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."

Comments

Good

[darth_MALL]

Nice to see a much-hyped rollout delayed as a quality control measure. From Microsoft no less. Step in the right direction PR-wise if you ask me.

I know it's popular to slag Microsoft...

[Sheetrock]

But here it won't make sense, because not only are they making the system more secure but they're working to ensure the security doesn't break compatibility.

If a bunch of machines won't boot -- even if it's the fault of the developers of third-party software as we've seen with faulty drivers impacting Windows 98 -- people will be slow to adopt what is perhaps the most critical software patch the Internet has seen.

Good For Them

[USAPatriot]

Microsoft has decided not to rush a release just for the sake of releasing it.

They want to get it right the first time. I congratulate them for doing the Right Thing and making sure they deliver a rock solid Service Pack for the millions of XP users out there.

Before the slashdot editors and crowd crow over this delay, just remember the 503 errors and flakiness this site has experienced since "maintenance" was performed. Don't throw stones in glass houses, kids.

so NOT a solution

[cephyn]

most people will run anything they're asked to.

How configurable is the SP?

[Greg Larkin]

I read in the paper this morning that SP2 will be doing things like turning on the WinXP firewall by default and gawd knows what else. Does anyone know if we'll be able to easily see all of its proposed "helpful" actions and disable the ones we don't want? For instance, I already have a hardware firewall, so I don't need the software firewall to be enabled.

Re:How configurable is the SP?

[Wingit]

Greg, you may want to reconsider your opinion on this, depending on the network environment in which you live. I work as a network administrator at a public library and have been very anxious to run a software firewall on all workstations. We are a pure Windows 2000 network and have moved our XP migration up just to gain the software firewall. Granted, I have separated most public access computers from staff resources via VLANS, but the public still needs access to some critical systems. Our staff is constantly being educated and reminded of safe computing practices, but they are also a bit dangerous. No one in our environment needs to be connecting to workstations except for an assistant and myself and I welcome the added protection. All I would need is a worm to get inside the network from a stray floppy disk or CD and it could spread on its own. It may not be necessary for your environment, but I recommend both a hardware firewall at all places the LAN connects to outside resources AND at each computer within the LAN for most any network installation.

Users will see it as Microsoft's problem anyway

[MooseByte]

"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."

So if, say, 1/3 of all WinXP boxes out there are currently infected with spyware (probably a conservative guess), then 1/3 of all users applying XP SP2 would crash?

I'd say that makes it Microsoft's problem. Users aren't going to care, all they will see is that before XP SP2 their system worked, and after it didn't.

Re:Users will see it as Microsoft's problem anyway

[0racle]

So now MS has to make its OS work with spyware? If I let someone I don't trust work on my car, and they screw it up to the point that when I start it next time it blows up, is that GM's fault? Its my fault for letting that idiot work on it. If spyware causes the system to crash, its the users fault for not taking proper precautions. Users can whine and moan about it all they want, it doesn't change anything.

Re:Users will see it as Microsoft's problem anyway

[Tim C]

How so?

A lot of spyware either masquerades as legitimate software, or piggy backs on legitmate software installers. Sure, some gets in through ActiveX exploits and what have you, but by no means all.

As for the "run as admin by default", that is changing, but will *not* prevent this sort of problem. Even if MS prevented interactive login by members of the Adminstrators group, you have to have a way of installing programs and performing system maintenance. That means an account that's capable of modifying system files.

So all the malware has to do is get to the machine as above (piggy backing or pretending to be legitimate), and prompt the user to enter their admin password.

Malware is not MS's fault. They've not made it as difficult for malware authors as they could have, but it's impossible to make it impossible, if the user has admin rights, and that includes *every* home user. The same applies to Linux, of course - as it grows in popularity, the malware authors will come. It'll take a little more social engineering, and an extra "enter your root password" step, but it cannot be stopped.

Good thing...

[OS24Ever]

..I mean anyone else remember service pack 2 for Windows NT 4.0? Talk about run for the hills day when that came out.

I'd prefer they get their stuff together instead of rushing to market. Though personally the service pack thing to me is more of a PITA than patching the various subsystems and then creating a 'roll up' service pack vs. the service pack being the 'holy grail' update all at once breaking/changing things willy nilly (at least that is how it seems some days)

Re:With every missed step...

