Microsoft Releases SP4 for Windows 2000

Snake_Plisken writes "I checked Windows Update today on a lark and found that Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 has been released." You can read a short CNet article discussing the media player patches as well as one more about the fixes in SP4.

Comments

Just Curious

[bloxnet]

Any brave souls out there already applied this yet? I am looking at about 100 Win2K boxes that will potentially need this...so anyone with feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Re:Just Curious

[dasmegabyte]

I think it's telling that even though XP's been out for at least a year, 2000 is still available as an option on new Dells. I asked for it 'special when they ordered my new PC for work.

2000 is, in my opinion, the peak windows OS. It works, plays well with hardware, and doesn't try and mess with the concept of the UI too much. It adds transparency but doesn't mutilate it, and you can turn off the one dumb feature (menu sliding and fading).

XP...well, XP moves shit around on me. Nothing's where I expect it to be. There are all these words...and real estate on menus is sucked up by these complicated sentences that have nothing to do with what I use my computer for.

In short, XP fights my productivity. Every time I try to do something, it slows me down in a way that I only need the first time I do that thing. It's like a tutorial you can't skip past. Whereas Win2k gets things out of my way and only tells me what I need to know. If I need more, it gives me that option.

Even "classic" mode is a bear, because the control panel is all munged up. Erg!

I like Office 2000 better than XP as well...2000 was a good year for MS, maybe it's because it was the last cycle before Balmer came in as Lord of the Sith.

Security

[Anonymous Coward]

And here you can read about the newest security leak which is not patched by this servicepack ;)
That guy who analysed the buffer overflow also found a funny easteregg in the buggy dll file. :)

The scarry part

[pecosdave]

At around the same time, however, the operating system was ridiculed by one of Microsoft's key developers for containing 63,000 known defects and bugs. The first service pack was released less than six months later. The latest service pack apparently has about 675 bug fixes.

The Scary part is, I've found Win2000 to be the most stable and reliable Windows ever released. 63,000 defects? I wouldn't doubt it. The part that worries me with how well 2000 works, how many defects do the 9x, XP, and NT versions contain?

Yeah, I got one of those emails too.

[MickLinux]

Except this is what it was: a trojan, but with an all new date, and an all new filename. Someone has just rereleased this baby.

Fortunately, a few things clued me in:

(1) It said it was from Microsoft. But the URL said from a Verizon ad.

(2) It called me a Microsoft Client. I've never felt so humiliated. I do *NIX or Mac.

(3) It claimed to fix ALL the known security flaws in Windows. This one should have been obvious.

(4) It was advertised to work on Win9x, ME, and 2000. My guess is that Microsoft doesn't do a whole lot for Win95 people who haven't upgraded. I could be wrong.

(5) It included an executable. [??? how did that slip past my ISP??? They normally strip executables.]

Anyhow, for those of you who use Windows, be aware [once again, and again and again] that those trojans are not to be run.

Re:Well...

[MeanMF]

You can use the handy official Microsoft desktop support lifecycle wizard to see how long they plan to support each desktop OS version. Windows 2000 will be fully supported through 3/31/05, then it will enter "extended support" for two more years (extended=more expensive). After that you're on your own. Win2k server follows basically the same guidelines, except that in the "extended" support period you need to pay for non-security-related hotfixes.