Windows XP updates

[Paz]

[ozzy72]

Paz like you I haven't download the patches, from what I hear they slow your machine down, and make it easier for M$ to monitor your machine whenever you are online.
As long as you have good anti-virus software and a firewall you should be sound as a pound.

Ozzy

[Paz]

 I actually don't know anything about firewalls, how do they work and what product do you suggest?

[ozzy72]

XP has a built in firewall, but its pants (that is the politest thing I can call it).
There are a couple of good freeware firewalls available, or you can fork out, try downloads.com they normally have some good stuff, pay/share/freeware. This is the page you want http://download.com.com/3120-20-0.html? ... tg=dl-2001

Ozzy

[ATI_7500]

there's a program called "XP-antispy",where you can turn some of microsofts "spying applications" off.

[Paz]

 Thanks, I think I'll look into the firewall thing, and keep away from the updates, I was just reading again on one of the technical forums I visit about peoples machines acting funky after they installed the updates.
  Both of my XP machines run great right now, I don't want to do anything that will cause problems.

[Oso]

Lemme tell you a little story about a recent experiment. Bear in mind that I only have

900 Duron
512M Ram
64M vid card

I read a previous post here about one of the updates that slows Xp to a crawl. I uninstalled it and got dramatic improvement in my frame rates.

I had to reinstall XP for a different reason, so I got this brilliant idea. Dual boot with no updates or progs. I partitioned my HD, Installed XP on one and put all my stuff back on from my backup, progs, firewall etc.

On the other partition I installed XP - and did not get a single update - not one! I installed CFS3 and FS2k2 on this same partition. Nothing else. Nothing! Not one other prog - oops - one - Maxmem. BTW - if I go on the net I use the other XP.

Yes I know - no firewall - but I wanted to see what it would do.

In FS2k2 I have the USA Mesh, over 200 aircraft in my file, trees add-on, river texture add-on, water texture add-on, regions of the world buildings add-on.

I have the weather set with 4 thick layers of clouds and thunderstorms with heavy rain. The lowest layer is at 15K ft.

All sliders are set at the max. I am now running at 23-38 fps. As long as I stay below 13K feet. If I get up to 15k ft the cloud details slow me to 8 or 10 fps. I can live with that - on clear days I can go as high as I want - my choice. I can turn some sliders down - stay low - or have a clear sunny day  - or put the clouds at 45k ft.  ;D

[BFMF]

I run WinXP, but i've stayed clear of any updates