[ad#ad2-left]In my Previous article I talked about how you could be in the Beta, and I just checked this morning. It looks like they took that article down. I don’t know if they are changing it around or what but it will be. I hope they fix this soon. I would like to start testing this on my Virtual Machine first before I install it on my real machine!! I will update this when they do get it up and running.
Beginning Thursday Dec. 4th, we will be making the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta available to everyone through a Customer Preview Program (CPP). The CPP will launch on TechNet and be available to anyone interested in trying out this service pack. The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack.
[Via Technet]
[ad#ad2-right]Yes you heard right, you can get into the Beta of Vista SP2 and not have to wait till April. Some things to remember:
Some of the changes that they are going to incorporate into Sp2 are support for new types of hardware and emerging standards that will grow in importance in the coming months. The complete list of changes can be found here. I will be testing this out sometime this weekend to give it a full thorough check out. I will give a report later on this month possibly first part on January I would like to give it a complete test. To test it out yourself, check out this link for directions on how to download it.
[ad#digg-right]This is another Virus that is going around and thought I’d tell you about it:
Spyware.ISpyNow monitors files, network traffic, and keystrokes. This Spyware gives the person who installed it a Web-based interface with summaries of logged information on the host computer.
[Via Symantec]
[ad#ad2-left]Now this one isn’t to hard to figure out what happened. You have to manually install it on your system to get infected. Symantec has a great way on uninstalling this annoyance. I also suggest checking out my other program list just in case you don’t want to buy Symantec Anti-Virus programs. Some other things to check out is:
This is just the beginning in getting your system clean. You have to keep all you programs up to date and one way I do that is with Appsnap. This little program keeps you programs up to date from Virus to Firewall. I hope this helps people prevent and control spyware.
[ad#ad2-left]On F-secure blog they talk about this rogue antispyware.
OK, so let’s say the user (by some stroke of luckless chance, or courtesy of a trojan downloader) ends up with the demo installer of Rogue:W32/VirusRemover2008.C on their hands and it runs
[via F-Secure]
According to them, they have many different version of this rogue antispyware. They have de, dk, es, fr, it, no, nl, and no, which are all attempting for you to buy this no so Virusremover2008 software. They talk about how it tells you have a 9 infected viruses and that you need to remove them, but in truth, they use a text file to create this lie. Check out all the details for further information.
An update rollup is available for the Microsoft Windows Imaging Component (WIC) in Windows Vista or in Windows Server 2008. This update rollup resolves the problems that are documented in the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
954708 An update to add support for the serialization of complex Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data types in the Windows Imaging Component945060 There may be inconsistencies in the Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) and Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) values for an image file in Windows Vista and in Windows XP
The Windows Portable Device (WPD) API collects and transfers Software Quality Metrics (SQM) data to Microsoft servers. The SQM data is collected only on an opt-in basis through the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program. An update is available that disables the collection and transfer of SQL data to Microsoft servers.
This update affects Windows Vista-based computers, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)-based computers, and Windows Server 2008-based computers that are in the Microsoft Windows Media Player Customer Experience Improvement Program.
On a Windows Vista-based computer or on a Windows Server 2008-based computer, you install a third-party Web browser. You set the third-party Web browser as the default Web browser. Then, you run the Connect to the Internet Wizard. However, if you select the Browse the Internet now option, Windows Internet Explorer starts instead of the third-party Web browser that you set as the default Web browser.
[ad#ad2-right]This seems to be not so important. All of these are not really security related but it does surprise me that Microsoft wanted to release these out of Cycle. If your planning on using your Vista laptop during the holidays you might want to update your vista machine before you go. I don’t think there is going to be any major issues with this but if there is, you can always remove these updates later.
