Secure your Computer System: Operating System Updates

Other Safe Computing Principles

Apple and Microsoft frequently release updates for their Operating Systems. You need to keep your computer current with these updates to protect against known vulnerabilities. Many viruses and worms spread rapidly because this essential "housekeeping" task is overlooked or postponed.

For Windows XP

  1. Using a Windows Internet Explorer web browser, go to Microsoft's Windows Update website.
  2. At the Microsoft site, click Express Install (Recommended): High Priority Updates for your Computer.
  3. Windows Update scans your computer and then displays a list of high priority updates. Click the Install... button on the right.
  4. After the updates have been downloaded and installed, you will be prompted to restart your computer.
  5. After the restart, go back to Microsoft's Windows Update website and scan for updates again to ensure that you have downloaded and installed all critical updates. Keep doing this routine until there are no critical updates to install.

For Windows 2000

  1. Using a Windows Internet Explorer web browser, go to Microsoft's Windows Update website.
  2. At the Microsoft site, click Scan for updates to get started. You may be prompted to install Microsoft software before scanning starts. To continue, click OK or Yes to install the software.
  3. Once your computer has been scanned for updates, a list of available updates is displayed. The most important updates are listed under Critical Updates. These are the ones you should download to install. There are times when a critical update cannot be downloaded with other critical updates. In those cases, you will have to download and install them one at a time. In most cases, though, you can download all critical updates at once.
  4. After an update has been downloaded and installed, you are prompted to restart your computer.
  5. After the restart, go back to Microsoft's Windows Update website and scan for updates again to ensure that you have downloaded and installed all critical updates. Keep doing this routine until there are no critical updates to install.

Note: In both Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the updates can be run automatically. To learn how to do this, visit, How to set up Automatic Updates in Windows.

For Macs

To access the Software Update control panel in Mac OS X:

  1. On the Apple menu, click System Preferences.
  2. Under the System heading, click Software Update.
  3. Under the Update Software tab, click Check Now.

Note: Instead of having to check for software updates manually, this feature can be set to run automatically:

  1. In the latest version of Mac OS X, under the Update Software tab, check the Check for updates box (it will look slightly different for older versions of Mac OS X. Under the Software Update tab, check the Automatically check for updates when you have a network connection box).
  2. Then select the desired frequency, such as Daily, Weekly, or Monthly from the drop down menu.

To access the Software Update control panel in Mac OS 9.x:

  1. On the Apple menu, click Control Panels.
  2. Click Software Update.
  3. Click the Update Now button.

Note: You can schedule the updates to run automatically, as follows:

  1. Check the Update software automatically box.
  2. Click the Schedule... button.
  3. Choose at what time and on what days you want the update to automatically run.