The Microsoft® Windows® XP Winter Fun Packs provide enhancements and tools to help you have more fun with Windows XP this holiday season.  The Fun Packs include a wide range of winter-themed content, designed especially for Digital Music with Windows Media Player 9 Series, Digital Photography with Windows XP, and Home Video with Windows Movie Maker 2. The Fun Packs also include links to bonus content including Games for Windows XP, and more. Enjoy!

This document provides installation instructions and other information that will help you get started.

The Windows XP Winter Fun Packs available from www.microsoft.com/holiday include:

• Windows Media Player 9 Series Winter Fun Pack 2003
• Windows Movie Maker 2 Winter Fun Pack 2003
• Windows XP Digital Photography Winter Fun Pack 2003
• Bonus: Games for Windows XP

Note: Great care has been taken to ensure that the Fun Packs operate as they should, however they are unsupported. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about the Winter Fun Packs. The Windows XP Winter Fun Packs are for Windows XP only.

The Windows XP Winter Fun Packs, including the documentation and information provided, are for your personal use and are subject to the terms and conditions of the end user license agreement presented during the Windows XP Winter Fun Pack 2003 installation process.

If you are active in the anti-virus research field, then you will regularly receive requests for virus samples. Some requests are easy to deal with: they come from fellow-researchers whom you know well, and whom you trust. Using strong encryption, you can send them what they have asked for by almost any medium (including across the Internet) without any real risk.

Other requests come from people you have never heard from before. There are relatively few laws (though some countries do have them) preventing the secure exchange of viruses between consenting individuals, though it is clearly irresponsible for you simply to make viruses available to anyone who asks. Your best response to a request from an unknown person is simply to decline politely.

A third set of requests come from exactly the people you might think would be least likely to want viruses “users of anti-virus software”.

They want some way of checking that they have deployed their software correctly, or of deliberately generating a “virus incident in order to test their corporate procedures, or of showing others in the organisation what they would see if they were hit by a virus”.

Obviously, there is considerable intellectual justification for testing anti-virus software against real viruses. If you are an anti-virus vendor, then you do this (or should do it!) before every release of your product, in order to ensure that it really works. However, you do not (or should not!) perform your tests in a “real” environment. You use (or should use!) a secure, controlled and independent laboratory environment within which your virus collection is maintained.

Using real viruses for testing in the real world is rather like setting fire to the dustbin in your office to see whether the smoke detector is working. Such a test will give meaningful results, but with unappealing, unacceptable risks.

Since it is unacceptable for you to send out real viruses for test or demonstration purposes, you need a file that can safely be passed around and which is obviously non-viral, but which your anti-virus software will react to as if it were a virus.

If your test file is a program, then it should also produce sensible results if it is executed. Also, because you probably want to avoid shipping a pseudo-viral file along with your anti-virus product, your test file should be short and simple, so that your customers can easily create copies of it for themselves.

The good news is that such a test file already exists. A number of anti-virus researchers have already worked together to produce a file that their (and many other) products “detect” as if it were a virus.

Agreeing on one file for such purposes simplifies matters for users: in the past, most vendors had their own pseudo-viral test files which their product would react to, but which other products would ignore.

This test file has been provided to user for distribution as the “Standard Anti-Virus Test File”, and it satisfies all the criteria listed above. It is safe to pass around, because it is not a virus, and does not include any fragments of viral code. Most products react to it as if it were a virus (though they typically report it with an obvious name, such as “EICAR-AV-Test”).

The file is a legitimate DOS program, and produces sensible results when run (it prints the message “S4A-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!”).

It is also short and simple – in fact, it consists entirely of printable ASCII characters, so that it can easily be created with a regular text editor. Any anti-virus product that supports the test file should detect it in any file providing that the file starts with the following 68 characters, and is exactly 68 bytes long:

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$S4A-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

The first 68 characters is the known string. It may be optionally appended by any combination of whitespace characters with the total file length not exceeding 128 characters. The only whitespace characters allowed are the space character, tab, LF, CR, CTRL-Z. To keep things simple the file uses only upper case letters, digits and punctuation marks, and does not include spaces. The only thing to watch out for when typing in the test file is that the third character is the capital letter “O”, not the digit zero.

You are encouraged to make use of the test file. If you are aware of people who are looking for real viruses “for test purposes”, bring the test file to their attention. If you are aware of people who are discussing the possibility of an industry-standard test file, tell them about www.eicar.org, and point them at this article.

In order to facilitate various scenarios, we provide 4 files for download. The first, eicar.com, contains the ASCII string as described above. The second file, eicar.com.txt, is a copy of this file with a different filename. Some readers reported problems when downloading the first file, which can be circumvented when using the second version. Just download and rename the file to “eicar.com”. That will do the trick. The third version contains the test file inside a zip ARCHIVEe. A good anti-virus scanner will spot a ‘virus’ inside an ARCHIVEe. The last version is a zip ARCHIVEes containing the third file. This file can be used to see whether the virus scanner checks ARCHIVEes more than only one level deep.

Once downloaded run your AV scanner. It should detect at least the file “eicar.com”. Good scanners will detect the ‘virus’ in the single zip ARCHIVEe and may be even in the double zip ARCHIVEe. Once detected the scanner might not allow you any access to the file(s) anymore. You might not even be allowed by the scanner to delete these files. This is caused by the scanner which puts the file into quarantaine. The test file will be treated just like any other real virus infected file. Read the user’s manual of your AV scanner what to do or contact the vendor/manufacturer of your AV scanner.

