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Windows XP SP2 Beta Reviewed
worm eater writes "Ars Technica has a characteristically thorough review of Windows XP Service Pack 2 Beta, with plenty of screen shots. In a nutshell, it's all about security fixes, including a seriously beefed up firewall. The final release is expected this summer." The review concludes: "Overall, Microsoft has made a step in the right direction with this service pack. The increased focus on security will be good not only for the average user who does not spend much time thinking about security her system, but also for 'power users' and those who work supporting end users."
I'd tolerate all the exploits if this thing would make me toast and coffee in the morning.. meh.
http://www.babysmasher.com
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A review of a service pack? What's next, A screenshot of RTPatch? I can see it now...
"Here we see the patch process at 37% complete. Note that the progress bar is roughly one third filled in with a nice blue color."
Please!!
popup blocker in IE. Finally!
:D
It ASKS YOU before installing random crap in the background and at least notes that "Some software could be harmful"
Good. Step in the right direction.
You can download the service pack here
I've been running 2003 as a desktop for a couple of weeks now. Haven't found one thing that ran on XP that couldn't be made to run on 2003. Everything is locked down until expressly opened. All the eye candy and useless dross from XP is turned off or MIA. Seems much peppier as a desktop and webserver than XP or even 2000. IIS 6 almost (almost) makes you forget all the crap MS released in the past.
IE has been updated with some good things, but does anyone know if they have fixed the numerous issues that standards oriented web developers have to work around? The png issues, box model issues, absolute positioning issues, etc?
Microsoft is holding back many websites from doing some amazing designs because of their lack of standard compatibility.
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
Found this article from Microsoft, might be of interest to some, "This document contains preliminary information about the security technologies in Windows XP SP2."
Windows XP Service Pack 2: A Developer's View
IE now has a popup blocker.. thereby making Telnet the last (by my count) internet-related application that does NOT have a built-in popup blocker. Are companies still paying for that shit? I can't imagine them getting anything approaching a good return on investment for popup ads these days. Unless they can get them free in specially-marked boxes of cereal, or something. On an unrelated note, why are they giving XP users a firewall? Any XP user that needs a firewall should be on 2000, if not Linux/Unix. XP is for media and third-graders. :(
Sure it is about time that IE gets a popup blocker, but one thing I'd like to see improved about IE would be its horridly aged quirky, standards-violating rendering engine. It is the "Netscape 4" of today.
But of course at about 95% of the global browser market share Microsoft see no need to improve that vital component of the browser.
Internet Explorer's browser monopoly is hurting the progress badly by locking the majority to legacy HTML that we should have left behind in the 90's already.
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
Just shows MS can't win. If iTunes defaults unblocked, security users will say that an unnecessary port was left unblocked. If default is blocked Apple zealots will claim it's a conspiracy to take away Apple marketshare.
They need to invent Schrodinger's Port.
So it's large because most of the binaries have been recompiled, even ones where the code hasn't changed.
However, the main thing that drew my attention was this, which Ars Technica only briefly mentioned:(lots more detail on the MSDN link)
Speaking as a phone tech support drone for a large university, many of these changes will be most welcome. The "Blaster" incident cost our university thousands of dollars in overtime and set back all of the activities that were going on at the beginning of the school year.
However, i'm not so sure that the fancier firewall will be such a good thing unless it is implemented properly. Ever since the newer version of AIM that came out in August or September 2003, we have been flooded with calls of it blinking on and off. These problems have been traced to ZoneAlarm - another free firewall that many people use because the one in XP was insufficient. If the new firewall has trouble with an application that is as popular as AIM is among our college students, it could create more problems then its worth for IT departments everywhere.
It may sound as if i'm overreacting for such a simple thing, but try working in IT for a few weeks and receiving over 150 phone calls a day from disgruntled students cussing you out because they can't chat with their friends.
Overall, its long past due that Microsoft focus on security instead of whizz-bang features that serve to slow down the O/S and cause it to be more unstable. XP Professional was a step in the right direction as far as stability, but the security issues are most definitely a large concern, especially to those of us with a phone to our ear.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
The one problem with developing useful 3rd party apps under MS is that its just a matter of time.. Of course this is something that Microsoft had to do eventually, especially now that people are getting infected before they get a chance to download security updates. 3rd Party Windows software companies of basic utility sw can now only protect their investments by (ab)using patent law... (eg The One Click Firewall, One-Click Unzip etc...) or having a better support infrastructure (not easy)
You of course realize that pop-up blocking becoming mainstream will just push sites and advertisers into another, equally or more annoying method of pushing unwanted crap in your face before you can get to the content you want.
I can just see it, you must view the ad for 15 seconds before you can load the next page and there's no getting around it, unless you want to spend your life picking apart javascript or whatever for code to load the next page.
What you got today is an annoyance, what you might have tomorrow is a headache. Time to get back to lynx.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar