Microsoft to Release 6 Security Updates Next Week 123
An anonymous reader wrote in with an article that leads: "Microsoft will release six groups of security patches next week, including three critical updates for Windows and Excel users. The critical updates will fix bugs in many different versions of Microsoft's products including the latest versions of Excel, Windows XP, Vista and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said."
well thank god (Score:5, Funny)
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Bring on the news! (Score:5, Insightful)
They have released this quantity of patches before...
Often...
This is like walking outside and exclaiming in surprise, "Look everybody! There's still air out here!!!"
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No way. (Score:1)
Anyway, now we have an *entire* week to speculate about how this amazing event will turn out, a la iPhone.
Re:Best Line from the Article: re: online criminal (Score:2)
Man bites dog is news? (Score:1, Funny)
Hmmmn (Score:2, Interesting)
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If that were true then it wouldn't be done. If it weren't being done then everyone in an office would need their own public IP to connect to the net? It's a benefit to be able to firewall traffic at one point rather than doing the same checks on every machine as well.
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Re:Hmmmn (Score:4, Informative)
Just because a PC has a public IP doesn't mean you don't need a firewall or router. It doesn't mean you'd be doing all your firewalling on the individual PCs. You'd still route your traffic through a central box and do your checks there instead of on every machine.
I'm not going to say NAT is completely bad all the time. It's a handy little hack. But that's exactly what it is - a hack to keep IPv4 alive. And doing away with NAT would eliminate a lot of headaches that cramming dozens of PCs into one public IP address has created. Of course...we'd get other headaches in exchange... But nothing is perfect.
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Once and for all NAT firewall (Score:3, Informative)
Let's help the subbys and editors with this chore. (Score:5, Funny)
(Slashdot Standard Form #97)
Microsoft will release [$COUNT] security patches
[ ] Today
[ ] Tomorrow
[ ] Next Week
[ ] When they goddam say so
Including [$NUMCRITICAL] critical updates for
[ ] Windows
[ ] XP
[ ] 2000
[ ] Server 2000
[ ] Server 2003
[ ] Vista
[ ] Linux (..sorry, just kidding!)
[ ] Word
[ ] Excel
[ ] Access
[ ] PowerPoint
[ ] Bob
[ ] Internet Explorer
[ ] Outlook
[ ] Outlook Express
[ ] Exchange
[ ] DOS 6.22
[ ] All of the above
A spokesperson said "We take a very serious view of or responsibilities to ensure that the Microsoft computing experience is safe and secure for all our valued customers - and these updates show our commitment to that goal"
When what they really meant to say was...
[ ] Fsck, we just found some more stuff we missed during beta testing.
[ ] We never thought someone would try THAT
[ ] Yeah, we were kinda hoping we could keep that one quiet but then some geeky, long-haired nerd had to go and post about it on teh Internets.
Re:Let's help the subbys and editors with this cho (Score:5, Funny)
This doesn't affect me because I run
[] OSX
[] Linux
[] Multix
[] CP/M
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That's right the mascara snake
You forgot that everybody here uses (Score:2)
Re:Let's help the subbys and editors with this cho (Score:1)
See? That's why I run:
[ ] Linux
[ ] Mac OS X
[ ] OpenBSD
[ ] FreeBSD
[ ] NetBSD
[ ] Darwin
[ ] Herd (not yet implemented)
[ ] Windows, but without administrator priveleges
Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if stupid users wouldn't:
[ ] Open attachments
[ ] Click on every popup offering malware
[ ] Install P2P software for Windows
[ ] Surf untrusted sites
[ ] Download 'porn viewers'
[ ] Always click 'Ok' or 'Allow'
[ ] All of the above
This is why people need to run:
[ ] A good NAT hardw
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Also, if you have DOS 6.22 you ought to have Win9Xs, too. At least (ugh) WinME.
And UNIX proper.
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I am no windows programmer, but I always wondered, if you were going to make some malware program, couldn't you map the OK button to cancel and the cancel button to OK? That way if the user tries to press cancel they end up running whatever code you wanted them to. I am probably missing something here because if that was possible it would probably be done already.
Why is this news again? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, Christ, it's almost like everyone here hates Microsoft or something!
Wait a minute....
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Secretly? No... But my job forces me to deal with Windows far more than I like. And then there's three Windows gaming systems at home...
See my above statement. By the time I get home from dealing with buggy Windows machines all day long the last thing I want to do is deal with more Windows issues at home...which is why I'm running Linux for my primary machine. But we're a family of
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Of couse, one could argue that Microsoft releases patches just about every Tuesday. Just expect to have higher than average traffic on your helpdesk come Wednesday morning.
I have t
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Because Vista [slashdot.org] doesn't have security problems.
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Anyway, given MS's market share, patches to Windows *are* a bigger deal, newswise, than patches to other systems.
Ok and... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot all the news about iPhone and patches that you have ever dreamed of....
This is just great! (Score:4, Interesting)
When I start Windows Update it informs me that it needs updating. Attempting to do so leads to a carped update with some error code. In short: Without the "improved" version of the software no more Windows update for me and since getting the "improved" version fails to install in the first place...
This seems to be a known problem for which there doesn't ssem to be a fix yet. And no! Re-installing the OS is not and option since this toasts my Ubuntu partition.
Microsoft is a company that pisses me off more and more on a daily basis. Thank you for listening.
VMware or Qemu (Score:3, Interesting)
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Any other nice (free) alternatives?
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This is why I won't deal with Windows at home anymore. Ok, only 5 steps, but that's 4 too many.
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And sure, reinstalling windows would make your Linux inaccessible, but a simple grub reinstall (or alternatively using ntldr to boot linux) isn't too tough...
TheUni
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http://windizupdate.62nds.com/ [62nds.com]
Thank you, everybody (Score:2)
Re-installation is not an option because the restore DVD is totally binary. You can flatten the whole thing or not and I'm not inclined to obtain a dodgy pirate copy for a software I
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Yes, it pisses me off too, which is why I run windows under vmware these days
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Stop the BITS and Automatic Updates services and then delete (or rename) C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution. Then restart the BITS and Automatic Updates services.
Script:
You should also apply these updates if you haven't before:
/wuforce switch a
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927891 [microsoft.com]
Installing the WUA 3.0 with the
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Ah well; thanks anyway
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Patch Tuesday = no work for an hour or two (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not the sharpest tool in the box.
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WSUS did work fine, you don't need WSUS to use MSI at all. MSI is just their package manager. As I've said, I had WSUS 2 running for quite some time and never experienced the issue. It also didn't take them three months to fix the issue.
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However, there were several viable and working workarounds (mostly developed by the community).
And your "not logging off" variant does not work if you've configured the GPOs for the WU Client correctly...
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I would have to inquire as to why your IT department isn't managing the software updates across the LAN? What are they getting paid for, if not PC configuration management?
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On the other hand though, getting people to leave their machines on overnight is counter to alleged 'green' policies, and even if it's only once a month or even once a year, the culture of non-communication in the company makes it impossible to tell people to leave their machines on. I'm a contractor by
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Most computers I've seen in the last, well, decade allow you to set configuration options to power down hard drives, monitors, and the CPU(s) to conserve energy when the system isn't being used. Your power drain overnight on such a machine -- assuming it is properly configured -- should be minimal. Consequently, it would seem to me that the argument for
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
The sun will be rising in the east today and setting in the west. We will continue to cover this breaking news as more details come to light.
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Including what's that? (Score:2, Troll)
That's what I thought you said. At least now we know that moving from XP to Vista is not a security upgrade. So much for the oh so secure new OS, I'm sure it's worth every penny I saved not getting it.
I'm thinking about migrating to DOS 6.6. I have no idea how secure it is, but I'm pretty damn sure nobody's trying to exploit it.
