Microsoft Student Discounts

There are an occasional few here and there, but pretty much, No.

They hook you up to get you addicted. Where’s Nancy Reagan? Just say no!

Then they leave you cold… there’s no upgrading the student versions.

No… you must search… but only if you really, really care. I’m sure you can find 1,001 other ways to waste your time, though.

The file itself holds the exploit. There is a buffer overflow or some similar exploit in the file. When you open the file in Word, Excel, or Powerpoint the exploit is triggered. At that point the exploit may be able to run code on your computer to install malware, spyware, a worm, or similar software.

All file formats are vulnerable to that kind of attack, not just Microsoft Office. For example, Quicktime and RealMedai have been exploited that way (an error in the file format exploited). There have been many others too in other applications. You can protect yourself by staying current on the applications that you use and dropping applications that stop offering security updates.

The security of your system depends on more than just the OS and a firewall. It also depends on third party applications that you run, the drivers that you install, and anything else that runs on the computer.

Way back when I was a student you could upgrade the student versions of Microsoft products. Pay the regular upgrade price and get the new version even if you were no longer a student. Have they changed the EULA?

Tyler is going to be a student for a long time anyways. So for the next 10 years or so it is a non-issue. Enjoy the student and academic prices for software and hardware while you can get it.

I got Mathcad way back when I was in college. It was $100 or so (less expensive than an HP calculator). It’s great for engineering calculations. I recently upgraded it to version 13 from the student version. Quite a deal considering that it’s a $1200 program.

Only a complete tool gets warez off of Limewire. That is the worst place to get that stuff.
You are more likely to get a spyware infested file when getting warez from P2P than from other means. Or worse, you could end up with a file that installs a rootkit or keylogger and you’d never know it. Anyone who runs an exe file that they got from Limewire is a fool.

Yes, But it still works, And it pwns the crap out of school.

I guess I’m in for a rough time, since I have never ever installed a security update for any of my applications!

and the wierd thing is that I’ve never been hit with a worm, malware, spyware, virus, or anything else.

I guess it’s all in who your friends are? mine don’t send me things like that, and if they did I wouldn’t open them anyways (I have a strict “no joke” policy about email)

Not to be mean, but having a high paying job pwns the crap out of no going to school. :wink:

maby you have, you just dont know yet

This is MS Office Professional, not “student.” Unless you are talking about something else.

Anyone who makes broad sweeping generalizations speaks with some bias. :wink: I have downloaded “warez” in the past and run 'em in a sandbox before letting them loose on my system. If you handle every downloaded file as if it were dangerous, you don’t have much to worry about…

The version of the software isn’t the same as the licensing agreement you enter into upon buying the software.

Maybe…Maybe not. What makes you think i can’t get a high paying job?

Don’t bet on it. A friend changed jobs two weeks ago; he’s earning twice as much as he was but hasn’t stopped whinging since…

Phil

You likely have installed security updates for applications but just didn’t realize it. You upgrade an application, like QuickTime, to a new version for the new features but also get some security updates along with it.

Programs like QuickTime, iTunes, Sun’s Java runtime, and many others will periodically check for new versions and alert you that a new version is available. Sometimes those new versions are just feature upgrades, sometimes they are security updates.

Part of being secure is in who your friends are and where you go on the internet. But you still need to be aware of what baddies are out there and the different ways they can get on your system. Bad files are out there. If you hang out with good people and don’t go to the badlands areas of the internet your not likely to see those sorts of files, but they’re there and in the wild.

A recent case of infected MS Office files looks to be motivated by corporate espionage: PowerPoint Zero-Day Attack Points to Corporate Espionage. Targeted attacks. The vulnerability that was used is now well known in the blackhat circles and will likely be making the rounds more widely now looking for unpatched victims. Microsoft issued an update for Office 2000, 2002, and 2003. No updates for older versions of Office. If older versions were vulnerable they still are vulnerable and no patch will be available (other than upgrading to a more recent version of Office).

No. I mean exactly as I said. Anyone who runs an exe that they got from Limewire is a fool.

You are also a fool if you think you can verify that a file isn’t infected with some new rootkit by running in a sandbox before letting it loose on your system.

Unless you can verify your warez are clean by verifying an MD5 hash to a known good, there is no reliable way to know if the file is clean.

I won’t put QT, iXxxx, Java, etc on my machine, due to philosophical reasons.

Like I said, I run old apps, there usually is no need to upgrade, and when I have I’ve sometimes encountered problems (for example I put a recent version of Acrobat Reader on here and it seems to have messed up the registry and won’t let me completely uninstall it, nor reinstall a previous version, so one day I’ll fix it by reinstalling the OS and an earlier version of AR)

my most used apps are versions from 5-10 years ago. Winamp 2.666, Paint Shop Pro version 3, office 97, WS FTP 5, etc.

yup, and being cautious apparently pays big dividends…it’s worked for me so far!

Old versions of Winamp have several known vulnerabilities. There is a zlib vulnerability and a skin file vulnerability, and others that affect old versions like 2.6 and 2.7.

Running old versions of software can leave you with security holes and force you to upgrade in order to close them. It sucks, but that’s the current state of computing.

One thing you can do to protect an old version of Office, like Office 97, is to install the current versions of the Microsoft viewers for Office documents. Microsoft has free viewers available for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Visio. Install the viewers and configure them so that files open in the viewer by default instead of the full Office application. Any documents that you get from email should be opened in the viewer. Make sure that the web browser opens up DOC files in the Word viewer, etc.

Microsoft Viewers download

thanks for the info! and your concern. I don’t ever open any downloaded files with winamp (skins? who needs that?), and rarely open office documents that come from other people. And never any that people send me “out of the blue”.

Another thread successfully hijacked! :wink: