Meztiso

On the chance that it may beof some value, I recently picked up a valuable lesson while doing an on-site service call, and thought I would share on the chance that it may help someone else.

Customer's Win2000 machine was so infected with malware that it lost interent connectivity. Ran sfc /scannow as a last resort to a repair install. Got interent connected and then discovered that with the system files all "reset" to the version on the O/S disk (SP1 or thereabouts) the system was "wide open" vulnerable to malware when reconnected to the interent. To the extent that the malware installed itself faster than I could download the Windows Updates to protect it (to include gobs of pop-ups, etc...).

The system ground to a virutual halt.

I've done a couple slipstreamed Win2000 disks, and so happened to have the stand-alone SP4 executable on-hand, which allowed me to bring the O/S back to a certain "update" level, which really saved the day as the download speed of the customer's computer was quite slow. What I didn't have was the SP4 "rollup" (stand-alone) executable, but after I got home I added that to my "bag of tricks" as well.

Lesson:

Keep as many (and as recent-updated as possible) these "stand alone" updates on-hand as possible, so as to save the time it takes to download & install them via the interent. Also, in case interent connection is not possible.

Thinking about having a slipstreamed O/S disk available to run "sfc" with and wonder if that will work to bring an outdated O/S up to "current". Also, wondering what effect running a repair install using a slipstreamed disk will have, if the original O/S is outdated.

8210GUY

I don't run a business, but I help a lot of friends with their machines, and TBH I would NEVER go online without a minimum of a firewall installed first, then you should be safe to get all the files you need, but I always carry round disks with all the latest protection (I use CD-RW for that to save on disks) and the latest releases of Autopatcher, that way if someone is on dial up then I don't wait forever for massive downloads to finish before I can do anything, if you have never heard of Autopatcher it has all the latest updates and a few tweaks etc in a single package, saves updating online.