Slashdot Mirror
XP Service Pack Slows Programs
AEton writes "Vnunet and others are reporting that Windows XP's Service Pack 1 has introduced a flaw into the operating system. Changes to memory handling code result in programs which often allocate memory (which is many of them) can take up to ten times longer than normal to start. Microsoft has acknowledged the problem in Q815411, and while a patch is available by request from Microsoft Product Services, it will not be widely released until Service Pack 2."
...In the meantime, Microsoft suggests you refrain from running programs which use memory. Thank you for your patience.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
It looks like the pirates who weren't allowed to upgrade to SP1 have gotten the last laugh. Piracy does pay! Thanks MS, for pointing this out.
This is really just more anti-Microsoft Slashdot FUD. After all, this only affects programs that allocate memory.
Programmers can easily work around this bug by returning right after printf("Hello World") finishes.
Now I know why they call them service packs rather than upgrades. Apparently Microsoft doesn't even trust themselves.
More good work from MS's 'does it compile?' quality assurance program
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Windows XP's Service Pack 1 has introduced a flaw into the operating system.
Drat, just when we all thought windows had achieved perfection. Back to the Visio board...
Each component in Windows is so intertwined together that when one thing needs to be fixed, the a few other pieces breaks, which must be fixed, therefore more pieces break and it will get to a point when all pieces break and it is better off to run NT4, as Microsoft stopped breaking it.
Please direct all bug reports to
This patch, along with the fact that MS won't be releasing a patch for that recent gaping hole in NT4, reminds me of a scene...
(Read along in a mock British-imitating-French accent, ala the castle scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail)
Microsoft Engineer: We've got a problem here, chaps!
MS Users (All, Amongst Selves): Well, how about a patch then?
Microsoft Engineer: Uh, we've already got one, you see.
MS User 1: Are you sure he's got one?
MS User 2: He says they've already got one!
Microsoft Engineer: Oh, yes. It's very nice-a.
MS Engineers: [chuckling]
MS Users: Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?
MS Engineer: Of course not! You are clueless types-a!
MS Users: If you will not show us the patch, we shall switch all our systems to Linux!
MS Engineer: You don't frighten us, clueless pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Linux King, you and all your silly open source k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!
MS User 1: What a strange person.
MS User 2: Now look here, my good man--
MS Engineer: I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
MS Users: Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
MS Engineer: No. Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a! [sniff]
(With aplogies to Monty Python)
Script here.
What the hell did they have to go and touch that for? Was is broken?
Yeah, so the new Microsoft standard malloc() and takes 10 times as long to load as the old version. But with this increase in time, the customer can be sure that the memory allocations are being done more securly, and in a way that's good for them.
Also as a bonus, no more pesky free()'s. When that memory gets allocated, it STAYS allocated untill you (have to) reboot your system.
Huh?
Is it possible to tell if Mozilla runs slower? That's like determining the exact second the paint started to peel ;)
SecureCRT takes forever to start up.
So I suppose SP1 is to XP as beer is to me: a tool to slow your reaction time. Too bad it doesn't make XP more attractive...
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
Sure, it has some side effects, but don't all fixes?
But due to the Service Pack update, IE took ten times longer to launch! ;-D
-/-
Mikey-San
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
I knew it!! Where else is that money going? I never see any...
I never did quite trust printf(), a little on the seedy side it always seemed to me. How can it just keep taking arguments? That's just not natural.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For too long have tail-recursive supporters been laughed at and ignored while people used fancy stacks that grew without bounds!
No longer! Now, arise my tail-recursive brethren and let a new day of shallow-stack programming commence!!
Wait - stack growth is not the same as memory allocation? My bad. Back, I say, supporters of the One Recursion! The time is not yet right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, Bill said 640K of memory is enough for most people, so I guess M$ it taking that as a design goal and ooptimizing their OS for things that don't need more RAM than that
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
(This is rhetorical and not meant as a troll.)
Mein Gott!
The poster criticized a Microsoft competitor and didn't get modded into oblivion? The poster deigned to utter a discouraging word on /. about an open-source product and got away with it? What is this world COMING TO?!? C'mon, libc is perfect in every way and when a fully-functioning HURD kernel is released in 2060 or so, it's gunna be awesome!
IN5T4-LLM3T-0CR4P-UPURW-1ND0Z
Works as per SP1 specifications.