "gotchas" I
should look out for with McAfee software and SP2?

So far I've installed SP2 successfully on two WinXP Pro SP1a machines, but
I've maintained both myself, and so they're in good runnning order (no
spyware, etc.). The first machine is a member of a domain and runs CA's
ETrust 7.0 antivirus as well as BlackICE PC Protection. The second
machine is not a domain member and runs Panda Titanium Antivirus as well
as BlackICE. On both machines, I've turned off the antivirus and firewall
prior to installing SP2, and then I've disabled Windows firewall prior to
re-enabling BlackICE and my antivirus software. It's been smooth sailing
with these machines, but as I said, they are maintained regularly, and I
was able to make a Ghost image prior to installing SP2. With my friend's
machine, I won't be able to make a Ghost image, and I know it's got issues
that I'll need to resolve before I install SP2.

Anyway, all tips much appreciated!

Regards,

Margaret

I just did this for a woman at work. Take her WinXP disk home, slipstream
SP2. Then take her system and do a compete clean install. If it is that
full of "junk", then this is the best way to get that puppy clean. With the
SP2 slipstreamed you get a good system to start off with.

Then reinstall her copy of McAfee, and any other apps she wants.

I too don't know much about the internals of McAfee, except that they make
great products.

Steve
OldManCompute

 

[Dick Kistler]

A friend has a Gateway PC (somewhat new Celeron, 384MB RAM), which is
running XP Home edition with no service packs, though she's been installing
Windows critical updates regularly. Her kids use this machine for net
browsing, email, etc., and so it's become full of spyware. I installed
Ad-Aware 6.0, SpyBot 1.3 and Spyware Blaster 3.2, and the machine is
relatively clean now, though I have some more work to do on it. She's also
running a McAfee product which appears to have a firewall in addition to
antivirus. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check out the machine
(yet), and I'm not a fan of McAfee products, so I'm not exactly sure what I
will end up doing to get the machine running cleanly again. But I do have
some questions before I proceed further:

1. Will I need to install XP SP1a prior to installing SP2? My guess is
no, that I can install SP2 on top of the base OS (once the machine is
properly cleaned up).

No, SP1a is included in SP2. If you think that SP2 is big, wait until sp3.

2. It seems that this McAfee product (sorry I don't know exactly what
the PC's running) has a lot of processes. Are there any "gotchas" I
should look out for with McAfee software and SP2?

I am running McAfee Antivirus 8.0 on 2 computers with SP2 installed. I have
had no problems updating or scanning(either single files or whole system).
I don't run McAfee firewall. Make sure you shutdown AV and firewall before
you install. Yes, McAfee does start a lot of processes.

So far I've installed SP2 successfully on two WinXP Pro SP1a machines, but
I've maintained both myself, and so they're in good runnning order (no
spyware, etc.). The first machine is a member of a domain and runs CA's
ETrust 7.0 antivirus as well as BlackICE PC Protection. The second
machine is not a domain member and runs Panda Titanium Antivirus as well
as BlackICE. On both machines, I've turned off the antivirus and firewall
prior to installing SP2, and then I've disabled Windows firewall prior to
re-enabling BlackICE and my antivirus software. It's been smooth sailing
with these machines, but as I said, they are maintained regularly, and I
was able to make a Ghost image prior to installing SP2. With my friend's
machine, I won't be able to make a Ghost image, and I know it's got issues
that I'll need to resolve before I install SP2.

I would go to extraordinary measures to get the machine cleaned out before
starting to install SP2. Malware appears to be the reason for at least some
bad
installs. There are some sites that also recommend that you run AV,
Anti-Spyware,
erase temp files, run disk cleanup, scandisk, defrag. SP2 makes its own
backup
of the files it replaces, and also makes a system restore point. But
additional
backups of your data at least are warranted. If you can image, good, but
it's
probably overkill.

You should shutdown as many running programs as possible during the install.
This includes as many of the system tray programs as possible, including
Antivirus
and Firewall. Also I installed, rebooted, set security settings, then
rebooted again before
starting any other programs. Might have been overkill.

However, if you have had experience on 2 computers already, you're getting
pretty close to being an expert yourself.

By the way, I've seen some posts that SP2 will not let E-Trust AV 7 update.
Have you observed this problem?

Dick Kistler

 

[Margaret Wilson]

E-Trust AV 7.0 is updating just fine. But I've disabled the Windows
firewall, since I run BlackICE.

Regards,

Margaret

 

[Dick Kistler]

E-Trust AV 7.0 is updating just fine. But I've disabled the Windows
firewall, since I run BlackICE.

Regards,

Margaret

Thanks, not a real issue with me. I use E-Trust AV, but on a ME machine.
However, I advise others, and E-T AV is common because Roadrunner
offers it as freebie with their cable network.

Their firewall is an OEM version of ZoneAlarm, so it ought to be OK.
(version is 4.5.485, I think, so it is before the current ZA problems)

Dick