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Windows XP SP2 Still Rough Around the Edges
Megor1 writes "According to crn.com when they tried upgrading various computers to Windows XP SP2 RC2 3 out of 5 of the machines failed to come back up, and had to have both SP1 and SP2 removed via various hacks supplied by Microsoft. Sounds like it might take a lot longer for Microsoft to release SP2 if RC2 is any sign of how far they are along."
Neat! This is the best thing to happen to the internet in years.
...you'll wait for XP SP3.1.
Jeezus Kreist, XP's SP2 ?!? I've still never been able to install W2K's SP4 and have a bootable machine afterward. Good thing SP4 has an uninstaller.
A OS patch with an uninstaller. They've been aware that their shit sucks for years.
Windows XP SP2... codename Longhorn =)
Actually the computers not turning back on is one of the new security features....
it's beta. it's supposed to work 100% yet.
I have a machine that is in terrible shape including some sort of registry corruption and ati driver issues. I installed SP2 last night and the machine was actually in better shape after the install...no more registry issues and less ati issues.
At what point are we saying anything Microsoft makes is more refined than "rough?"
That's 40% and pretty decent for M$.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Joking aside, there's some truth behind Microsoft and their versions. One of the developer's had a blog that talked about it in detail.
Essentially, version 1.0 is a best guess at what the customer wants. Version 2.0 is started even before the customer sees the 1.0 version. Finally, customer feedback is incorporated into the 3.0 version and things might actually start getting useful.
Installed a beta of SP2 maybe 2-3 months ago. Worked like a charm, and the new firewall is nice.
I for one hope SP2 is the second to last nail in the coffin for microsoft. We cant count on our government to break up the convicted monopoly, im hoping they will run themselves into the ground.
I think the best case scenario for EVERYONE involved but microsoft is for SP2 to have even more severe security vulnerabilities and instabilities than the current incarnation.
I generally can't stand script kiddies, and crackers, but I for one hope groups already have prototype exploits for SP2 waiting for release. Nobody should trust a windows system for anything remotely important, and I hope SOMETHING will open the non-slashdot communitys's eyes.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
Don't know what happened to these guys, but it worked just as smoothly for me as my last KDE upgrade. You can try it too! That's a beta Windows Update site.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
Three of three machines updated
to SP2 RC2 with zero problems.
100% success rate.
I don't see how they could know it was the service pack that caused the machine to fail. I just did a random test here in my office. I shut down everyone's computer, and 3 out of 5 failed to come back up again. This is normal operation, not something new introduced by the service pack.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I've got FreeBSD and Windows XP SP 2 running side-by-side. I installed various incarnations of SP 2, from the original technical preview, to the current release candidate. I just installed the newest private build from Microsoft yesterday. When I was using the technical preview, a lot of software - especially CD and DVD burning software - was completely borked. Now things seem to be working better.
The improvements to Internet Explorer are really the main thing that caught my attention. Microsoft finally wisened up and started turning features like ActiveX off by default, and now has permissions completely locked down for the local computer. All I can say is, THANK GOD.
I normally have a lot of criticism for Microsoft, but this service pack is one of the few Windows builds I have to compliment them on. They've made a lot of steps forward in terms of security. However, as long as they rely on a complex, feature-filled package by default, we're going to see security holes in the default installations of Windows.
The real test is going to be when we roll this out hardcore at the office. Since the company has a lot of DCOM applications, I suspect many of them will break. This isn't really anything new to Linux and Unix users; when you install new libraries, you often have to recompile binaries for compatibility. However, in Windows enterprises, this is going to amount to absolute chaos - especially given that most businesses don't have access to source code to recompile.
This service pack is a good baby step in a long journey. In the meantime, I'm going to be busy dealing with broken applications.
i've installed SP2 RC2 on a Dell 300m, a Dell Inspiron 8000, and cheap old Dell tower and they all work. Oh, did I mention that all my computers are made by Dell? hehehehe
Anyways, i there was no difficulty installing sp2 nor were there any bad side effects. on the contrary, wireless works better due to the new wireless connection thingy. also it has a nice built-in firewall that tells you when applications try to connect to the internet and also a security center application that helps people that aren't that good with computers (i.e. my mom) keep their computer secure.
Investing forum
You can download RC3 here. The upgrade time is even shorter than SP2 if you do a "take over disk" method!
Besides, Microsoft's profits are up. Why should they care about the give-away freebies, if they can make more people buy stuff from them anyway?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Good, the longer it takes for SP2 (with its popup blocker for IE) to come out, the more time alternate web browsers (Firefox) have to gain marketshare. Popup blocking is one of the biggest selling points.
Phillip
First off, I'll go ahead and acknowledge that this is a release candidate. However, the type of surgery that people had to do in order to recover from that BSOD is way more than what Joe Sixpack will be capable of.
Reading the details of their methods, the rollback took out hardware drivers. Though they were able to recover all but one after a reboot, it probably would have been easier to just re-image the drive instead of having to jump hoops with rollback, registry edits, etc.
Wonder if this is Windows trying to make itself more secure...in a Darwinian fashion. If this is the case, I'm not so sure I'm too much opposed to it.
Now, I know that Slashdot isn't exactly a bastion of journalistic integrety.
But couldn't you at least point out in the giant headline that this ain't 'SP2' that got tested?
This is an unreleased, still in testing, being considered for release, but never the less, NOT released version of some software. It's EXPECTED not to work properly.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I installed SP2 on a vmware virtual machine. No problems with that yet.
Come on, I'm not crazy.
various hacks
AKA Microsoft's entire product line.
I mean, aside from the fact that Linux is my primary OS... if I get a new service pack for XP I intend to back up my XP partition via the PARTIMAGE utility. If it doesn't boot up again, whammo, restore the partition and life goes on.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
The service pack is leaving your computer's no-execute bit set, preventing your computer from executing. To unset your computer's no-execute bit, bang your head repeatedly against your computer while saying: "Never install an MS service pack until about 6 months after its release and always have a full backup."
"The functionality that SP2 brings to the table may make many third-party security utilities--such as popup blockers and software firewalls--obsolete. That functionality may push many security ISVs to rethink their marketing strategies. "
Great...so the unaware public will now be using security programs from the same people that brought you this wonderful program
Well every computer is different... I'm running SP2 RC2 myself and ... really my windows box has never run better. It's weird. I honestly didn't expect that. I can't say that the new virus features and the firewall setting crap are all that great, but I suppose for joe windows user they'd be good guidelines to follow. Anyone else having the same success?
Hey, it's my OPINION that dogs have eight legs and make a sound like a car horn every time they take a piss.
This article is about a *release candidate* for SP2 still having issues.
