How to Install LNK Update (KB2286198) on Windows XP SP2

Microsoft discontinued support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 on July 13th, and that means there is no SP2 update for the recent LNK shortcut vulnerability (KB2286198). If you review the comments from this SANS Diary post, you'll see that there was some initial confusion regarding SP2 support, due to a typo in Microsoft's Security Bulletin (MS10-046). The bulletin is now corrected.However, even today, the download for Windows XP still includes SP2 in the file properties.But if you try to install the update on an SP2 system, you'll get this error message:"Setup has detected that the version of the Service Pack installed on your system is lower than what is necessary to apply this hotfix. At minimum, you must have Service Pack 2 installed."This minimum requirement reminded us of some other software that required SP3… Grand Theft Auto IV.GTA IV wouldn't install on SP2 systems when it was released in December of 2008.And so some determined gamers came up with a registry hack.It turns out that (continue reading...)