I read quite a few articles, from various sources, on the WMF vulnerability when 
it came up. To me, it sounds like the patch is our best hope. There's a small 
application you can run to check whether your system's vulnerable, here....

http://www.hexblog.com/2006/01/wmf_vulnerability_checker.html#more

Sans Internet Storm Center is one of the best sources for info on security risks. 
WMF FAQ:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=994

http://castlecops.com/a6446-DEP_not_a_total_solution_to_WMF.html

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2006/01/inside-wmf-backdoor.html

I'm pretty sure the crashing while viewing images has happened since I bought 
the computer in 2003. 

That is strange. Do you have any other significant problems, or is it mainly with 
viewing images? We can try to find the culprit, but where to start? I think the first 
thing I'd check for is an IE add-on that may be causing the problem. IE and WE (Windows 
Explorer) are very closely related. Do you have any problems with IE, or don't you 
use IE? 

I assume you have a name brand PC, that came with Windows preinstalled by the Mfgr...and 
lots of extra, unwanted junk. Have you cleaned out the extra baggage, all the trialware 
programs, etc. that came pre-installed? If you're one to leave things "as is", a 
good cleaning would be a great help. 

Have you removed unnecessary startup items? There can be legit, problematic applciations 
running in the background, and try eliminating everything that's unnecessary. That 
includes Automatic Updates. It runs every few minutes to check for updates. You can 
check and download updates manually, the first Tues. of every month. I like to put 
people to work cleaning things up. :) 
CastleCops StartupList

Dealing with Unwanted Spyware and Parasites

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