OK, all you Internet Explorer and MS Office users, it's time for another round of updates to patch security holes. What I'm about to outline here is described more fully in Woody's Windows XP #2.32 (Aug. 27, 2000 - <www.woodyswatch.com/winxp/archtemplate.asp?2-n32>) and Woody's Office Watch #7.40 (see item #4)(Aug. 29, 2002 - <www.woodyswatch.com/office/archtemplate.asp?v7-n40>).
It's really a shame that you need to pay constant attention to all this to have a prayer of staying abreast of all these security issues. If anyone is not confused by the time you get to the end of this message, my hat is off to you. Please don't be shy about posting your questions to the list. WHAT IS BEING PATCHED: The security updates involve Internet Explorer and something within MS Office called "Office Web Components." Because of the way that IE and Office are intertwined, you need to patch both to be secure. Also, please note that for Internet Explorer, security updates are only available for IE 5.5 and IE 6.0, unless you have Windows 2000, in which case there is a patch for IE 5.01. Microsoft no longer supports earlier versions of Internet Explorer. This does not mean the older versions are safe, it means that you need to update if you want to be secure. Likewise, Microsoft no longer supports Office 97, so unless you have Office 2000 or Office XP, you're on your own. And while updating Internet Explorer is free, updating your version of Office costs real money. Fortunately, according to Woody's Office Watch, many of the security problems in Office 2000/XP do not exist in Office 97. HOW TO GET THE UPDATES: To update Internet Explorer, go to Windows Update (www.windowsupdate.com), and follow the directions to download and install all the "Critical Updates" for your system. (If you've never done this before, you're probably going to find a big chumjk of stuff to download.) If you do not already have IE 5.5 or IE 6 installed, you should download and install one of them first from Windows Update, then run Windows Update again to install additional critical updates. (To find out which version you have, open Internet Explorer, then click on Help > About Internet Explorer.) For the Office Web Components updates, if you have Office XP, the security fixes are included in the recently-released Office XP SP-2. To install SP-2, you first need to install SP-1. Office updates are available from <office.microsoft.com>. NOTE: Woody's recommends backing up your system before installing these updates - just in case. For Office 2000, you can download the Web Components update from <http://download.microsoft.com/download/office2000/Patch/owcupd/WIN98MeXP/EN-US/owcupd.exe>. Save the file to your hard drive, then double-click on it to install it. One last thing - to make sure the Web Components updates fully protect you, you need to make sure that you haven't told Internet Explorer to "Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation" in response to a request to install a program on your computer. For directions on how to check and undo this, see the Woody's Office Watch issue cited at the top of this message. Good luck, everyone! Jon Jonathan l Pine Tree Folk School RR 2, Box 7162 Carmel, ME 04419 (207)848-2433 <http://www.ptfolkschool.org> **Folkschool-list archives are at: <http://www.mint.net/folkschool/helpnet/archives.htm> Sponsored by Pine Tree Folk School ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84vzQ.a9gqS3 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
