After dealing with worms, viruses and other computer problems last year, the University of California at Santa Barbara recently decided to ban students on the network from using specific Microsoft operating systems.

Use of Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 is now prohibited for students on the network; however, the ban is not campus-wide. The systems are still in use in other parts of the institution where there is a more controlled corporate environment.

After the University of California made complaints regarding Microsoft’s software, the Microsoft Corporation insisted the problems were specific to the university and had resulted from the way its network is configured.

“Santa Barbara’s struggles with Windows 2000 reflect the vagaries of its own network, not any flaws in the operating system,” said John Dubois, a member of Microsoft’s education-solutions group.

However, according to Curtis Kline, Santa Barbara’s residential network coordinator, only about 200 of the network’s 3,800 computers ran Windows 2000 last year, but most of the security breaches were traced to those computers.

Kline blames the issues on the problems students may have in setting up the systems. The system’s default security settings can confuse users and in turn make them set up their machines in ways allowing hackers to access the user’s computer without a password.

Due to these problems, UCSB has suggested that students purchase Windows XP Home or XP Professional for their computers. Both of these systems are strongly recommended and sold in the university’s bookstore because they are easier to set up properly and therefore more difficult to breach, according to Kline.

Michelle Souza, a senior at UCSB, said she is unhappy about the recommendation.

“I really don’t have the money to buy a new computer program right now,” she said.

The University of Wisconsin has also experienced problems with these systems; however, a policy of this sort has not been adopted.

According to Brian Rust, UW Division of Information Technology’s communications manager, problems occurred about a year ago when the Klez virus and other viruses hit their peak.

One way UW addresses these problems is by the “licensing and large-scale distribution of Norton antivirus software, rather than banning a particular operating system,” Rust said.

Other precautions that UW takes are regularly and continuously letting departments and students know what they can and should do to keep viruses off their computers. One way of doing this was DoIT’s production of an antivirus video that is shown to new students.

DoIT also makes Microsoft patches and fixes readily available to the campus and helps remove viruses from infected computers as well as restore the data originally on the computer.

“About half of our faculty and staff and about 40 percent of our students are using Windows 2000 without serious problems. We probably owe most of our success to licensing and effective use of Norton Antivirus,” Rust said.

Many universities have had similar problems and, like UW, have applied antivirus scanning and deletion at the server level and on the desktop to protect their networks.