RE: Security issues, purchasing a new, pre-loaded, Windows XP com puter

From: Evan Mann (emann@questinc.org)
Date: 10/08/02 

From: Evan Mann <emann@questinc.org>
To: Focus-MS <focus-ms@securityfocus.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 10:52:47 -0400

>I think this would really be the OEMs responsibility, and most OEMs ship
the
>latest service pack. It wouldn't be much for an OEM to do this, as all of
>the big ones use drive imaging. All that needs to be done is the images
>updates with the latest patches. Obviously with new patches coming out all
>the time, they should update images on a fixed schedule. So every other
week
>or at the very least every month. I'm no sure if any of them are currently
>doing this.

I deal exclusively with Dell and they do not hotfix patch systems they ship,
from my experience. They provide you with the most current service pack at
the time but you are on your own to install hotfixes beyond that. It's
better than nothing, but I don't expect a major OEM to be constantly
updating their production images with hotfixes because of the potential
support issues it causes when a hotfixes is released that is "bad".