I have a refurbished compaq computer with home edition xp software

[Bun Mui]

I have recently bought a refurbished compaq computer with home edition
xp software already installed on the computer.

How do I know if the current software on the computer is late enough
to
protect against MS blaster worm ?

How could I check? By version or date of the software, if so, where?

Thanks.

Bun Mui

[Norm]

Go to the windows update page and scan for updates, you can then decide what
to download.

"Bun Mui" > wrote in message
om...
> I have recently bought a refurbished compaq computer with home edition
> xp software already installed on the computer.
>
> How do I know if the current software on the computer is late enough
> to
> protect against MS blaster worm ?
>
> How could I check? By version or date of the software, if so, where?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Bun Mui
>

[Alex Nichol]

Bun Mui wrote:

>I have recently bought a refurbished compaq computer with home edition
>xp software already installed on the computer.
>
>How do I know if the current software on the computer is late enough
>to
>protect against MS blaster worm ?

Not easily to be certain. If you run regedit and look at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\Wind owsXP\SP1
and it has a sub-key Q823980
then the patch *has* been implemented. But it might have been protected
later by running a consolidated patch. If that key is not there, get
the patch anyway, to be sure.

First make sure the firewall is implemented - at Control Panel - Network
Connections right click on the connection used and take Properties - on
the Advanced page check the box to enable the firewall. With that done,
Blast can't get in. Then go to
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;823980#WinXP
and get the first Download Now link


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows - File Systems)
Bournemouth, U.K.