Re: Which Windows OS is Safest

[Ansgar -59cobalt- Wiechers <bugtraq () planetcobalt net>]

On 2004-06-28 Boaz wrote:
> Wow what timing, I was going to post the following, I have a friend
> that has a small business, and is using Win 98 on two machines, Win
> 2000 pro on two machines, XP Pro on one machine and XP Personal on
> another.  There is a Linux firewall, and the server is running Novell.
> Since he needs to upgrade the two machines running Win 98, he want to
> standardize on one OS.
>
> He is leaning toward XP.  If I am reading the results of this original
> post, Win 2000 Pro (patched to current versions) would be a better
> choice.  Is that correct?  If so should he also get rid of XP.  This
> is a business that needs security and confidentiality of files.

Whether to go for XP or 2000 is IMHO a question of personal taste. I
would prefer Windows 2000, since I find the urge to activate XP quite
annoying. OTOH the lifecyle of 2000 will most likely expire earlier than
the XP lifecycle (see [1] for details), so support will last longer.

If you go for XP: use XP Pro, not XP Home. It's a lot less painful in
administration.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

Regards
Ansgar Wiechers

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