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kevin wrote: > > I advise all Windoze users to Switch off updates for just this reason. I strongly feel you do them a disservice with this advice. The rate of infection for older unpatched Windows boxes is so high every email server on the planet is daily bombarded with thousands of attempts to send dodgy emails from crooks who control networks of many tens of thousands of PCs, many infected because people hadn't run Windows update yet. Sure updating carries a slight risk, but for Microsoft Windows this risk is far less than not updating for almost all users. Windows update is also used to distribute fixes for current threats, otherwise it is merely a monthly update. Microsoft's security team have the advantage of receiving information from threats to a large number of Windows users. They don't schedule updates lightly, as can be seen from the large number of bugs they don't fix. They will update out of schedule if they consider the threat sufficient. They do, unlike us, have the information available to make this assessment, and the time available to dedicate to analysing it appropriately. Microsoft offer Free unlimited technical support for running Windows update. It is harder to make this call for other operating systems purely on the basis of security, but I for one have spent too much of my life discovering bugs that have already been fixed to want to waste any more time doing it than necessary. For that fully patched Debian boxes meet my own expectations nicely. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html