No kidding. A release candidate.
I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but this is *ridiculous*. Does anyone think that *Linus's* release candidate kernels are problem-free?
The only thing that bashing Microsoft for BS reasons does is damage credibility of the people doing so. Oh, in the short term, people wind up thinking "unstable old Microsoft", but when SP2 comes out and it's just another SP, people start getting a "boy who cried wolf" attitude towards those that were wrongly throwing a fit.
May we never see th
I find it Ironic that on Slashdot that it is considered good news that Microsoft has problems fixing security on peoples system. You would think that a technical community would want all the products to run smoothly. Because with MS having no security fixes then your network traffic is full of Microsoft Crap. See this is bad news because the general community will still have all sort of security problems with there PC costing them a lot of money. It is like a Pepsi Fan being happy that a major Coca-Cola plant blew up killing hundreds of workers. I hear a lot of Slashdotters go I just use the right tool for the right job, then when they hear that MS screwed up again then they are going hooray. I would think that they will be disappointed for having a lack of stable tools.
No I am a long timer on Slashdot, but I just wanted to point out the Irony.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Everything else runs QNX or Linux. The QNX machines are solid; the Linux machine seems to need attention about once a month.
I am running XP Pro SP1 + SP2 on two different machines and XP Home SP1+SP2 on other machine. No problem whatsoever. Is this yet another case spreading FUD? The cases of failure seem pretty generic - not specific to any particular hardware or software setup - and I would tend to think if it occured to them, it must occur to me and many other people. Other people with SP2 - What's your experience?
Slashdot and the user's experience.
n00b: "Windows sucks I use Linux!!"
seasoned: "//Begin "Windows sucks I use Linux" posts..."
false veteran: "tell something we don't know!" (this post)
veteran: useful posts
damn old: gets tired of the game and now just lurks (but shows up in the eventual "Low UID" thread)
>3 out of 5 of the machines failed to come back up, and had to have both SP1 and SP2 removed via various hacks supplied by Microsoft.
Sounds like this puppy's ready to go gold.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
In related news, AppleInsider posts that Virtual PC 7.0 is delayed until October. According to the "inside-info" (which is to be taken with a grain of salt), the delay is due to the push back of Windows XP SP2 into August.
Valuable is the man who shits ram . . .
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
Micrsoft sees the worm attacks taking down systems and decided to do something about it, and thus XP SP2 was born.
Worms took down 60% of the systems they got installed on, and now too, so does XP SP2.
Protect yourself from the next round of worms due out in a few weeks, and install XP SP2 to take down your system before a Worm does. If your system is offline, it cannot be infected by a worm, you are protected 100%!
Microsoft also competes with spyware/adware companies by making XP SP2 hard to uninstall as well without some clever hacks, or the uninstall program from the creator of the software.
"We're just looking out for your best interests." an anonymous Microsoft employee is quoted as saying.
"Warning, slippery when sarcastic!"
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Ditto what some of the prior posts said; I've found that SP2 turns a lot of the "dangerous" stuff off and turns on the Firewall. The pop-up blocker works really well (so far), I have yet to see a stray pop-up. Sometimes it blocks video playback from some sites, but they could be seen as a pop-up. From what I've read about the crash-protection changes in the SP, I think the rest of the OS community should wish SP2 was worse.. who else are we going to complain about if MS cleans up their act? I'm sure the backlash will happen anyway, Joe User is going to complain that it "breaks" all sorts of stuff because of the firewall and security settings... when in fact it's mostly doing what it should.
So, the news is that they have a 2 out of 5 average improvement? C'mon, let's give them a hand, don't chastise them for their success!
Happened on 2 computers for me. XP home and XP pro. I highly recommend NOT using the automatic download and update service. It will give you grief, I promise.
, .
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
I'm sure Windows XP SP2 is going to fix every known security problem, block pop-ups and make your cows give 10% more milk. But what about us non-XP customers? To this day at my company we're putting Windows 2000 on all new computers, and we're not about to change to XP anyime soon, looks more like never in fact (except for new laptops where it makes sense).
Last time I checked W2K was still on the list of fully supported operating systems for at several years. In fact, I've got black on white that we're promised security fixes at least up till 2007. Up until now W2K and XP have recieved new patches in sync, is this about to change? As they say, Microsofts worst competitor is their own older products, maybe this is a new way of "encouraging" upgrading.
It's like deja vu all over again.
That would make it Bullhorn
My pc was't working (ie and firefox crashed 3 sec affter asssesing a page. out of town and in troubble i booted to my linux partition downloaded SP2 beta and installed it and it fixed it...
Just putting the K in Kwaulity....
Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
PRWIRE - Independent testing proves SP2 most secure ever.
Microsoft is proud to announce that in independent testing conducted by CRN labs, Windows XP SP2 proved most secure windows platform ever. In 3 out of 5 cases, windows machines proved resistant to all attempts to compromise them. In 2 of 5 cases Microsoft's RapidReboot technology prevented attempts to compromise.
I have more than 1 machine, bud, and the basic W2K install media, and lotsa hard drives lying around, so I can eventually get the failed SP4 outta there. If not, I can do a fresh install on a different drive.
I conceed that the thread-head could be considered misleading by some, but I intended no deceit, and the overall meaning is unchanged. HAND.
Service Pack 4 Permits You to Remove the Service Pack by Using the Recovery Console
Perhaps, but that makes the orignal article a Troll.
Windows XP, like all software, is only as good as the administrator in charge of it. I control literally HUNDREDS of Windows XP boxes as a hired gun administrator and none of them (none,zero, zip nada) have the kind of problems you describe.
I have an overclocked Athlon at home dual booting between SuSe 9.1 and Windows XP and do not have the problems you describe.
Windows XP Pro installed on my laptop (again dualboot to SuSe 9.1) running SP1 + SP2 and do not have the problems you describe.
I'm not particuraly trying to be an ass, but perhaps you should stop blaming the OS and look for another cause.
My years of experience with XP has taught me that functionally it spanks the crap out of any MS OS prior, INCLUDING Windows 2000.
I've installed XP Sp2 builds from 2096 (beta) to the month old RC2 build - mostly for testing how our company's products would be affected. This installation was done on OEM machines from Sony, Dell and Compaq as well as locally assembled hardware. The number of machines that this exercise was done is about 25. I haven't had a single case of a blue screen or a machine not coming back up after installation. Lucky? Perhaps. Common sense in use? Yes. That article's credibility? You tell me. I am not trying to flame here but trying to be fair.
