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Windows XP SP2 Delayed Until Late 2004
Aiua writes "BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft has pushed back the release date for the second Windows XP service pack to the third quarter of 2004 without giving any reasons." Update: 08/19 12:52 GMT by M : Another article claims it will be out three months earlier, no later than June 2004.
If they're referring to fiscal year 2004, that's between January and March of next year, which isn't nearly so bad.
When you're pretty much any company, you don't have to give reasons to everything you do. At least not publically.
Even Apple is perfectly entitled to do the same.
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No, no. The Blaster hole was fixed about a month ago. People just didn't patch their products.
What I ment was that the Blaster incident was probably the last nail in their coffin - maybe they finally had enough and decided to take security a little bit more seriously from now on. That would explain the delay.
If Microsoft want to makee auto-updating default for the clueless without offending business users who would (presumably) want it disabled, so they can control rollout of fixes themselves (both to reduce bandwidth by using the full downloads and the software delivery mechanism of their choice, and just because they want to give things a proper test first), why not do what I think they should have done all along - first only make it the default for XP Home Edition, and second make it a configurable during install.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
For Joe User and for admins of relatively small business networks, 3 weeks is ample time to try out a service pack to make sure it doesn't break anything that you rely on and to roll things back if it does. For the admins of larger networks, where there may be an even larger number of applications that have to be compatibility tested, 3 weeks may not be enough. If previous MS supplied patches hadn't fscked up application stability in the past, this might not be an issue, but as they have, it is.
Microsoft have been talking about making auto-updating enabled by default in a service pack which may be linked to the delay.
It doesn't matter...
The blaster patch on Win2K requires at least SP2 which requires 8 hours, 10 minutes to download via dial-up. Because of this, I disable auto-updates on any dial-up PC that I work on. It just isn't bandwidth effective.
IMHO, Microsoft should be *required* to send critical updates on a CD package via postal mail. The updates should be hands-free, though I doubt that we'll still have trouble getting newbs to run a fix on a PC that doesn't appear to be broken.
The other twist would be the built-in firewall software. Simply run updates to auto-configure it to block known exploits. Anyway that you look at it, there is a big problem.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Hmm, it's Tuesday. Must be "bitch about Microsoft not issuing updates". Tomorrow is "bitch about Microsoft issuing too many updates".
There is enough valid stuff to complain about when it comes to Microsoft, let's not start just speculating wildly.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Not entirely. You need to figure the "software industry factor" into the equation before making such a blanket statement. If Ford Motor Co. decided to implement considerably radical changes to their automobile line, they'd list the reasons why it was necessary, which in turn would have to come under public and government scrutiny. Same with any other company that doesn't deal with software.
Somehow software industry is a banana republic that gets off the hook in respect to accountability. If Microsoft was in a business of producing pharmaceuticals, I doubt they would be in a business long enough if Bill Gates didn't go on morning shows personally to assure the public that their drugs are safe, despite the major problems surrounding their product line.
While I'm a very big Apple fan, and advocate their product use at every given opportunity, at the same time I understand how this corporation is known to employ predatory practices from time to time. Killing off smaller competitors, pushing their own standards forward, etc. The paradox lies in Apple's ability to get it right most of the time. But that doesn't mean that Apple would be better than Microsoft have they had 90% market share. When AAPL breaks the 50% market share (hypothetically speaking that is), you'd see far worse anti-user practices than that of Microsoft. I can guarantee that.
Software industry doesn't abide by rules of accepted business practices. "Any company" cannot act like Microsoft, otherwise they'd be out of business.