Yahoo TecH says: Beware of Conficker worm come April 1st. Are they kidding?

Yahoo TecH says: Beware of Conficker worm come April 1st. Are they kidding?
I pasted the whole article and the link below.
In a nutshell:
Because of the Conficker-malware one shouldn't use the Computer on April 1st. Is this true?
I have to work on my computer on Wednesday - and I might want to go online too.
Since a virus incident at the beginning of this year on our computers I have been careful to make sure all antivirus software is up-to-date.
And since you guys are my trusted source for these kind of issues I am looking forward to hearing from you if or if not I should use my computer on April 1st.


The full article and link:
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128643/beware-conficker-worm-come-april-1/

 

Hi PeteC,
Thanks for the link to Brian Livingston's article titled "Run a Conficker removal tool before April 1 ".
For those that might come across this thread I would like to answer my initial questions about the worm coming to live on April 1st:
It is not an April fools joke or a piece of sensationalism, and you should use the removal tool and run Microsoft update.
I run the suggested removal tool from BitDefender and was glad to be told there is no infection on my laptop.

Brian also mentioned "Susan Bradley's March 5 article explained how to prevent Windows' AutoRun function from exposing your machine to Conficker or any other malware. "

Although Susan Bradley said in her article that she's "not yet ready to pull the fire alarm and tell everyone to disable AutoRun" for home users. I would like to disable it - I have little use for it and can easily manually start all programs or drives.
I tried following her instructions for XP home users but I can't disable Autorun.

Susan Bradley instructions (and Microsofts) say go to the Registry Editor by running "regedit" and then to "Navigate to and select the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer "

and "in the right pane, double-click NoDriveTypeAutoRun, enter 0xFF in the "Value data" field, make sure Hexadecimal is selected under Base"

"NoDriveTypeAutoRun" does not exist on my computer under this address. I have 2 items listed in this location:
1. (Default)
2. HonorAutoRunSetting

The numbering is mine, the me parenthesis Microsoft's.

Could you please tell me how to disable AutoRun?
By the way I did successfully run the Mircrosoft patch 967715.
And the latest Microsoft update (5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 build 2600) .

Thank you,
Martin

 

Hi PeteC,
I could finally disable AutoRun.
Thanks for you help,
Martin