I've upgraded 3 machines so far. A 1 Ghz Dell Dimension 4100, a custom 1.6P4 and an IBM Thinkpad T21. All machines had started on Windows XP and been upgraded with SP1 already. They had been running for at least a month or two with SP1. The SP2 install worked flawlessly on all three with absolutely no adverse effects. I was impressed, as I had even allotted time for troubleshooting. Maybe MS *is* doing something right. Speaking of MS doing things right, when they pay me $3 for each share I own, that's called doing things right in my book.
I got a kick out of the end of the article: "The functionality that SP2 brings to the table may make many third-party security utilities--such as popup blockers and software firewalls--obsolete." "may" indeed, lol. As in I "may" trip over a winning lottery ticket while sitting at my desk typing this :)
Yeah, but the Tech Support default response of "Power Cycle" isn't very interesting when the only possible machine state is "off".
Microsoft (and many other companies) need users to do a lot of beta testing for these types of upgrades. There's just too many unknowns out in the wild.
Many people (companies) adopt a wait-and-see approach to big service packs and patches.
The people most likely to try out the SPs are those who don't really care if Windows still boots after the procedure. That is to say, those who don't use Windows as their primary OS.
So, in the end, it's the linux users who will beta test and get SP2 out the door.
(p.s -- typing this drivel was vetter than working the last 5 minutes of a Friday).
Not to be offensive, but I don't buy it. Simply because you cannot configure your machine properly when overclocked isn't a good reason to claim XP is unstable....
Admittedly, it may imply that the Linux kernel handles exceptions, etc better than XP, but from what you're saying, I suspect the instablity is in your -system-.
if you can't run Windows XP in a stalble way and judge the product - i got two words for you : STFU n00b.
Under different hardware configs, with different software already there.
No problems, not once.
It's my daily use OS on my notebook and my 2nd machine at home. Games, music, other normal stuff is all working fine.
But then again, I didn't have problems with the early releases.
I've done fresh installs from their ISOs, and xpsp2 type installs into existing OS's.
I wonder what people are doing, or what kind of gear they're trying to get it to run on.
AMD, Intel, integrated video, ATI video, Nvidia, weird notebook drivers, all have been fine.
Wireless networking, wired networking, browsing, downloading, everything has been smooth.
Are they actively trying to make it fail? (i.e. it fails every time I turn it off by pulling power during the initial load.)
What am I doing RIGHT?
My mom says I'm cool.
Very interesting how (relatively) easy it is to uninstall all service packs from Win XP:
* Execute whatever DOS commands are in spuninst.txt
* Set a registry key to "LocalSystem"
* Execute spuninst\spuninst.exe
* Reboot to restore (most) drivers
Once this is done, the article says, all service packs are gone without a trace. This leaves the Win XP box in the state it would have been in on October 14, 2003, with all these vulnerabilities.
So much for security patches!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I use bestcrypt (kind of like a crypto loopback device, only for windows), and SP2 hosed it. The device driver won't load, and I still can't access any of my encrypted data.
I wonder what SP2 did that broke it?
Microsoft should just stop all activity on the products, scrap the Windows platform and start from scratch. Yeah it may hurt in the short run however it will benefit them in the long run (as well as open source). It will be less expensive for microsoft to do so, and they shouldnt give a damn about previous compatability, they should admit their faults start over and make an operating system right.
Granted it will show how weak closed source development models are as compared to open source development models because for atleast the operating system the developers overall made the system right the first time.
Score 0 because slashdot has anonymouscowardaphobia.
: It keeps the writers of SP3 employed
Well, 40% of them...
"According to crn.com when they tried upgrading various computers to Windows XP SP2 RC2 3 out of 5 of the machines failed to come back up..."
Well thank God functionality wasn't affected...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
It's interesting that some people have such bad luck with Windows XP. I run Windows XP on several computers and I've never seen the thing crash.
I don't think you should be terribly worried about XP on a new laptop. It will probably run just fine.
The only problem I have been having with XP is one you describe: explorer.exe blowing up. However, I had that problem when I ran win2k too, and win98 before that. I have concluded that explorer's ephemerality is merely a function of being windows. They ought to just call it a feature (to avoid potential memory leaks) and call it a day.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It took four years to get to that point where a winNT box was stable..
I use to adminsiter winNT server boxes and should know..
So are u willing to wiat another 3 years fro xp to finally get stable?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I recently did a format of my WinXP Partition, reinstalled, installed Service Pack 2, and haven't encountered any problems whatsoever to date.
p pro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx l t.asp?icp=xpsp2&slcid=us /. ^_^)
I don't wave the banner of Microsoft, by any means, but I'm gonna have to refuse jumping on the "lol winblows sux!!11" bandwagon this time. Quote, from the mouth of the bloated giant itself:
WARNING!
This technical preview is unsupported and is intended for testing purposes only. Do not use in production environments.
Were you really expecting it to be perfect? The entire point of a beta test is to locate bugs and fix them.
Some useful links:
FAQ's, Deployment Guides, etc:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winx
SP2 Newsgroups:
http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/defau
(Not that the newsgroups contain much pertinent information; almost as much anti-MS sentiment there as
I don't know why I even bother responding to college kids on too much redbull.
;)
It's a release candidate! It's out there to find bugs. That's what they found. If the idiot who put this on 5 computers cared about the data on the machines he should have backed them up. Wait until you're out of school and make stupid newbie mistakes like this guy a couple of times. Learn from them (hopefully) and get on with life.
Kids!
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
Install SP2 RC2 on Computer 1
"Oh! No. Blue Screen."
"Lets try it on a second machine shall we?"
"Oh! No. Blue Screen."
"May be third time Lucky."
The Rest is history...
Hee, well, I'm glad to be of service, Bungi. If I can ever be of further assistance to you, please, do not hesitate to contact me.
dude, I just overclocked it, set the bios to what some site on the internet said to(who really understands the BIOS anyways haha), and I've loaded every tweak tool there is, therefore XP is crap.
I even have NEON, so how can it be my system?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
XP is not typically flaky... You most likley have a hardware issue.
Step 1: Check your memory... I'd recommend Memtest86. You can dl for free at: http://www.memtest86.com/
Step 2: You're overclocked too much. Dial it back. Take small steps for overclocking. Also evaluate if you need to overclock. You'd be surprised at how little overclocking buys you (games rely heavily on the video card, not the processor).
Step 3: Make sure you have all the latestest chipset drivers installed.
Step 4: Make sure you haven't changed any settings in BIOS that may cause a problem. I set my AGP Apertature size to 512M one time... Totally made my system unstable.
Step 5: Ok... Maybe it is spyware or a virus. I highly doubt it though.
Step 6: You're screwed. Time to build a new system. Switch to Linux. Buy a Mac. I don't know, but you're system is possessed.
So you're saying overclocking is OS-dependent? I'm rock solid in Win 2000. Not so and never have been in XP. This is with the same BIOS settings across the board.
He's obviously never seen that many computers. There are millions of PCs running XP just fine. Even my mom's computer runs without problems now that I put XP on there and she has a 5 year old in the house who plays on it!! Walk through a datacenter with racks and racks of xp machines working just fine and then make that statement.
Furthermore, this poster reveals something about himself:
Well, this is the kind of guy whose experience with operating systems I can trust. If my BMW ever breaks, I'll be sure to find one of those guys working on his car installing undercarriage lighting and a huge spoiler on his front wheel drive car. Yeah, that's it.
Lastly, I'll get in a slight MS blast:
Good luck waiting for that.
If you don't agree, too bad. I have karma to burn. Thanks for the vine... I'm out.
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
Meanwhile, I love having a real bluetooth stack, and the latest nVidia drivers work with the concurrent sessions hack.
Talisman Desktop is quite handy, and my current shell.
LiteStep is another great alternative.
Less resources, more stable (no crashes so far in 2+ months), and more configurable.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
The article mentions that they blue-screened and said "winserv" couldn't be found (I see no one bothered to Google it). First of all, I call bullsh*t as bluescreens are for hardware failures. Secondly, winserv is SPYWARE AKA A VIRUS. Why would they expect anything to install properly on those machines?
I've installed SP2 on about 40-50 machines with no probs. I say this article is anti-MS propaganda.
You've never seen Explorer.exe crash on XP?
Or maybe the users just haven't ever mentioned it to you. Check those hundreds of event logs and get back to me. I am pretty sure it's there.
Within this thread, somebody has had the same experience as me.
I shouldn't have to "look for the cause." It should just work. When explorer.exe starts flaking out on a re-imaged Dell, a work machine that doesn't have anything "funny" on it, that's not my doing.
The parent article is just plain ridiculous. I'm the I.T. Director for a large organization, and practically the entire I.T. department is running SP2 RC2, busily finding out what it breaks (not as much as you'd think, actually). The idea that 3 out of 5 machines "didn't come back up" is either due to (a) really funky, odd hardware or (b) a really screwy WinXP core install. We've had a 100% upgrade success rate and no reason to complain thus far, and we've got way more than 5 systems done.
But it wouldn't matter if we had 100 systems that worked right because it's a statistically insignificant sample of the overall whole. Hey, I had a Linux box not come back up once because I updated the kernel 2.4 kernel package with a 2.5 development release package! I guess the 2.6 kernel needed to go back to testing big time, eh? Do you see the idiocy of the parent article's claim and further assumption?
But then again this is Slashdot, where no good bashing of Microsoft goes unheralded.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Here's a tip: By definition, if it's overclocked, it's not running in spec.
OMFG, ROFLMAO! Mod parent up, please!
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
LOL Joe, you sound just like me at work. Ad-Aware is tech support's new "killer app."
HAHAHAhaha hahaha haha hahahaha hohohoh hehehehe lolol hehehe ahahahahaha.
I love my Mac.
Hehehehaha hahahehe lolol... hahaha tehe.
I've upgraded five machines as well of widely varying hardware configurations. None of them were borked after the patch.
Ever get the feeling they were looking for ways to screw things up? Just wondering...
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
You know what? The only people I ever see complaining about Clippy are Slashdotters who think it's still 1998, and that BSODs and Clippy are regular parts of the Windows experience.
I haven't seen Clippy in a default Office install in five years. Whenever he did appear, I--gasp--right-clicked on him and clicked "Hide," thereby causing him to never return.
Why do people still use criticisms from the past decade to criticize Microsoft now? I mean, really, what does Clippy have to do with SP2 RC2 causing some problems on some computers? For the record, I run SP2 RC2 on both my home machine and my laptop with no problems at all. In fact, bootup is shorter and performance overall is snappier, presumably because of all the recompiled system libraries (using the VS2005 compiler...SP1 was compiled with VS6).
I just attended a Microsoft-sponsored developers' seminar on the technical details and impact of Windows XP SP2. While most of the day was pretty boring, there was one item of interest regarding Microsoft's new security upgrade, Windows Firewall.*
.NET applications are not affected by the behavior of Windows Firewall, since they are invoked from distinct executables.
:( )
When the Firewall is enabled (and it is by default), any application that tries to bind to a port that is not specified as listenable in the firewall configuration will cause a friendly MS dialog to come up, asking the user if they want to allow incoming traffic on the port to be handled by [name of the application]. If the user clicks yes, a rule will be created, allowing the application to use the port. If the user clicks no, the application will be blacklisted, and will not receive inbound trafic from any network interfaces.
Blacklisted applications are still allowed to bind to ports, so they will not notice anything is wrong; they will just think there is no traffic.
Guess what happens if the application in question is Java? That's right, the Java Virtual Machine gets banned from listening to the network. Any Java app that subsequently tries to access a port will languish behind the firewall without any prompt to the user alerting him or her that their Java-based server or chat program is being blocked.
For the savvy, this issue is remedied fairly easily by configuring open ports for any apps that need them. But savvy users have never been Microsoft's target customer group, and one can easily imagine many SP2 initiates being taught the Microsoft way that Java technology just doesn't work.
Note that
Food for thought.
Nate (dateline Dallas-Ft.Worth on lay-over
* Replaces Internet Connection Firewall, offering simple but relatively (for MS) configurable protection against unsolicited network traffic.
My other
You'd be saving yourself a chunk of time if you just installed a slipstreamed SP4 Windows 2000 install.
As for the grandparent, people make a big deal out of simple Windows problems even as they downplay similar Linux problems. I don't even want to detail my network experiences with Slackware, Gentoo, and Red Hat 9. Ugh. We eventually went with XP.
Microsoft as practically forced SP2 down the throats of all 90,000+ employees, vendors, and contracters. While there are some "by design" breaking changes in SP2 for the sake of security, I highly doubt that 3 out of 5 machines are breaking during the install, especially by RC2.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Explorer crashes on me maybe once a month, and it only happens if I'm doing something weird. I concur with everyone else, though... it's not the OS.
You said "M$." That makes you One Of Us. Here is your sign.
You should be wishing that Microsoft wises up, and that SP2 is great (and it is...the recent Ject trojan didn't affect people who already had SP2 RC installed).
Clearly, it's just personal vindictiveness on your part. I'll remember what you said the next time Slashdot posts about a Linux kernel exploit. Oh, and remember how Gnome, Gentoo, Debian, Savannah, GNU, and more were hacked within the span of six months last year? How's that for a "wake up call?"
