For
protection of your own computer it is important to have the latest Critical
Updates in addition to having virus protection
and a
firewall as Murray mentioned earlier. These updates are maintained on the Microsoft web site
at the following url:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
You can
think of Windows Update is an online extension of Windows. There is a Product Updates area which is
a catalog of fixes, updates, and enhancements to Windows and many programs that
work with Windows. When the list of
components appears on the page, you can browse it, decide which components you
want, and download them to your computer. Be sure to download any Critical
Updates recommended for your system. Critical Updates will fix known
problems (such as security issues) specific to your
computer.
One of the downloadable programs from this area
notifies you whenever a Critical Update is ready. Also, Microsoft has worked with many
software and hardware vendors to their post their changes at this site. A large number of hardware drivers can be
found on this site also.
Clay