finding old XP hotfixes

[dedndave]

i have been collecting some XP-era KB's
some were hard to find - lol
i found this document online that has many hard-to-find links - and for many languages
maybe it can be of use to someone else   :bg

i also found this neat little command-line trick...

Code Select Expand

wmic qfe list full /format:htable >hotfixes.htm
it creates an HTML of all the hotfixes installed   :bg

WMI looks like it can do a lot of stuff

Code Select Expand

wmic /?
then, there are qualifiers for more in-depth help

[Vortex]

Hi Dave,

You would like to look at this project :

http://www.windowsupdatesdownloader.com

[dedndave]

very cool Erol   :U
too bad they don't have a section for XP Media Center Edition   :(
but, i will definately find it useful

i should mention, the document above also has hotfixes for win98, win2k, xp(32 and 64), server2003(32 and 64)

[GregL]

Dave,

Regarding WMI, it can be called from MASM or C.

Usually called from VBScript or JScript. 

As you know, WMIC for command-line.

Lot's of information available from it.

[dedndave]

yes - i see it even has temperature info
it peeks my curiosity a bit - i wonder what else is in there (like cr/msr and cpuid stuff)
i bet there is even some stuff in there they aren't telling us about   :P

[dedndave]

i updated my XP MCE2005 "master" build, today
529 hotfixes, total   :lol

what is really funny, is the title they put on the HTML...

"529 Instances of Win32_QuickFixEngineering"

that is straight from the horses mouth

[baltoro]

DAVE !!!
If you've never used WMI in your code, you will probably find this interesting: CIM Studio.
If you launch this on your machine, the utility will let you browse all WMI classes on your machine,...displaying properties and attributes.
You can invoke this interface in your MASM code,...but, it's not fun,...it's COM.
...Amyway, the available data can be useful in a variety of situations,...
EDGAR,...has posted an example for accessing the WMI interface in assembly language: WMI.

[dedndave]

yah - but it took me 10 seconds to write the batch file and use WMITools   :P
if i had to use it in a program, i'd be tempted to use CreateProcess and let WMIC do the dirty work   :bg

[jj2007]

Wow, Eran, that was a strong first post! Keep up the good work :U

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Online PR News – 06-September-2011 –Secuteam.net has been known and regarded as an organization that walks with the pace of the software industry. As soon as a new platform or a new technology comes in Secureteam.net is the first organization to embrace it wholeheartedly and pick all the new features and secure them with a single motto of securing intellectual property and revenue for their clients.

With the recent introduction of Silverlight from Microsoft Secureteam has taken it on themselves to provide wholesome security for Silverlight as new technology is much susceptible to attacks and being hacked as there maybe some areas which are really not covered by the developers or skip their eye in the wake of pressure exerted by the management and meeting deadlines to roll out the software.

[hutch--]

Dave,

I have a simple system with XP, I installed XP Sp3 and completely turned OFF Microsoft Update. NAT in the router plus its firewall has been doing the job fine for years. Contrast this with my Win7 64 box when every time I turn the PHUKING thing on, it needs to download another 100 meg of crap. The only things I have installed that requires updates are Thunderbird and the Adobe Acrobat reader, both of which are in-opportune and annoying.

[dedndave]

i turn off automatic updates, as well   :U
not just for the OS - for every program i install that allows it
for some programs, like yahoo messenger, i disable it by brute force   :P

every now and then - say every six months - i take the time to look at the updates
the way i do it (for the OS) is to go to the update site and let MS analyze my machine
i do not allow them to install the updates, but i copy all the text into a text file and organize it
then, i go and manually download the updates that i want
i change the file date to match the issue date on the site
i install them, which takes some time, but i control the order and i control the re-boots
i zip and store these files - i have all the hotfixes for XP Media Center 2005 on a hard drive
the end result is a build that runs much faster than if you let automatic updates install them

this time, it has been about a year - so i had about 60 updates   :P

[sinsi]

You two are lunatics, the updates fix security holes too especially in XP.

hutch, I get one bunch of updates for win7 once a month, do you only boot your box once a month? :bg

[dedndave]

their security fixes do liittle good - lol
they are always a day late and a dollar short
the same can be said for many AV products

my belief is that you cannot effectively "patch" security into an OS - it has to be designed in, from the start

[vanjast]

You two are lunatics..

you haven't seen me yet... :bdg

[dedndave]

i like being a lunatic
it sets me apart from most other people   :bg
well, some other people