People who treat operating systems like religions are silly. SP2 is a great update to XP. I still prefer 2000 simply because of its simplicity, but I find it funny that when 2000 was about to be released, all the Slashdotters here were falling over themselves to post about how it was going to fail, and how it was going to be the "final nail in the coffin." Many people scoffed at the several millions of lines of code it has.
Now, Slashdotters are always praising 2000 as the best Windows release ever. I just find it funny how community opinions contradict themselves, even as each one thinks it's the right one.
Companies don't have to worry about you playing CD's on your computer, or time shifting anything if it's a media edition PC.
Uh, the parent poster was obviously joking.
Get a fucking clue.
Irony.... sigh.
The article blamed a component named "Winserv" for causing the BSOD. Windows XP doesn't contain any component named "winserv". The first hit on google was for a random piece of spyware http://www.2-spyware.com/file-winserv-exe.html. I think CRN needs to work a bit harder at securing their systems.
Let me know when you write an operating system which runs on everything Windows does, and handles upgrades better. In fact, let me know when ANYONE writes an operating system that does a better job with crazier hardware. Microsoft has a lot of problems, but they hire good engineers. It's a complex problem.
Have you ever developed software? Do you know anything about deploying software? Do you know how difficult it is to upgrade software on millions of machines that have had near-infinite permutations of software written by either malicious or ignorant third-party developers installed and uninstalled?
There's a lot Microsoft could do better. But I really can't stand you implying that they're a bunch of idiots when it's painfully obvious it's the other way around.
There's lots of posts here about how they've have no problems with SP2... Well, I tried installing SP2-RC1 shortly after it became available, and it totally hosed that PC.
I couldn't even finish booting. XP Setup's recovery option couldn't even run. I had to reinstall XP from scratch, into a new folder, just to boot up. Couldn't install it into the same folder either (I didn't just pop in a bootdisk and delete C:\Windows because I wanted to save some of the files - too much to do via command prompt).
I then vowed that I wouldn't install SP2 until the final version had been out for a while, and nobody was reporting any problems.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
I think I am going to wait a few weeks before putting SP2 on my XP machines. Let somebody else be the guinea pig, and I will wait for the fixes. Until then, I will just avoid IE, don't click on attachments, and trust in my (Linux) firewall to keep everything else out.
My rights don't need management.
Man, why not just a simple "emergency" patch to lock down ActiveX? A year ago.
MS needs to unbundle the activeX settings changes from all the other stuff they're trying in SP2.
I was recently helping a friend to clean out her XP Home computer. Since she'd bought it no patches of any sort had been applied, and it was at the horrendous state where if she left it alone for a few hours, she'd come back to see a desktop popping full of porn advertisements.
I downloaded all of the available critical updates from Windows Update and showed her how to run AdAware, which on its own detected and removed something near a thousand suspicious objects. We then took a look around places like the add/remove software section.
At this point she got quite a shock because about half the listed programs were something called "HotFix". After everything that'd been frustrating her in the past months, she wanted to remove them all immediately. When you've spent the last hour removing porno popup and spyware programs from your computer, something called a "hotfix" does not look like it's supposed to be there. It took a lot of effort to convince her that a Hotfix is actually a Microsoft patch.
It hadn't occurred to me until then that it's not a particularly intelligent name for what's supposed to be a security patch. Now I start to wonder how many other people out there go ahead and remove the hot fixes because they don't realise that they're not spyware. It'd be very much in Microsoft's interests to consider renaming their critical updates.
Off topic, but I just wanted to say that Fact Index is one of Wikipedia's mirror sites. If you want the most up to date info and don't like the ads, here's Wikipedia's article directly: Microsoft Bob
Installed a beta of SP2 maybe 2-3 months ago. Worked like a charm, and the new firewall is nice.
Nice? You mean it's nice they activate it by using an "update"?
- Save a tree, eat more woodpeckers
Is there anyone who hasn't posted a joke along the lines of "Windows 3.1 still rough around the edges?"
How can I blame the OS? Because I can run Windows 2000 on the box just fine. XP has constant crashes in Explorer.exe.
Obvioulsy, it must be user error. Microsoft never puts out bad software. The media-rich "features" in XP such as integration of a/v playback into the shell couldn't possibly be buggy.
Neither could the DRM code.
It's Microsoft. It's the best. I'm a noob. I get it now.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=100Lsap&s=bsd
Just go to small business/lattitude for a supported install of W2K.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
I'm running SP2 RC2 on my machine here and it is going suprisingly well. I've only had problems with one application (which I was able to resolve by uninstalling and reinstalling it).
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
See! Not their fault, it was their engineers that did it! You see, it takes an engineer to install a service pack.
God, didn't anyone else get irritated by the way this article was written? I hate people who write about themselves in the third person, it's so self-important.
What's wrong with "we did this..we did that.. we f**ked up a simple installation of SP2 and had to call MS. Now we're trying to make ourselves feel better by bashing it in our third person writeup".
(Now i hope SP2 install goes smoothly for me or i'm gonna feel a right tit ;)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I'm running sp2 rc2 and I am running fine. amd 2400 asus a7v333 sb live gf4 4200 no problem, althogh the new secruity center is annoying you have to hunt a little to turn off the automatic warnings when you disable the firewall and use an anti virus that MS does not recognize... For new users it will be a problem finding the "I choose to monitor this myself" option buried 2 menus down, that and on the faceof it many users will not realize that this stops the warning windows on boot.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
I work at Microsoft. They asked us to upgrade our SP1 machines to the latest build of SP2. I started with a test box (for which I have Ghost images), and that went quite well. I moved on to two other boxes that I use for parallel builds (no Ghost images, but nothing lost if they die), and they came back up just great. At that point I was confident enough to upgrade my main system. Again, no trouble. All of my updates were done via the "Windows Update" web site.
While the first 3 machines were VERY clean machines (essentially XP + patches + antivirus, no other software installed and no major configuration changes), the 4th machine was my work machine -- I've probably installed or uninstalled something from my box every day for the past year (but I'm still on the original install of Windows). While I know how to keep the machine operating well, it definitely isn't a clean box.
As with any upgrade or patch, there are risks. But I had absolutely no trouble with the upgrade on any of the 4 machines. The only difference is that the firewall pops up a message box every once in a while asking if I want to allow a connection. Oh, the "Settings and Preferences" link from the Antitrust settlement was "restored" (how many times do I have to delete that thing?).
Nothing is ever perfect, especially with software. But Microsoft has tried very hard to make sure this will work well for everybody. And as far as I can tell, they've done a good job. Yes, there will be some bugs. Yes, you'll want to be careful about applying this to production machines (make backups!). But I think the majority of people will upgrade and have no trouble.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
As usual I didn't say they were idiots anywhere in my post. Which implies that you might be an idiot for thinking that I did. But it would be rude to make that implication, wouldn't it? You would know.
