Update question

[Alan Copeland]

I am running S&D 1.4 on two HP Pavilions, both running XP Home. As soon as I learn there is an update available, I run it on both machines. Almost every time, I get a different number of new bad products. For example, this morning's update showed 1 more new item on my PC than on my wife's, but we both have a total of 9239 blocked.

[md usa spybot fan]

When you first go into Spybot > Immunize, Spybot looks at Registry entries and compares the entries with its immunization files. It reports:
Either:
Information
All known bad products are already blocked.
OK
Or:
Warning
xxxx bad products already blocked, yyyy additional protections possible. Please immunize.
OK
The updates between 2006-03-03 and 2006-03-10 added twenty nine (29) sites to the restricted zone by domain (site name) and one (1) site to the restricted by range (IP Address).

Since Spybot is comparing the new immunization file with existing entries in the Registry, any entries that were made during the entire life of the computer to the Registry could affect the "yyyy additional protections possible" count.

If you can say that:
The two computers have exactly the same software.
Were updated with exactly the same anti-spyware concurrently (there are several other products that added entries to the restricted zone such a SpywareBlaster, IE-Spyad, etc.).
That no one ever rejected a registry change on one system and not on the other during a Spybot immunization due to false positives from anti-spyware products such as Microsoft AntiSpyware, Webroot's SpySweeper and possibly others.
And that no one has ever added a site to the restricted zone manually.
Or if you said:
The immunization count is changing between Spybot's updates.
Then there may be a reason for concern.

Otherwise it is not worth worrying about and certainly not worth the time it would take to export and compare the multiple Registry keys involved in Spybot's immunization process from both systems.

If the final immunization count is the same on two systems with the same Windows OS, with the same number of users and from the same type of account (Administrative vs. Limited), then you can assume that all the entries have been added to the system Registry.

[Alan Copeland]

Thanks for the reply; the part about registry entries during the life of the computer is definately relevant, because my machine is 10 months old and my wife's 3 weeks. In addition, I am running/have run a bit more spyware than she is and have done so for a long time. Thanks for the detailed answer.