[poohsuntzu]

No, I really don't. So they keep pushing dates back. Who cares? Do you honestly think that the majority of Windows users hangs on the edge of their seat about new updates like a typical geek?

No. They don't. And chances are, most could care less about Longhorn, and even more don't mind that it is pushed back because computing isn't a large part of their life. So it won't matter how fast linux improves, nor how far back Windows get's pushed. -Right now- Windows works perfectly for a good number of people, and it does what they need. There is no incentive for the flood of Windows users to care whether its in 2004 or 2006, because in their mind they know one thing: "We will get it when it is released".

And no, I don't see this as a dangerous time for them.

I am no MS apologist, but...

[chuckw]

No one has ever been able to accuse me of being a Microsoft apologist. I've thrown my fair share of vitriol their way, but I always said what I felt was justified based on their actions.

In this case, I have to congratulate Microsoft. Yeah, I said it... They deserve a pat on the back for finally realizing, at least in this one instance, that it doesn't pay to release crap software. I doubt this is the beginning of a trend or anything, but for this they deserve a pat on the back.

What's the big rush?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so it's been delayed again... So what? I mean, what's the big rush? Security updates are still coming through windowsupdate whenever they're required. Isn't it better that Microsoft take their time with the service pack and make it solid, rather than they releasing it unfinished?

Come on now

[kevinmf]

Come on now - you have to give microsoft some credit. This update is a major overhaul to the OS. Look at kernel updates for linux. You have to be careful as hell, making sure all of your drivers are still compatible, libs all still work, etc etc. SP2 is along the lines of a linux kernel upgrade.

You really have to give MS some credit because all of their drivers will be working with SP2, as well as most software. Sure, linux upgrades might come out more often, but you have to admit - actually applying them is a lot more intensive than simply clicking 'next, next, next, yes i will reboot now.'

Anyway, I think people are WAY to hard on MS. For going almost 15 years now and barely breaking backwards compatibility, they seriously deserve more credit than the slashdot crowd gives them. Good luck to em with this new upgrade.

I know.

[bmajik]

I've run a few RC builds of XP SP2 on 2 different machines.

Configuring the firewall is _easy_.

I too have real firewalls. I leave the SP2 one turned on as well, because it hasn't gotten in the way of anything i do with the machines (yet). I did add a port or two to the allow list, and thats it.

Remember, defense in depth. Having every XP machine tightened up out of the box as much or more as a default linux install is a good thing.

But, you can turn the firewall features off _very_ easily.

I really like the popup blocker and other IE changes in SP2 as well. I've stopped using proxomitron. I see inline ads where prox used to just put [Ad] but that doesn't bother since the super obnoxious stuff is gone. Also, the way IE handles ActiveX controls is _much_ nicer than it used to be - no being asked 23049 times per page to dismiss modal dialogs.

finally, i wouldn't get too worked up over the headline that XP SP2 is delayed. I have some inside info on the delay.. and its (so far) not worth the sensational press its getting at sites with.. ABM slants :)

People need to be honest. If MS said there's a problem and released it anyway, the ABM camp would grill them for releasing shitty unfinished product. By holding it for a while longer, MS gets grilled for delaying its release (with sideline comments about them being incompetant or SP2 being vapor or what have you). To the ABMer, MS can do nothing right.

(ABM = "Anything But Microsoft" :)

This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

DeMe

Re:New captain at the wheel?

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, the problem was there was no existing security to speak of. Rather, it was disabled so a lot of programs assumed that certain actions were legal and depended upon those actions to succeed to run. Now that MS is attempting to force some security within the OS, a lot of those earlier assumptions are causing lots of problems, much like the DLL debacle that only took 13 years to even begin to be addressed.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for XP2 to come out. (Yes, it will come out, eventually, but if it even does half of what it was supposed to do, expect much pain/patching of third party products.)

Re:New captain at the wheel?

[Jugalator]

They're finding out just how screwy the security system within Windows really is.

SP2 is supposed to be a big "security fix." Assuming that it really is, it sounds as if it's breaking lots of stuff that was previously able to work around existing security to function.

I doubt their screwed security is that hard to fix, but rather finding out how many programs depends on this former screwed security. Which are marked with this logo. I guess this is why the final stages of this service pack has been delayed so much. It doesn't seem like the actual core coding took much longer than estimated, but rather what they're finding out in the QA stages.