A personal firewall is software that basically makes your computer invisible to hackers, worms and other threats that can infect your computer over the internet. If you have a brand new computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2, there is a firewall built into Windows. If you're running an older version of Windows, even an earlier version of Windows XP, there is no firewall automatically set up for you. Again, if you're running Windows XP Service Pack 2 this is already set up, but otherwise you should turn on Windows Updates. If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can double-check that automatic updates are turned on by clicking Start, then click Control Panel, then double-click Security Center. The window that opens will tell you if automatic updates are turned on, and lets you turn them on if they're not. To turn on automatic updates in earlier versions of Windows XP, click on the Start menu, click Control Panel and then double-click on System. On the "Automatic Updates" tab, click the option to "Automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify." To turn them on in Windows 2000, click on Start, click Control Panel and then double-click on Automatic Updates. Now when Microsoft releases updates, they will be downloaded for you automatically and Windows will tell you when they are ready to be installed. It doesn't matter how new your computer is - there will be new viruses, and new updates for the antivirus software, since it was loaded. It could be simply called update or could be something like Live Update or Download Latest Updates. If you click on the update option (with the left button this time) it will install the newest updates for you.
