Win XP Service Pack 2 - Guide-Tips-How-To'sFollow

Yes I am overly paranoid, but its better safe then sorry. And I hope some of you find this information valuable.

SOFTWARE MAKER Microsoft has put the automatic delivery of its SP2 super-patch on hold for another nine days. Yesterday SP2 for Windows XP was supposed to be placed on an automatic upgrade and be delivered.

Currently the following games do not function correctly on XPSP2

Chess Advantage III: Lego Chess
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition
Midnight Outlaw: Illegal Street Drag 1.0
Scrabble 3.0
Star Trek StarFleet Command III 1.0

I am spending today testing it in my at-work network environment and will try it on my beta box at home tonight with SWG to see how it goes.

Microsoft themselfs said too many customers were not ready to deploy the 250Mb upgrade. There is a tool to block automatic delivery of SP2 available here if you wish to stop it from
automatically updating ...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8bce6bba-ea5d-4425-89c1-c1cb1ccd463c&DisplayLang=en

Some programs and games must receive information over the network. The information enters your computer through an inbound port. For (the new SP2) Windows Firewall to permit this information to enter, the correct inbound port must be open on your computer manually as the firewall is automatically enabled by default on install.

SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO INSTALL THIS MAY HELP IF PROBLEMS ARISE

==-- HOW TO --==

--== Enable programs by using Windows Firewall ==--
If you do not click Unblock the program in the Security Alert dialog box, the program continues to be blocked. To enable a program by using Windows Firewall, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type wscui.cpl in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Click Windows Firewall.
3. In the Windows Firewall dialog box, click the Exceptions tab, and then click Add Program.
4. In the Add a Program dialog box, either select the program from the list that appears, or click Browse to locate your program. If you cannot locate your program, see the next section.
5. After you select your program, click OK.
6. On the Exceptions tab, make sure that the check box next to your program is selected, and then click OK.

Note --> Wscui.cpl is the new "Windows Security Center", installed with SP2
Note --> If you later decide that you do not want the program to be an exception, clear this check box.

==-- HOW TO TWO (har har) --==

--== Identifying and opening ports ==--
If your program still does not seem to work after you add the program to the list of exceptions, or if you cannot locate the program in step 4 of the previous section, you can open a port manually. Before you can add a port or ports manually, you have to identify the ports that are used by the program. A reliable method for identifying the ports that are used by the program is to contact the vendor. If you cannot do this, or if a list of ports that are used by the program is not available, you can use Netstat.exe to identify the ports that are used by the program.
Identify ports by using Netstat.exe

To use Netstate.exe to identify the ports that are used by a program, follow these steps:
1. Start the program in question and try to use its network features. For a multimedia program, try to start an audio stream.
For a Web server, start the service.
2. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
3. Obtain a list of all listening ports. To do this, type the following at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
netstat –ano > netstat.txt
4. Obtain the process identifiers for the processes that are running. Type the following command at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
tasklist > tasklist.txt

Note --> If the program in question is running as a service, add the /svc switch to list the services that are loaded in each process:
tasklist /svc > tasklist.txt
5. Open Tasklist.txt and locate the program that you are troubleshooting. Note the process identifier for the process.
6. Open Netstat.txt and note any entries that are associated with that process identifier. Also note the protocol that is used (TCP or UDP).
The number of ports that the process uses may affect how this issue is resolved:
* If the process uses more than 1024 ports, the number of ports probably will not change.
* If the process uses less than 1024 ports, the program may be using a range of ports. Therefore, opening individual ports may not reliably resolve the issue.

==- HOW TO THREE -==

Open ports manually by using Windows Firewall

If you cannot identify the ports that are used by the program, you can open a port manually. To identify the specific port number to open, contact the product vendor or see the product user documentation. After you identify the port number that you want to open, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type wscui.cpl in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Click Windows Firewall.
3. On the Exceptions tab, click Add Port.
4. In the Add a Port dialog box, type the number of the port that you want to open in the Port number box, and then click either TCP or UDP.
5. Type a name for the port, and then click OK. For example, type GamePort.
6. To view or set the scope for the port exception, click Change Scope, and then click OK.
7. On the Exceptions tab, notice that the new service is listed. To enable the port, click to select the check box next to the service, and then click OK

For additional information about configuring Windows Firewall view this article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=875357

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Admin Edit: shame on you for skewing the page!

Edited, Fri Aug 20 10:36:40 2004 by Darkflame