SP2 doesn't know what it's talking about...
 

I got it fixed by reinstalling, but that's pretty stupid... I wish I could just get rid of the "security center"

umm, you can. disable the security center service.

yeah just say you have your own firewall and antivirus solution and it goes away

i figured it out.. pro, that doesn't work.. it comes right back in your face.. but on the left side of the security center you can tell it to stfu about certain things... in other news my wireless AP is pissing me off.. to be frank.. it doesn't work most of the time .. 'signal strength: excellent, WITH "low or no connection"... It doesn't want to let me upgrade the firmware either.. :mad:

NOOOO, telling it to ignore things will only make it go away for those things. If you want it to stop running, go to Control Panel, Admin Tools, Services, and then click on the Security Center service, properties, disable and stop. That stops the actual process which is checking these things. While you're at it, if you don't want the firewall, you can disable it from there as well.

About your AP, disable windows wireless zero config (again, under services) and set your card up manually. A little more troublesome, but it will make for a much more stable wireless connection.

i know services.. i noticed netstumber disables wireless zero when it starts.. but I think that is to stop it from connecting and thus you getting into trouble with the law...

and yea i'm gonna have to kill that security center on the laptop.. it's bringing everything down with it...

So if you disable security center, is there any point to SP2?

nope.. well you get a noob pop up blocker that does nothing that firefox/google's blocker can't do.. and you get more warnings when you d/l any file from MS that tells you "WARNING.. YOU ARE ABOUT TO DOWNLOAD A FILE... IT MAY BLOW UP YOUR COMPUTER. DO YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD IT ANYWAYS?" =/

uhh.. sp2 involves alot of security measures, not just on the service.. lots of things are locked down more.. also, the security center is aimed toward noobs.. even though i'm sure they're pulling their hair out even more than us... SP2 also supports DEP, a feature of amd 64 processors... it has more to it than the security center..

the security service itself, if you know how to use your computer safely, does nothing to help security. It is helpful for uneducated users who don't know what they are doing and tells them when they are doing potentially unsafe things. Aside from that security problem between the monitor and the chair, the security service itself does nothing.

Now, I also stopped the firewall, and that is one of those technical type security issues. However, I don't particularly care for pseudo, software firewalls though. I alrealdy have a linux box setup doing my NAT and firewalling, and I have my main server firewalled off some from the rest of the network, so my data is doubly safe. Software firewalls (by these I mean the norton/XP/etc. type that tell you what programs are using the net, not router-type software firewalls) are buggy, extremely annoying, and resource intensive. If i need to know what programs are accessing my network, i'll just do an nmap scan to see what's going on and if there are any ports in use that I didn't setup.

And SP2 has a number of vulnerability fixes that are important to patch (though it does create a number of other problems of itself. you know how all windows security patches require their own security patches. .