Micros~1 may have great coders but they are faced with a huge problem due to the fact that their software hasn't been designed properly to be stable, modular, maintainable and upgradeable without breaking a lot of things in the process. They have been fully aware for the last 20 years or so how difficult it is to upgrade software on millions of computers. They nevertheless have failed to build in robustness and easy upgradeability. I don't need to be a developer to know that with the money and talent that they have at their disposal, they could have done a much better job in the first place and then they wouldn't be faced with this gargantuan task of making SP2 work on millions of computers flawlessly.
You know, it could easily be argued that the fact that Microsoft supports all the "craziest hardware" has supported the development of crazy hardware, rather than functional hardware built to some sort of standards that would be usable everywhere, not just on Microserf operating systems. Kind of similar to the way that their support of easy infection has supported the development of viruses, trojans, spyware, malware, etc.
I have nothing to apologize for by choosing to no longer tolerate crappy software design, thankyouverymuch.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
You're making fun of what utility files are called? Are you on fucking crack? Every tried Linux? It's like fucking heiroglyphics compared to Windows. And, it's not like 8+3 is a requirement. 8+3 has been dead since Windows NT 3.5 came out in what? 1994? Talk about a straw man...
funny enough, I'm sitting here at an XP laptop with mozilla open (about 6 tabs), Outlook Express, Trillian, and McAfee AV running and only using 162Mb RAM.
With no tweaking at all, the system uses ~121Mb of RAM after booting. After tweaking for slow/low RAM systems, this can easily be reduced to 51Mb.
For most situations, 256Mb RAM is ok - of course if you want games etc that take 160Mb+ RAM by themselves, then you'll need more to keep performance up.
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
A message stated that "winserv" was missing.
u gin.html seems to confirm my suspisions.
winserv is not application which would be needed at boot time.
It looks like a spyware to me.
http://www.spyany.com/program/article_spy_rm_IEPl
Obiviuosly SP2 RC2 didn't hose the machine. It was a spyware
At my job we've been working with RC2 and the new firewall is a complete joke. We can turn it off by simply changing a value in the registry. If the full version is like that people won't be as secure as they think.
Let me know when you write an operating system which runs on everything Windows does, and handles upgrades better.
Debian Stable runs on Alpha, ARM, HP PA-RISC, Intel x86, Intel IA-64, Motorola 680x0, MIPS, MIPS (DEC), PowerPC, IBM S/390, and SPARC.
Upgrading to a new version of stable when it comes out is as easy as apt-get install upgrade and hit "y" a few times. Those with dependency problems on Debian are typically trying to mix unstable/testing packages/sources along with it, which while doable sometimes require a little more futzing (I've had to do this on occasion).
For an operating system that supports even more platforms, try NetBSD whose motto is, "Of course it runs NetBSD." I haven't used it personally so I can't speak for its ease of upgrades.
Now for an inevitable rebuttal. No, Linux/BSD does not support each and every x86 winmodem/etc piece of hardware (though I'm told an increasing number of winmodems work). That said, not only does Linux/BSD run on many more platforms but Windows XP has been known to simply not support older drivers from companies who no longer wish to support them (scanner drivers come to mind).
Finally, I fail to see how Installing SP2 should be considered an "upgrade". While there are new features in SP2, few people would justify spending $100 for mostly security fixes and improvements. Apple added a variety of new features in its latest 10.3, but few people seemed to feel like they needed to pay $100 just to have a safer computing experience. And yes, the problem of safely handling a real upgrade (one where there are dramatic changes on all levels) is difficult. To be truly safe, time permitting, it's often a good idea to do a fresh install of any OS to avoid strange problems. Sometimes upgrades work, sometimes they don't. I don't believe Microsoft is any better at this than the OSS alternatives, and I haven't tested enough Apple upgrades to give judgement.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I'm tired of waiting for Service Pack 2 to be released. Why? Everyday SP2 is delayed, Virtual PC 7 for the Mac is delayed even longer. I have a G5, which I'd like to take full advantage of, and the current version of VPC doesn't run on the G5. However, MS refuses to release VPC7 (which supposively included support for native 3D acceleration, the only reason I want it) until a "secure" SP2 can be released.
Not to be a troll, but don't these people get it? Microsoft and Security is an oxymoron - the two do not go together.
Parent is not troll. Parent is actually on topic, and insightful.
Like a laser beam.
Come on now. A service pack that clobbers device drivers. An installation procedure that the highly clueful are reporting as flawed. And all this pain and teeth-gnashing are necessary to fix dire problems WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED PRIOR TO THE OS RELEASE.
Please, MS defenders and apologists, do this much: Admit that letting XP into the wild with such a stunning array of holes, flaws and exploitable braindeath was tantamount to the biggest industry bunco job since....
lessee now...
ME? 98? ActiveX scripting? OK, I give up, there's no use in hyperbole anymore when the standup comedian has become the running joke.
sheesh. Imagine all the business and personal productivity that is being sapped by this horseshit. Probably exceeds the GDP of most countries.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
rc2=real crappy too
but i'm the one that was stupid enough to think that since all MS products are just betas an rc wouldn't be that bad. I had to use knoppix to get my data before reformmating.
-Tim Louden
chicken...egg...
microsoft has hardware support because microsoft is a monopoly not because microsoft is the one supporting the hardware
the hardware companies write their own drivers....
I just spent the last four days upgrading my ancient (but trustworthy) Win98SE to WinXP SP1. I'm still somewhat in a state of shock and disbelief, but I got nailed by a virus in the middle of the first install - before I had the opportunity to get the damn thing locked down, even. Last night Norton found more than 1200 infected files, and then refused to ever run again. I couldn't kill my dialup connection, and it's pumping mucho beaucoup traffic out the phone line to who knows where - so much traffic I can't even connect to any other site without a timeout.
I'm on my second install, so far with no noticeable problems. Yet. Looks like SP2 is going to carry on the family tradition, eh?
I installed SP2 RC2 on my machine at work to test it with our latest application we're building. While I only had issues configuring my firewall to allow port 80 traffic, it did kill my Outlook. We are required to use Outlook so I don't have any choice on swapping over to Firebird or any other alternative, but anyway...now I only have a 10 minute check for email from our Exchange server. If I want to check for urgent emails I otherwise need to shutdown and restart Outlook over and over. It gets very not fun after 3 hours. I suppose I could remove SP2 for now, but who knows what kind of effect that would have on my workstation.
-my other sig is your mom
What does amaze me is how Microsoft has a large percentage of it's userbase paying for it's software and it's support but willing to act as unpaid testers for it's software - it seems to me Microsoft have the best of both worlds and it's userbase in the palm of their hands.
Assisting unpaid Open Source programmers with beta testing of new versions is a laudable action but when you pay Microsoft for a service, they have a duty to deliver that to you without any reliance on your devoting time and energy to assist them.
No matter who you are or where you are, you don't use Microsoft - Microsoft uses you.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
What were you drinking tonight?
My current Windows 2000 system is almost a year old and totally stable, despite having had dozens of applications, games, utilities and codecs installed upon it. The system it replaced (now relegated to a lesser role) was also rock solid and performed admirably as an everyday workstation for over two years.
How does me relaying my positive experiences with Windows 2000 make me a Microsoft shill? If this story was about Fedora and I was defending a great Red Hat product would that make me a Red Hat shill?
Just because you clearly hate Microsoft thet doesn't make Windows 2000 a bad product. The fact that you venom is so potent that even the slightest praise of a Microsoft product makes you "sick" is a clear indication that your judgement is clouded by your emotions and that you can't be objective.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I work in an environment where doing anything requires close to an act of god.
/off to write bluescreen.ksh for my *nix boxen
With our unix systems, this can be tedious. We have to pass in a lot of paperwork in order to get things through.
But the Windows guys, they hope the systems lock up. That way they can reboot, install a patch or 2, reboot and off they go. No extra paperwork, meetings or nothing.
At first, I didn't know if they were serious or not. Now I am convinced they might be onto something...
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
The main thing about SP2, besides the security improvements is really the stability. Your average XP2 SP1 machine could get an update of maybe around 3 days under heavy multi-application load.
XP2 SP2 RC1 and RC2 keep going for >13 days with record 20 under the same load conditions.
They seem to have rolled much of the Windows 2003 server performance cleanup into it which was initially skipped with the hastened release of XP.
19 days! All bow before this machine of such incredible reliability!
MS work to lower people's expectation of computer reliability seems to be working.
It's not common, but I've had it happen to me several times on perfectly good machines.
"Before applying Service Pack 2, make sure a full backup of the PC is implemented. "
As if they think anybody who has read this article is going to actually install SP2???
I thought that Linux was supposed to be a pain!
/etc/motd) but you didn't realize it was there. This is uncharted territory, and it's just plain bad engineering.
And I thought that Windows was supposed to be user friendly.
While you may have to configure Linux, and while the configuration details might have a learning curve, they are by no means anything even resembling uncharted territory - what you need to do to configure Linux is actually documented fairly well, if you know where to look.
But this kind of registry editing and the thing with the renaming of the file and running some batch job -- this is uncharted territory. It's not something that you didn't know before, and had to learn. It's not something that was always there (e.g.
Linux is easier, it seems, than this. Perhaps the real answer is that getting Linux "just right" involves some experimentation, and that there is an ever-present learning curve with Linux. Aside from that, it's consistent. It always boils down to some file that you didn't know about or some place where you can set some setting that you had to learn about.
The desciption in this article is just downright scary. I'm sticking with Linux, thanks. Actually, I should say GNU/Linux or other modern Unix-like OS's such as the BSDs - if I am going to be precise about it. There is a learning curve, yes... but once you are over that part of it, which does take a while, it's a very comfortable place to be.
I personally use LiteStep. On XP platform, ive had litestep running for ~2 years now (with others before/since) but I just tend to come back to it for its functionality and lack of bloat. Something about opensource projects that are far superious that I enjoy... :)
Nothing new from this cube, just wondering why Microsoft is once again biting off more than it can chew with trying to tackle so many upgrades and patches with XP SP2.
It seems unnecessary to have to make one gargantuan service pack, instead of releasing smaller service packs semi-annually, some being small, some being large depending on the demands/vulnerabilities discovered during the 6 month cycle.
They could also focus on enterprise service packs and desktop service packs separately.
Ther just doesn't seem to be any middle ground; there's linux distros and their apps which weekly release patches/upgrades, and then there's Microbloat at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Like I said, nothing new from this cube that hasn't been laid out here before, just seems like common sense isn't being applied at Redmond, and it doesn't make sense, because common sense is open source, free!
One of these days I'll put my Microsoft Bob t-shirt up for sale on Ebay just to see how much it might fetch
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
He forgot to add a huge spoiler for extra performance.
I usually manage and around several hundred large files(all in excess of 300 megs) and almost always, when accessing where they are or moving them from one harddrive to the next I finish my work fine but then for some reason, explorer continues to use 99% of my processor(2.4 p4). At first, I had no idea what it was doing so I let it run for a few hours and nothing happned so I crashed explorer and started it again, problem fixed but about as annoying as anything. Have you ever tried to bring up the task manager and do something when you processor is devoted to a program doing nothing!
I was wondering if anyone had/has this problem and if anything in SP2 adresses it. At least half the time I open a folder with large files or play a file(these are mostly movies), and every time I try to copy something this happens. It actually happens so much I always as a precaution regulate explorer to the lowest priority setting so in case I need to save info before ending explorer and brining it back up I can save data in important applications that are running. I think its ridiculous that i have to put up with this and I find it disgusting that when linux can handle those big, scary files, windows barfs on them every time.
Now that I am calm again, any help or recommendations would be appreciated and if SP2 actually adresses this. I wrote a pissy letter to MS about it when it happened and then realized, they don't actually care. I got my comptuer with windows on it, it was a laptop or else that would have never happened and I think they know that when they get a pissy, technically competent letter.
At our company, our login script will call a PERSONAL.BAT file if it exists in your user directory.
So I have the login script change registry entry preferences for things that I find exceedingly annoying. Like now I have explorer default to detailed view, show hidden files, yada yada...
If we had clippy showing up, that preference would have been in my personal login script.
I take it you don't know how to do something similar?
Er, look; this machine runs 24/7 between me upgrading/fiddling with hardware and applying updates. It doesn't crash, it doesn't start to feel flaky after a few weeks, it just works. It's not the most stable or secure OS's about, but it makes a perfectly usable desktop that you don't need to reboot daily. It's certainly at least as stable as 2000 in my experience.
Just joking with you - it's just that the uptime of any even slightly reliable server tends to get measured in months and years, rather than days, but for a desktop that's pretty good.
The contents of the system tray are lost when that happens, which is a real drag when you have utilities which you cannot access any way other than through the tray. You then have to kill and restart them (where that is even possible) to get them to come back. This deficiency of the system tray is one of the things that pisses me off most about windows - broken by design.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I didn't know that Newegg was a crap vendor, that AMD made crap processors, and that Abit made crap motherboards, and that Kingston made crap RAM, and that Seagate made crap hard drives, and ATI made crap video cards. Thanks for setting me straight.
I believe the new term in XP is "System Notification Area." I get the feeling they call it that in an attempt to dissuade every program you install from feeling obliged to put their icons down there. Also, that auto-hide feature seems to be trying to achieve the same goal.
Wait, I better say "yes, I know I can turn auto hide off" before the Microsoft AC Astroturf Patrol comes back and tells me that when my XP box fails, it's 100% my fault and has nothing to do with the fact that Microsoft employees are trolling Slashdot rather than building a better OS.
The auto-hiding of unused icons seems to me to be encouragement to put more icons in the system tray. After all, now they won't be annoying the user for no reason.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sure, but even servers tend to go down for upgrades. The last time I powered off my desktop was to install a USB card; one before that was probably for new graphics drivers. Drivers for SCSI RAID cards tend to have longer cycle times, and desktops rarely have important reasons why they can't go down for 5 minutes :)
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
I have that turned on already. My folder views rarely die (except when I kill them because they hung while trying to generate thumbnails) and in fact my master explorer.exe dies probably 20 times more often than my folder windows.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I suspect a good reason you still hear so much venom about Clippy is the large number of us stuck 8+ hours a day in corporate environments where the IT departments are not enlightened enough to either let us use our own settings or to not install the Office "assistant" in the first place. Every time I'm using an Office program (and yes, there are many of us drone types in the world at large who have to use such things) and my finger happens to hit F1, up pops Clippy! Ready to Help!
Sure, those of us using our home systems don't have much to complain about in terms of 1998 or 2000 technology. But remember that there are many of us stuck using software chosen by others. So while you haven't had to deal with Clippy "in five years" (lucky bastard), I see him with disgusting, irritating frequency. :p
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I work at a big company. Many people seem to enjoy Clippy and his bretheren. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that the option to change Clippy to other characters give people a sense of control over their computer. Maybe even over their lives. Other people like to change the color of their mobile phone shell. I don't get it. But then, I have to remember to iron my shirts.
One thing Microsoft is still doing is making monolithic software. A huge, do-everything for everyone OS. Huge do-everything for everyone "productivity suits". Surely this is where they will eventually fail. At some point they will not sustain backwards compatibility, ease of use and still satisfy more sophisticated users.
And yes, Clippy is a fine symbol for this philosophy.
Every time I fix someone's PC and do a find from windows explorer there's clippy's little dog trying to help me find files on the computer. Seriously, I don't need his help.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
It seems to be as if Microsoft might be trying to do too much with just a service pack. They are attempting to basically morph the OS into more of a firewall enabled secure environment that one might see in Debian for example. I have also heard that these blockages have also pushed longhorn's development out as well as the blockages that they are hitting in SP2 are directly affecting the coding for Longhorn. Not sure, but it does seem as if Microsoft needs some new blood in their programming department.
Luckily I could reinstall one (it was a clean install before that) and the other one I was able to get into safe mode and deinstall that program.
So far I'm not impressed.
Bill
Men are not complex, men are simple.
Women are complex, (or so I've been told...)
I fully agree, I haven't had windows crash in a good two years. I do quite a bit with it too: games, 3d animation, graphic design (photoshop etc), heavy web usage etc. Sure apps crash, but they haven't brought windows down with them yet.
Im.
They know what customers want. They try to give them the cheapest, most upgradeable (broken) version of that. It's the last part that bites them, because that's where M$ actually competes with its customers interests.
A less predatory license would be identifiable by more accurate, informative version numbers. Major version numbers would have possibly incompatible file/data formats or APIs. Minor versions would have possibly different GUIs, possibly requiring retraining. And patchlevels would just have bugfixes or additional features. And the overall version would be the month and year of release, with a marketing nickname: the "edition". Licenses would be sold in terms of included upgrades per version number. All patches of a single major.minor version would be included in any license. A more expensive (minor) license would include all revisions to GUIs. Next more expensive would be a major version license, including upgrades that prevent different versions from using the same data files, transmissions or IPC. And the most expensive license would be for editions, all changes until marketing decides to yank everyone by changing the name of the product. Everyone would know by the version or edition number whether they were compatible with one another. And there would be less incoherent upgrades. The clarification of all the upgrades and licenses would let the companies sell more licenses, which means money in advance to pay for upgrades. And that means better upgrade revisions, and less bait-and-switch planned obsolescence.
--
make install -not war
At least with big chunks all those parts have been (reasonably) thoroughly tested to work with *each other*.
Also, if you look at the guts of what they're doing, it's not that easy to just split things apart. The new firewall is more than just turning on the old one, it requires changes all over the place to improve its security and effectiveness.
Of course, most people aren't going to realize that they're effectively getting a whole new OS rather than a patch...
Linux is hieroglypics? What? Are you on fucking crack?
/etc. I know enough to know that configuration files go there.
/etc/shorewall. Sounds like a firewall to me, plus the Mandrake documentation said something about it. So, we go in there.
I'm a linux newbie, and it makes a hell of a lot more sense than Windows.
For instance, a few days ago I needed to fix a firewall rule that was eating DNS requests.
There's a directory called
In that directory, there's
In there there's a text file: "rules". Gee, maybe that has something to do with the firewall rules, so we edit it. Bingo! Lots of plain-vanilla-human-readable ASCII, with pages and pages of comments, that are clear enough that anyone who knows what a firewall rule is can figure out how to write one.
In Windows you can't even *write* custom firewall rules as far as I know.
Linux looks complicated because all the guts are laid out there for you to see... but, when you need to poke around in those guts, they're really not that bad. Stuff They're certainly a lot cleaner than poking about in regedit guessing at search strings to find what you want.
Any config files with syntax arcane enough to not be apparent from comments usually have man pages.
So, which do you want? Do you want to have to do a few minutes' reading of man pages and comments in order to change settings, and then have them behave like you want them to?
Or, do you want to sit there clicking through "wizards" for a while, reboot your computer twice, and then have something break four days from now because the "Network Setup Wizard" changed your addressing information?
Me, I'll stick with ifconfig, thanks.
I'm still pissed off about WinXP, if you don't have WinXP, you can't get the latest and greatest DirectX, or use the latest and greatest hardware, BUT if you have WinXP, you can't use some old software, and drivers for old hardware don't work, like i have 1 digital camera, and 1 webcam, that don't have updated drivers for them, so i can't use them on XP. Microsoft needs to realise only the hackers revolve around them, not the whole world. Nobody wants to fix MS errors.
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SP2 = Security Problems x2
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Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
is the dog a clippy alternative? like, a skin of clippy? the friendly non-biting version?