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How to secure Windows XP

 

Although I don't like the name of this article I couldn't find a better one. So, we are going to discuss about users that still use Windows XP as their favourite system. I tried to adapt myself to Windows Vista but I couldn't. I really think that Windows XP is the best OS that Microsoft has ever built. It's simple, it works and it's pretty stable for a Windows. Perhaps they should continue to develop future Windows XP versions by improving this system. However this is not the purpose of this article, I am still using in 2009 Windows XP SP3 and I am going to show you how do I configure Windows XP after a fresh installation.

 

If you're wondering if there are any programs for Windows XP that can protect your computer without doing anything, the answer is no. You need to configure your Windows XP manually and you need to know what should you install and what you should avoid. So I am going to start and show you how I configured my Windows XP SP 3 and those settings should work for SP 2 users to, if you're using an older version I highly recommend you to upgrade to SP 2 or SP 3 versions as they are more secure than previous versions.

Suppose that this is a fresh Windows XP, the first thing that I am going to do is to disable the "Remote Assistance" tab. To do so go to "My Computer" icon on your desktop and with your mouse do a right-click - choose last option called "Properties" - click on it and a new window will appear called "System Properties", there look for "Remote" tab and in that tab, make sure to uncheck both the "Remote Assistance" and "Remote Desktop"and then click on "Apply". Your window should look exactly like in this picture :

 

 

Now we need to go to "Security Center". To do so go to your "Control Panel", if you don't know how to get there, you can press the "Start" button look for "Settings" and click on "Control Panel". In this picture you can see how I access "Control Panel".

 

 

Now you should see a similar window with the one from this picture, if you see another window it's because your Control Panel is on "Classic View" mode, you can turn it like in this picture by looking on the left side of this window and clicking on "Switch to Category View".

 

 

Now, we are going to access the "Security Center", it is located on the right side and it has an icon with a shield in 4 colors. If you will access "Security Center" you should see a new window like in the picture below :

 

 

As you may noticed, I intentionally let "Automatic Updates" and "Virus Protection" OFF so that we can see the difference, look at the "Firewall" feature and you should see that is ON. We need to turn on "Automatic Updates", to do so click on "Turn on Automatic Updates" button and it should automatically switch ON. Regarding the "Virus Protection", keep in mind that not all antiviruses are being detected so, if you do have an antivirus you shouldn't worry if it it's not detected. If you don't know what antivirus to use I personally recommend as a shareware Kaspersky Antivirus - I use it myself and for a free antivirus you can choose between Avira Antivirus or AVG Antivirus. Now we need to look down on Security Center window and we will see "Manage security settings for:" and we need to click on Windows Firewall and we will configure it so that he can protect our computer at his best. If you selected Windows Firewall you should see a picture like this :

 

 

Now you've probably noticed that I selected the "Don't allow exceptions" feature and that the firewall is ON ( never leave your firewall OFF when connected to the Internet as you will be more vulnerable ) and I suggest you to do the same for your firewall settings. You saw that there are three main tabs : "General". "Exceptions" and "Advanced", the first one "General" is very easy, you need to make sure that the firewall is ON and that the "Don't allow exceptions" feature is checked. Let's move on to the second tab called "Exceptions", as you can see there is one program that needs to be an exception and it's listed there. For a better explanation, you can see the next picture.

 

 

The last tab called "Advanced" allows you to check which one of your Internet Connection is being firewalled. I would recommend you to leave all the Internet Connections firewalled. And that's it, this is how I have my firewall configured on Windows XP SP 3.

 

 

As far as I know this is what you can do to protect your Windows XP, the security problem as you can see it's concentrating on the firewall. But there is more, for the best security you could also purchase a router in case you don't have one. For example my ISP ( Internet Service Provider ) connection ends with a router and I purchased another router that I configured to stop attacks coming from the Internet ( my router logs shows me thousands of "system scans" / day and that means that a lot of people scans the Internet for vulnerabilities and I refuse to become a target ). It's basically the ISP firewall, my router firewall and at last my Windows XP firewall. And sure, I use one of the best antiviruses which I named it in this article and also I make sure to use the latest version of Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Regarding how long we are going to use Windows XP, one thing is fore sure, it's not the security problem it's the software support that is going to force people to move on to Windows Vista, Windows 7 or other versions and I guess that if we are lucky enough this will take another 2-3 years.