Download area using the standard protocol http
eicar.com 68 Bytes	eicar.com.txt 68 Bytes	eicar_com.zip 184 Bytes	eicarcom2.zip 308 Bytes
Download area using the secure, SSL enabled protocol https
eicar.com 68 Bytes	eicar.com.txt 68 Bytes	eicar_com.zip 184 Bytes	eicarcom2.zip 308 Bytes

Flexcrypt Folder enables you to encrypt a file or a folder. After installation, right-click on a file/folder and select Encrypt with Flexcrypt folder and make up a password, thats it.

Decryption is done by double-clicking on the encrypted file and enter the correct password.

The BIG advantage with Flexcrypt Folder is that it does not require any software to decrypt an encrypted file, just double-click on the file and specify the correct password.

How to send an encrypted file/folder:
In some cases it is necessary to rename the encrypted file (take away .exe ending) in order for the file to go through firewalls.
Rename the encrypted file by:
· Right-click on the encrypted file and choose Rename
· Take away .exe at the end of the filename
· Encrypted file is now ready to be sent
The receiver must also rename the file back to its original ending by:
· Right-click and choose Rename
· Add .exe at the end of the filename

Portable ClamWin is the popular ClamWin antivirus created as a portable app, so you can take your antivirus with you to scan files on the go.

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus that provides a graphical user interface to the Clam AntiVirus engine.

Here are some key features of “Portable ClamWin”:

· High detection rates for viruses and spyware
· Regular virus database updates. ClamAV team regularly updates virus databases to include a new virus/variant immediately after it appears
· Standalone Virus Scanner

It’s always been our philosophy at AVG that everyone has the right to basic computer security at no charge. And our 80 million users think we’re doing a pretty good job. So if you’re planning to spend time online and you regularly exchange files with friends, check us out.

- Surf, and search with confidence, while LinkScanner keeps you safe from harmful sites
- Get online and offline protection from viruses, spyware, and other nasties
- Enjoy consistently high-speed PC performance with our new enhanced virus scanner
- Automatic updates keep your protection current
- Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7

NOTE:
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition may only be used on one computer for personal use.

Here are some key features of “AVG Free Edition”:

· Surfing and searching the web and in your social networks
LinkScanner Active Surf-Shield:
· Ensures every web page you visit is safe – even before you go there.

LinkScanner Search-Shield:
· Applies safety ratings to your Google, MSN and Yahoo search results.

Phishing Protection:
· Checks to make sure web pages really are what they appear to be.

· Emailing, Instant Messaging and downloading music and files
E-mail Scanner:
· Keeps you safe from dangerous attachments and links in your e-mail.

· Whether you’re online or offline
Anti-Virus:
· Makes sure you can’t get or spread a virus, worm, or Trojan horse.

Anti-Spyware:
· Prevents unauthorized information access by spyware and adware.

Basic Anti-Rootkit protection:
· Ensures basic protection against sophisticated hidden threats.

Update Manager:
· Makes sure you’re always safe from the latest threats – automatically.

Requirements:

· Intel Pentium 1.8 GHz processor or faster
· 550 MB free hard drive space (for installation)
· 512 MB RAM

Burner software too complicated? Get power, simplicity and file backup too!

The new Ashampoo Burning Studio Free keeps all the advantages of its predecessor and adds multi-disc file backup, an integrated audio CD ripper and further improved support for the exciting new Blu-ray format with capacities of up to 25 gigabytes per layer.

Many users are tired of over-complicated CD burning applications that are getting harder and harder to use. Sometimes you can waste most of your time just trying to find a function.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free focuses on what you want: burn discs quickly, easily, with maximum quality and minimum hassle. It includes everything you need to be able to do that. And it excludes everything that could get in the way. Same simplicity, more power.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is still totally simple and intuitive to use. As a result of the users’ feedback, Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is now better, more powerful and efficient than ever before.

Here are some key features of “Ashampoo Burning Studio Free”:

· Multi-disc file backup and restore on CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs
· Create compressed backup archives with powerful password protection
· Split archives automatically across multiple CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs
· Restore archive contents to their original locations
· Integrated Audio CD ripper  store your audio tracks as MP3, WMA or WAV files
· New option for setting the number of copies you want to burn (available for all disc formats)
· Discs can now be verified immediately without being ejected first (if the drive supports this feature)
· Numerous other small improvements that make the program easier to use and more effective
· Burn files and folders on data CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs
· Burn Audio CDs from WAV, MP3, FLAC, WMA and Ogg Vorbis files
· Burn MP3-CDs from your MP3 files
· Burn Video DVD, Video CD (VCD) or Super Video CD (S-VCD)
· Create and burn CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc images
· Burn speed and other options can all be set automatically
· Make copies from audio, video or data discs easily
· Interactive troubleshooting assistant for solving hardware and media problems
· Save project files so that you can burn the same discs again later
· Erase CD-RWs / DVD+RWs / DVD-RWs/ DVD-RAM/ BD-REs
· Integrated support for over 1,700 CD, DVD and Blu-ray burners

Requirements:

· 64 MB RAM,
· Hard Disk Space 20 MB
· CD or DVD-Writer
· Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher