Disinfecting a PC… part 9

Ok - about 22 or 23 critical updates for Windows ME. I'm suspecting it's never visited the Windows update site. While it's going I make sure that the adware scanners and antivirus scanner get to pull updates from the web as well. It's also time to scan for running network services that shouldn't be running. It may be a dialup machine, but we don't want UPNP listening over the connection.

There are three utilities I like to make use of from www.grc.com - Shoot the messenger, dcombobulator and the upnp fix. All are small quick downloads. In each case instead of "patching" a problem it disables the service which adds nice peace of mind against future vulnerabilities. Of course, the messenger service in ME is not what "shoot the messenger" is designed for.

Dcombobulator essentially closes port 135, and the upnp fix closes port 5000.

Also along the way I install Mozilla Firefox 1.5 for a good alternative browsing option.

More updates, reboot several times due to updates that must come one at a time.... The system is starting to look pretty good as far as stability, items running at boot and now updates. I'm not quite done yet.