serious problem , easy to fix (Score 2, Informative)

This is a 100% true story. Any time this year I tried to reinstall a machine at school (UC Santa Cruz) that was connected to the network, it would immediately be attacked by blaster. No warning, the system would get the RPC death knell and die. This was with a copy of XP that I made that had SP1 slipstreamed into it. The answer, however, is very simple. 1) Download the SP2 network install ahead of time and burn it on a CD (throw on your chipset drivers too) 2) format and reinstall with the network unplugged 3) install chipset drivers (for DMA) 4) install SP2 5) plug into network and run windows update etc... volia. If you can't get ahold of SP2 ahead of time, use any decent software firewall (Zone alarm and norton both work pretty well) or a hardware firewall preferably. They aren't really necessary though, SP2 will save your life.