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Microsoft has Delayed SP2, Again
I_am_Rambi writes "According to news.com.com "Microsoft has again delayed a long-awaited update to Windows XP, citing quality concerns. The company had planned to wrap up development this week on Windows XP Service Pack 2, but a Microsoft representative said late Wednesday that the software giant had decided that more work was needed on the update before if could be released to manufacturing." Yea, if 3 out of 5 machines failed to come back up, it needs some polishing."
The whole "three out of five machines failed to come back up" after installing SP2 RC2 should not frighten you from trying it.
The original article said quit clearly that the problem they had was that they'd get a bluescreen and "A message stated that 'winserv' was missing."
What the article didn't say was what "winserv" actually is. It's not part of Windows. In fact, it is spyware. Plain and simple.
So the problem, then, with Windows XP SP2 RC2 is that it doesn't work when the operating system has been corrupted beyond repair by spyware that hooks into various DLLs and services in an attempt to prevent itself from being uninstalled.
Also gets rid of the horrible tagline "It is where IT is", egads!
- Seth
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My Install of SP2 RC1 caused explorer.exe to crash on start up. I also took about 10mins for XP to boot and login. There is no spyware/trojans on my computer.
This is exactly what they are doing. By taking the time to make sure that the patch is "in order", they are avoiding an even bigger backlash if they released a buggy patch.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
Seems like you just have to remove the "it." prefix in the URL then it comes out okay, "http://it.slashdot.org/.." to "http://slashdot.org/.." for example.
People are installing SP2 internally all over the place and I certainly haven't heard of "3 out of 5" computers dying. In fact I haven't heard anything bad at all.
I have been running SP2 since RC1 with no problems myself.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=283 673
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I tried to install SP2 on a clean install this past weekend and it completely hosed my XP installation
It's interesting to note that the 'Automatic Updates' service must be set to 'Automatic' and be running in order for Windows Update to work through IE. Even if you choose not to use Automatic Updates (as I have), you *must* have the service running all the time for Windows Update to work (or change it to Automatic each time before going to Windows Update in IE). Rather annoying.
Not that hard - people could use this superb little tool for a start...
Admit it. You're new here. There is no "apparently" about it.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
MS'ers are saying it's robust for the OS itself, but that it's going to mess up a bunch of things because everyone and their dog was relying on the loopholes in past versions. And it's supposed to get worse with the next security upgrades I've heard. People may not have their machines die on them (word is that the virii, trojans, and spyware's causing the dying machines...) but you're going to have fun trying to use the apps you do have without a BUNCH of tinkering around with registry edits and all- and some apps may need a patch from the vendor for varying reasons because they're "fixing" a LOT of the OS with this service pack
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"3 out of 5 machines failed to come back up"
We've just recieved word that 3 out of 5 Windows systems use a commonly pirated CD-KEY.
Funny you mention that.. Windows Update is now upgraded to "version 5" which prohibits updates from pirated keys. So, the only way to get SP2, would be to apply it manually. Even then, i'm not sure it would allow an install. I believe they rolled out that new update site to coincide with the release of the now delayed SP2.
So now MS has to make its OS work with spyware?
Yes, whether or not it's their fault. The spyware is out there. If parts of the service pack rely on parts of the operating system that could not be secured from 'winserv', then the service pack needs to reaffirm that those DLLs & registry settings are intact.
It's a challenge, but unfortunately it's a challenge that they have to cope with.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
First, they don't have admin privileges.
Unfortunately that's not realistic as software developers continue to write software that assumes unlimited access to the system. Notice the key words "software developers". This is not Microsofts fault.
On the OS X boxen, if they download something that requires admin privileges to install, it pops up the "Admin Password Required" dialog.
Windows does this too. If you're not running with an administrator account properly written programs will prompt you for administrative credentials.
Either way your answer doesn't address his question. If you re-read the original problem, that malware only needs to prompt for administrative rights, OS X's "solution" won't prevent malware from being installed. Care to try again?
OS X's solution to this problem has worked quite nicely. I've had several clueless users ask me "It's telling me it wants my password to run this. Is that a good idea?" when dealing with software that was kindof questionable.
They are local admins. And due to the user interaction style, they think twice about what they're doing. Works great.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Well, both yes and no. SP2 v2126 had this ability, which Microsoft "denied". Required a registry tweak. It was in the beta testing to be used for ONE tablet PC to be connected and remotely control ONE Windows box. It was a neat feature, but it was taken out of the following build probably due to the the fact that Tablet PCs were not catching on in the marketplace as well as M$ had hoped.
Hence the reason I'm still running SP2 v2126!