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why is this news? (Score:2)
To those who have overconfidence about security. (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that we can rest easy on Linux Security. We must never for a moment think that even with Linux we are ever completely safe. As long as any computer has power to it, it has a security risk, but I'd like to present an alternative way of thinking about it.
Linux must not only be better in security, but better in capability.
I know that design wise, OpenLDAP/Kerberos/Samba/FreeRadius/AFS will produce a far more secure network infrastructure than Active Directory will. But that combination will not produce as capable an infrastructure as the real ADS. The worst security vulnerability Linux could have is the security vulnerability produced when an orginization chooses Active Directory on Windows over Open Directory on Linux.
If you want to change this, contribute to OpenLDAP, to Samba, to FreeRadius, and Kerberos. Lets make Open Directory not only more secure to Active Directory, but outright superior.
Ok (Score:1)
Which of these things, doesn't belong here... (Score:2)
"Excel, XP, Vista, Server 2003..."
I know, this shouldn't affect me, but it still boggles my mind (a little) that we need security updates for a SPREADSHEET APPLICATION. An OS? Server software? Sure. But Excel? It's a sad commentary on Microsoft's software that such a thing is necessary.
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That has nothing to do with Microsoft, anything that touches data that someone else generated can have a security vulnerability, which is almost everything you would ever want to run in this crazy internet enabled world of ours.
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That has nothing to do with Microsoft ...
I'm not so sure I agree. Why does a spreadsheet need to be able to run extensive VBA code?
VBA code has nothing to do with it (Score:2)
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Really? If I generate a spreadsheet of budget projections for a project, and I send it to my colleagues for review, there's absolutely no reason why they should have to worry about the file somehow pwning their PC. If my mother uses Excel for organizing names and addresses for my
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We have a fairly strong infrastructure of MATLAB, Excel, SQL, and Access (all working together) for handling incoming data, processing it, creating easy to read and edit reports with pretty charts for the CEO types, and finally storing it and analyzing it for future access.
We typically
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Nice assumptions. I'm not a "Microsoft hater" in the least. Like anything: when their software works, it works great.
Anyway, you said "Excel doesn't simply contain data. There are whole applications built around and through Excel. Excel can call .NET code, access SQL databases, and transfer/collect information over the web with the proper coding and tools." That is all very true -- for technically expert people. (I've worked on Excel/Access/internet integrated apps in the past.) For the vast majority o
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With power comes responsibility. In this case the responsibility is to make sure that things are secure. I tend to agree with you that the Office suite is extremely powerful and interoperates very well. With 2007 and SharePortal it is becoming even more useful for workflow/process automation kind of work. However the problem is that Microsoft focu
every app has this kind of bug (Score:2)
Something has to read the *.doc file. Reading files is not hard, unless you need to avoid crashing on corrupted documents. (crashing means exploitable)
Open up an OpenOffice file as a zip file. Look at the XML. Scramble it a bit. Zip it all up again. Watch OpenOffice crash. Write an exploit.
Why wait? (Score:2)
I thought Thursday was the slow news day? (Score:1)
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However... (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft *did* hire some of the best security experts available lately. And I can say it shows. At least now I feel not very scared to use IE when I have to.
Then of course, everyone loves "Free Games!!!11eleven", mushy-mushy desktop pets, free trial CDs, free money from your late uncle from central Boozemania or whatever. If your user account gets pwned, and your user has access inside the network of your company, you're toast no matter what OS you run.
Re:And ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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So if you're a sysadmin, this is not news--well, at least, this should not be news.
Second, if you're a sysadmin who administers many Windows machines and knowing the number of updates is somewhat important, then you should already know that Microsoft posts announce
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Because my software of choice that I use to create music and graphics does not run on Linux. Don't bother listing "alternatives" -- I know about them already and they aren't alternatives as long as I have to jump through hoops or have to give up what I use now.
Security is not an issue; I'm not running a virus or spyware scanner here because it steals away precious resources from my music software. Learning Linux is not even an issue; you'd have to conv
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