The goal of this document is help new XP users survive long enough to do their updates. Many of them cant/wont put up acls/nat/firewalls ... but if they follow the steps listed they have a better chance of successfully downloading and updating their new machine then they will have with OUT these steps. It is not meant as a complete XP hardening document. There are lots of documents that discuss in detail how to harden windows (xp,nt,2k...).
If the person doesn't continue to do acls/nat/firewalls, they'll just get infected after the next hole is discovered. And yes, there are plenty of holes that a firewall/nat box won't fix. Still, better than the user only doing Windows Update on the day of install and never having a firewall... Rob Nelson ronelson@vt.edu