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Thank you. Those reg entries don't exist on this machine at this time. Didn't check before restart. The restart that would have removed them. After the installation of fix #2, but before restart, tapicust.dll was present at: C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$\KB982316\tapicust.dll C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$\KB982316\update\tapicust.dll C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB982316$\spuninst\tapicust.dll Your reg entries show the date of Hazelnut's post, "InstalledDate"="5/23/2017". I wonder why the dll is not present on your system since you did install the update? Also, if it was a 2010 update, why isn't it on this machine? Probably there is a good explanation that everybody else already knows. In any case, I guess I better reinstall that update permanently. Thing is, lately I don't trust microsoft much.

Andavari and other xp users, if I may ask, do you have a file in C:\ on your xp computer called tapicust.dll? When I ran that second fix from post 28 it installed that file. No restart required. If that is an old security update, then the file should be on most xp computers. It is gone from here as I had Powershadow running when I installed it.

Good grief. I threw my back out just watching it. :lol:

And still another slant on the situation. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-98-percent-of-all-wannacry-victims-were-using-windows-7/ Still the original post is MUCH appreciated. It was timely and necessary. All the talk at the time pointed to win xp, and I am sure glad to have patched this old box.

A bit different slant on the situation. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/16/microsoft_stockpiling_flaws_too/

Well, think again, Derek. Now there is a bluetooth salt shaker with mood lighting and music. An excellent companion for your IOT toothbrush and your Hapifork. I suppose we could link all those up to our IOT blood pressure cuffs. http://time.com/4773835/smalt-salt-shaker-bluetooth/ ...get in on the ground floor... http://www.mysmalt.com/

Good advice, thank you. Did so here on xp. First made an image backup & a registry backup. The patch was quick & easy like you said. One thing I was worried about was Powershadow, since it makes some changes deep in the boot sector on xp, but it is still working just fine. I saved those updates on a USB stick for easy transportation.

Thanks, Hazelnut. Got it. . . . Update for xp, wow.

That's the first thing I thought of. Almost replaced the arrow with the pear, but it would have smacked of plagiarism, so didn't do it.

Quite right. I had read your post. Still there are some on that list that run on newer OSs. And as ROCKNROLL pointed out, stand-alones are becoming rare.

You can also enable a startup rootkit scan in Avast v. 12.3.2280 ... runs at every startup. Below is a site with a bunch of rootkit softwares. You have probably already seen it, but if not, it's a good list. Wouldn't try any of them unless I had the system virtualized. Don't know enough about them to trust them. Can't speak well or ill of any of them, but I have tried Icesword, Rootkit Revealer, Sophos AntiRootkit, and Rootkit Unhooker. Didn't find anything here. Didn't do any damage here. (Win xp) http://www.antirootkit.com/software/

The little arrow at the bottom, that's us. Image of Saturn and Earth from the Cassini spacecraft. More where that came from. https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7321/ and https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/5916/

Nice one, Trium.

Sorry, never tried it that way.

I've been a computer user since before there was "windows", and only learned this sometime last year. True confession.

Trium, that agrees with my experience for LibreOffice and Apache Open Office. Sometimes there are fonts that don't work, and some of the things in the presentation software are different. In my former life I had to make presentations (powerpoints). We officially used microsoft, but I experimented some with the free alternatives and they would be OK. There are sometimes reasons to avoid doing one's work "in the cloud" so to speak, so that a standalone office suite is better Overall, there was enough compatibility with LibreOfice or Apache Open Office so they would work fine. I tried a couple of versions of Kingsoft office, finally gave it up. As I recall, it tried to phone home, it said free but had an expiration date, and it ran pretty heavy. That may all be changed by now. Just my 2 cents.

@ Noesis, I agree, the idea of an industry standard is not so important now. My reason for checking out these office suites is to find alternatives to microsoft products. They might soon become too expensive or too snoopy. 'Course, ya gotta remember, I still use word 97. Works great, by the way. Version 4.1.3 of Apache came out in October 2016. I have tried V. 4.1.2, it works well.

I have tried a few. Been a year of two. Two I remember as pretty good are Apache Open Office and LibreOffice. It's hard to beat microsoft office, mostly because it is now positioned as the "industry standard". And deservedly so. Its a very good office suite. But those two freebies produce documents and slide shows that are (mostly) compatible with ms office. If you want to check them out: Apache: http://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/ Edit: You might consider making an image file or a backup or something before installing, because every office suite I know of is huge and the installer is intrusive.

Same here. Just takes one time to mess things up. If all else fails, I'll shut down the computer then remove the device. Maybe too cautious, but still . . .

Well shucks, why didn't I think of that? No, don't answer that. Thank, Andavari, I will do so forthwith. Razz, I think that last quote, '"For tools that are meant for simple, quick actions . . .' is an oversimplification. Just my opinion. Probably one just has to try each one out.

I use portable browsers here on xp and 7. Other softwares also, but the browsers are always portable ones. Get them set up like I want them in "real" mode, and from then on they only run "shadowed". So if their config files get messed up, that is fixed after a restart. (one con of using a portable app) ... "one set of settings for each app, so they're not as appropriate for computers used by multiple people." Firefox portable runs from a folder in My Documents. It's called Firefox. If another user wanted a different set of parameters, I could set up separate folder. Might call them Firefox_Fred and Firefox_Ethel. One drawback might be disk space, its a big folder, about 226 mb.

Nice to see you back, 1884.

Thanks for that. No, haven't used win 7 very much to date but am starting to and am much encouraged what you say. I very much want to be able to shut down the computer and know that C: drive will revert to the state it was in when I logged on. Recently Hazelnut put me on Shadow Defender (paid). It works almost like Powershadow. Since then I have using win 7 more. You and she are right, win 7 is quite good. The reason I don't use it more is just laziness. It is soooo much easier to use an OS you are familiar with. Also, maybe a bit of stubbornness is at work, I wanted to prove the doomsday crowd wrong. That is, win xp will not burn your house down. I always suspected it, and the last few years seem to have proven it. Win 10 is just too snoopy to suit me, but it is installed on my family's computers and they like it. If it keeps itself clean and updated, that's good enough for me. Thanks for information. Great thing about this forum, folks will share and are not too judgemental.

I tried them with Powershadow running. Makes them easy to get rid of if they are no good. These are the notes I kept. Sorry, don't remember a thing beyond what I wrote then. my notes aug 2016 - phones out at install and startup - runs very heavy, about 81% of CPU - adds branding to beginning & end of vid ?? - no options about installation - CAREFUL has opencandy ?? - doesn't like wmv files - CAREFUL, installer has OpenCandy in terms of service agreement - outpost warns 3 times about phoneouts - CAREFUL Avast pops on "Freemake Audio Converter 1.1.8" the full version ?? my notes dec 2014: - CAREFUL, conduit toolbar

I do run Avast on win xp and win 7. Win 10 uses the native firewall and AV with MBAM. If I had constant access to it, I would run avast on it too.