It sucks so hard - this project's almost 'fun' .. Base-Pressure must be about 5mm Hg.

OK, I gather that hardly anyone here (any one ??) actually Uses this abomination - not even at work, despite what the proles have to eat. What a few do, like Andrew - is bug-hunts appropriate to the perceived value of someone's endangered data. Then wash hands.

Maybe no one has even tried to methodically, duck-tape the holes, select out just-the-OS patches, nuke the plethora of Guest-related wide-open doors .?. in the STUPID AD-oriented (active dir.) config these mindless-oems actually peddle to the unwashed.

Lucky. You.


[To date / Boring same-old]
We've about assembled a 'SP3' collection of patches, hopefully all post-SP-2, mainly security-related as in, "presence of the common word, vulnerability." Ditto a checklist for the clever internal ways of masquerading as renamed 'Guest' amidst the confoundingly random-titled permissions menus: find that that's a frequent entry mechanism. Finally -- the sneaky Oz-built Process Guard, {as inhabits Ring-0 cha cha.} Add-ons: the usual assortment of watchers-After-the fact of invasion.

(Redmond, so-akin those other conmen in the news, seems to imagine that if they label enough disjointed menus 'Security' or 'Management' - it will look like it wasn't tacked-on the night before CD-pressing. They're RunningOutOf run-on words, though.)

The Beast also proudly announced that they aren't doing Roll-ups anymore for XP, doubtless for our comfort and security. But.. any bizness obv needs to do precisely this, on purchase of 1 or 100 new boxes, any old day. Even to burn images: the first one has to be fixed.

Where do You get that Rollup? Create it patch-by-patch, as we are? Is THAT how bizness wastes IT talent?? YPB. Whatever.. I now don't expect to find a script re All Those User Permissions -- not one that isn't biz-oriented; all about n+50 Groups, sub-groups, on up to fscking A.D.

The greatest time waster since Tee Vee. Tedium, menu-by-menu -- in the way that only Billy-speak can grate: first obfuscate, not-quite describe a function's consequences - all while condescending - in that sing-song Gatespeak; it's everywhere inside. He'd best pay his guard squadron well.

If it eats-self in 3 mos on neighbor's hi-speed - she'll just have to do 98SE too + dual-boot a *nix, to complement the Apple. Can't toss a 6 mo-old notebook.


But it'd be kinda fun, at that same warped juvenile-'fun' level where Billy lives - to see if we just might manage to keep this POS afloat sans RRR, for say Six Months?

well, the lesser transistorized-level anyway.

Thanks much, Greg - not only al-punte, but maybe all the way to a vetted, patched bootable! Image -- which I considered several stages down the pike!

Finding out (now) the drill from n-Lite (clearly akin to XP-Lite; 98-lite folk.) I expect it will become clear whether I must.. install the .NET framework thing from Beast, or can use their alternate.

Particularly copacetic appears to be the 'Windiz' site (UK), linked from n-Lite.
Are you using their patch triage via a F-Fox plug-in, or your own criteria, d/l-ing initially, direct from the Beast..?

Thus far I gather that Windiz [UK!! - sue 'em Over There, Bally; if you Can..] actually wade through the same stuff we've sloshed - selecting out actually relevant patches / omitting all aimed at modules we won't be installing (OE, IE, 'Messenger' and the like).

Seems necessary to be on hi-speed with actual target machine - as Windiz does an inventory on the O/S's patch state via their plug-in. Seems we can defer patch-install, so that all building is done off-line.

Whatever the criteria of Windiz - nothing to lose. I have only nominal confidence in my triage anyway; the very Titles are often misleading - especially re a patch's redundancy, with SP-2 installed. (And the prole auto-patch thing would drop in some IE or OE build in a trice, with no-asking.)


Love the built-in bootable-image button; looks as if one can do [what, apparently - you most often do with 'installs'?] -- pain&suffering only Once. Test, refine, burn - later, wipe/ re-image.. when the Registry suicides.

That's what I'd hoped to arrive at, eventually.


Mondiferous Appreciations,
I/us


Now, were there only a Group-free lock-down script extant; just a renamed-Admin + one minimal-access User == full automation.

Sounds a bit like my extraordinary luck with 98-lite; 4.8 years no-RRR and counting.
I browse carefully, too (and on dial-up .. fewer Dragons.)


You must have turned-off Lots, too.. I'm betting.

Thanks,

Ashton