Re: Advice needed to install a registry and dll file.
From: Alun Jones (alun_at_texis.invalid)
Date: 10/10/05
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Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2005 16:03:52 -0700
<om.newsgroup@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128858666.894106.90730@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Can someone tell me:
>
> - Is it dangerous to install the registry file?
Anywhere from "possibly" to "definitely".
> - How can I make sure the dll file isn't a virus?
You can't.
So, the question now comes - what do you know about the person or
organisation providing the fix?
Is it a recognised provider of consistently reliable fixes, or a
fly-by-night hackish individual with no reputation?
The best place to get patches, of course, is usually the place where you got
the original software - although with incursions at many public distribution
points in the past, that might not be such a safe assumption.
The worst place to get patches is from random individuals with no
reputation. You have no idea what you're getting into.
As a user with admittedly little knowledge, you need to work purely on the
basis of trust.
Do you have a reason to trust this patch? Have others used it successfully?
Does it even do what it claims to do?
Note that I'm not saying the patch is dangerous - it could be that this is
exactly what you need. There are lots of really nice people on the
Internet - it's just that the really bad people are the ones getting all the
press. Unfortunately, it takes just one bad person to infect your system.
Gauge your level of risk - make up some numbers of how much you trust the
provider, what chance you think there is that the provider might have a
motive to provide you with an unsafe patch, and then compare that against
how useful your software is without the patch, or with the patch.
Alun.
~~~~
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