Part 2: Microsoft silently preparing your PC for Win 10
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It's true USB drives can be used to infect a computer but that isn't the biggest, let alone the only, source of computer infections. The only reliable way to avoid infections from foreign USB drives is to simply not plug them in. At one time, a popular way to infect a company's computer system was to leave a few infected USB drives laying in the company parking lot. Some dumb sap was bound to pick one up and plug it into the company's system to either try to find out who lost the drive or just to see if it was any good. That trick received a lot of publicity a while back but it is responsible for only a tiny percentage of infections overall and is certainly not the only or even the most frequent way computers get infected.
One could scan a USB drive for infections but one runs the risk of the infection getting onto the computer before the scan is started.
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I prefer not to take any chances whatsoever of compromising my USB drive when I'm fixing someone's infected PC. I'll burn any Malware removal tools onto a CDR & take a portable CD drive with me in case their PC/Laptop doesn't have one.
My USB drives are all immunized, but why take chances.
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eatup you obviously you need to spend more time reading post.
No way in hell is Lady Fitzgerald a fan lady for MSE or a M/S shill.
Lady Fitzgerald has been using Avast as far back as I can remember and in many case has given her opinion of MSE. Her opinion on MSE are not favorable.
Now for me I like and use MSE but I don't agree or understand your comments in your post #103.
From post #103
Also, usually the system becomes infected via a tainted USB drive. That is how most malware spread.
I have no idea where you got this idea.
Can one get infected by things being plugged into a usb port; of course you can but I doubt if that is the usually the big problem cause of infection.
If a external device is a infection problem one has to ask how did the external device get infected.
I could go on but I'm not in the mood.
Okay, I gotcha, Avast thinks it knows security (about a MS OS) more than MS...
Anyways, if I was a malware author, it would be difficult to get users to download an .exe (well, maybe the first few users). They then have to open the downloads folder and actually click on it. I'd be thinking of making it propagate via USB instead once the first few users have clicked the file. All the unsuspecting user has to do is plug that USB into another computer and BAM! that machine becomes infected. No need to take any other action on the users part.
MSE is The King at stopping this. They're the ones who invented programs auto-loading on USB devices...
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I lost track of the topic :)
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eatup you obviously you need to spend more time reading post.
No way in hell is Lady Fitzgerald a fan lady for MSE or a M/S shill.
Lady Fitzgerald has been using Avast as far back as I can remember and in many case has given her opinion of MSE. Her opinion on MSE are not favorable.
Now for me I like and use MSE but I don't agree or understand your comments in your post #103.
From post #103
Also, usually the system becomes infected via a tainted USB drive. That is how most malware spread.
I have no idea where you got this idea.
Can one get infected by things being plugged into a usb port; of course you can but I doubt if that is the usually the big problem cause of infection.
If a external device is a infection problem one has to ask how did the external device get infected.
I could go on but I'm not in the mood.
Okay, I gotcha, Avast thinks it knows security (about a MS OS) more than MS...
Anyways, if I was a malware author, it would be difficult to get users to download an .exe (well, maybe the first few users). They then have to open the downloads folder and actually click on it. I'd be thinking of making it propagate via USB instead once the first few users have clicked the file. All the unsuspecting user has to do is plug that USB into another computer and BAM! that machine becomes infected. No need to take any other action on the users part.
MSE is
The King at stopping this. They're the ones who invented programs auto-loading on USB devices...
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eatup you obviously you need to spend more time reading post.
No way in hell is Lady Fitzgerald a fan lady for MSE or a M/S shill.
Lady Fitzgerald has been using Avast as far back as I can remember and in many case has given her opinion of MSE. Her opinion on MSE are not favorable.
Now for me I like and use MSE but I don't agree or understand your comments in your post #103.
From post #103
I have no idea where you got this idea. Can one get infected by things being plugged into a usb port; of course you can but I doubt if that is the usually the big problem cause of infection.
If a external device is a infection problem one has to ask how did the external device get infected.
I could go on but I'm not in the mood.
Okay, I gotcha, Avast thinks it knows security (about a MS OS) more than MS...
Anyways, if I was a malware author, it would be difficult to get users to download an .exe (well, maybe the first few users). They then have to open the downloads folder and actually click on it. I'd be thinking of making it propagate via USB instead once the first few users have clicked the file. All the unsuspecting user has to do is plug that USB into another computer and BAM! that machine becomes infected. No need to take any other action on the users part.
MSE is
The King at stopping this. They're the ones who invented programs auto-loading on USB devices...
eatup, just for information other operating systems can auto start or auto mount flash drive. My linux distro auto mounts when I insert the usb flash drive.
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Also, usually the system becomes infected via a tainted USB drive.
I would not subscribe to the "usually", but this is a big problem. We had 18 systems in our computer club seriously infected from USB flash drives. And that despite free AVG being installed on every one of those systems. It was a real mess.
And why do we know that it was the members USB sticks - because nobody ever downloads anything on those systems.Most of the time these systems do not even have an internet connection. They are for hands-on training.
IMO, "Auto-Play" should be disabled by default (and "Hide Extensions" too).
Also, some AV programs have "auto-scan" for USB media.
AVG had it when I last used it.
It was a pain, as you had to wait for the scan to finish before you could use the USB media.
The TAFE PCs have "Auto-Play" enabled and last year (or the year before) it took the IT people weeks to track down and fix some malware problem.
They use some corporate AV (Norton or McAfee).
eatup, just for information other operating systems can auto start or auto mount flash drive. My linux distro auto mounts when I insert the usb flash drive.
Agreed.
Last edited by lehnerus2000; 16 Apr 2015 at 22:56.
Reason: Quote Added
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Yeah right. After those incidents we installed very strict procedures and officially nobody is allowed to put a flash drive into a club system. But with 850 members, that is difficult to control.
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I installed all those updates so I can see what happens next. The only updates I hide are hardware drivers as I get those from the manufactures sites.
I have backup images so I am not afraid,... not afraid, ... not afraid, help!! 
Jim 
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Heed what warning? I'm typing this on XP with the version of MSE before the very last one for XP installed. Just b/c something is past eol doesn't mean it's not usable for the next decade or two, or that it's suddenly become "vulnerable" if you have the right protection in place...
Your complete misunderstanding of how patches work could be very dangerous if anyone reading this decides to take you seriously. Here's whats really going on: As you know, EVERY patch tuesday, MS issues security fixes across the entire range of supported products. Some of these fixes also WOULD apply to XP if it was still supported, but since it is not, no patch for XP. BUT, nefarious people/governments/organizations can take the patches for W7, W8, Windows Server, etc, and REVERSE ENGINEER them to figure out what was being patched in W7, W8, etc, and create an exploit for XP. (since there are many similarities at the KERNAL level)
There are script kiddies all over the world who sit around and write/reverse engineer XP exploits for fun (since many enterprises/businesses are still using it, $$$$ to be had).
JUST TODAY, it was announced that a patch from 2 DAYS AGO has already been reverse engineered, and is being used to exploit servers worldwide.
Sysadmins, patch now: HTTP 'pings of death' are spewing across web to kill Windows servers â
Any XP system connected to a large network is GUARANTEED to get pwned eventually.
Also, contrary to your earlier statements, most infections DO NOT come from USB drives, and most malware creators DO NOT intentionally call attention to their infections as a way of bragging.
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