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Sophos small business solutions: the error 'Unknown OS' is reported by the Sophos network protection wizard

When you use the the 'Network protection wizard' to deploy Sophos Anti-Virus Small Business Edition (SBE) to your network, the message

Unknown OS

is shown for computers to which the wizard cannot deploy Sophos Anti-Virus.

This error message is displayed when you are deploying to Windows XP computers with Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Windows XP SP2 computers will not give operating system details to the Sophos Control Center unless correct authentication is provided. This requires a username and password that provide administrative rights over the computer. The error indicates that the username and password that you used in the 'Network protection wizard' was either incorrect, or did not have sufficient administrative rights over the workstation.

What to do

Ensure that you use the highest-level administrative username and password when you run the 'Network protection wizard'. The username should be in the format domain\username.

If you need more information or guidance, then please contact technical support.