If you want to see choose custom

In both instances you get to a page called:

Genuine Windows Validation

That checks if your Windows Operating System is a licensed or pirated version. In case of running a pirated one, only security updates can be installed. Microsoft should be commended for this because it reduces the pain and risks for its customers since others, pirated versions would go unpatched, thereby possibly causing a nightmare for all law abiding and paying customers.

If you have disable Active X options or set your firewall to stop most traffic, you may get: Validation Incomplete: Unable to collect enough information about your PC to make a determination.

Reasons this PC Failed

Click on Continue

Please click Continue to complete the validation process. The system will then likely come back with a message similar to: The scan of your computer has completed and it appears that you are running genuine Windows. At this time we are unable to determine the manufacturer of your PC and in the future additional validation may be required. You may wish to verify that the PC manufacturer name that is printed on the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) matches the manufacturer of your PC.

No further action is required at this time to complete your validation. Please click Continue.

Afterwards you might be asked to reboot the machine and re-visit the site below:

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/RunHTA.aspx?displaylang=en&End=http%3a%2f%2fupdate.microsoft.com%2fmicrosoftupdate%2fv6%2fdefault.aspx&ReportSuccess=true&sGuid=891e9dd8-2f65-4c49-99a6-15692f68d010&referrer=default

To get the updates, another strategy is to go to Tidbit 3 below and just download the whole batch at once without having to go through all this validation process.

Microsoft prefers if customers use Automatic Updates, here no validation process is required enabling if non-licensed versions of Windows to get the critical security patches.  

After dowloading this 0.8 MB tool from Microsoft, it checks your computer onceif it is infected by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps you in removing any infection found.

If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month. If you want to manually run the tool on your computer, you can download a copy from the Microsoft Download Center or run an online version from microsoft.com. This tool is not a replacement for an anti-virus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an anti-virus product.

More information for this update can be found at Office updates    

What are the security reasons why I should not use the Automatic Update feature?

We can think of four good reasons why one would not want to choose the Automatic Update option:

Reason A) The patch itself may be flawed and may not do what it was intended to do. Being quick to download and install that patch (the benefit of Windows Update) is not always a good move. Microsoft has a long history of releasing patches (and software) that need more in-house testing. Those who adopt push patching will become inadvertent beta testers, and their systems will suffer (see the UK department) give link

B) Many updates (Microsoft and otherwise) can result in unknown conflicts with other system services, third-party software, or hardware. It is tough enough to deal with this when you discover it through in-house testing. Now consider how much worse it would be if all of your systems got a bad patch simultaneously, and it brought down a large portion of your mission-critical systems.

C) Someone at Microsoft might intentionally or accidentally insert destructive code or perhaps a back door into a patch that is pushed with Windows Update. Microsoft will say that this is farfetched and that it has many layers of protection designed to prevent this, but recall that Microsoft servers have been compromised internally in the past. Also, remember that just last spring, someone who claimed to work for Microsoft was able to obtain fraudulent digital certificates.

D) If a home user does not have a broadband Internet connection. Even if all the other objections raised above wer not true, consider how much downtime you will experience with periodic large downloads being forced into your PC.

Many Microsoft patches run into the megabytes. Since the download is a background task, this is not a problem if you have a huge pipe but if you run on a 56KB telephone line, a couple of multimegabyte downloads can seriously tie up a low-bandwidth connection.

Do you want to change the way Automatic Updates are handeld on your PC?

If you want to change your automatic update features you chose you can also get it from your System Tray, do the following:

Click on Start, Control Panel, then click on Automatic Updates and you have the same click up window again, Click auf Start, Systemsteuerung,

There are several ways to protect your machine better before going on the Internet. One is to get all updates (cumulative patches) from one of the two links below. They are all in one package, meaning you can burn them onto a CD or save them on a memory stick and than install them on your new machine.

Running SP2 on Your PC - Are You Sure? Quick Check Offered by Microsoft

SP2 was a big patch that was much about security for Windows SP and not much more but because of this its a real gem and Grandma recommends that you make sure that your system is patched accordingly.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/Default.mspx

The screen will tell you at the top if your Windows XP is running SP2 - otherwise it will help you get it installed.

Watch Out For Next Tip

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