Microsoft misleads users about Slammer SQL worm

Microsoft says "typical home users' computers are not affected" by the Slammer worm, but the latest issue of the Woody's Office Watch newsletter takes the company to task for not highlighting the threat to serious Office users running the MSDE 2000 database engine. This "ships with Office XP Developer Edition, Office XP Professional Edition, Sharepoint Team Services, Visio 2002, and other products". The newsletter explains how to find out if you are running it, and suggests you "download Symantec's detector/fixer and run it. "All in all, the whole situation is completely screwed up, Microsoft's instructions are demonstrably wrong, the procedure incredibly arcane. SQL Server Administrators may cut Microsoft some slack on this one. I think Office users should be hopping mad," says WOW. Comment: To paraphrase the gist of Woody Leonhard's complaint, Microsoft can forget about selling people the idea of "trustworthy computing" if it can't provide trustworthy information about security risks.