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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."
Every 'softie I've heard from who has seen the Windows code base has said the same thing: it is a labyrinthine collection of objects and subsystems that nobody really understands at a high level. It's actually a miracle that the whole thing builds in the first place. So when they change a few things for a service pack, a dozen other things break.
Microsoft deserves these problems. Their software is too tightly integrated. The benefit of having highly modular software is that problems tend to not spread beyond a single module or subsystem.
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Out of all the software compainies in the world, Microsoft is the company that has the resources to build and maintain software right. They definitely have the talent. I think the issue here is big corporation politics. Microsoft should put more of an investment into their public image (at least try to get an image comparable to lets say Google). Sure, it may not give them as big as returns pumping more people into the XP camp (service pak 2) and less into lets say Long horn, but get step one right before going to step two. The trust they will gain by the public would earn them money in the future...probably more than their current practices.
Nuttles
Christian and proud of it
"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."
Then maybe you should email Ballmer and tell him the delay isn't needed, and he should just get some balls and release it.
Or maybe, just maybe, the average user that's going to have to install this thing doesn't benefit from a huge Redmond IT staff, firewalls, NATs, etc.
No offense, but if this is the typical thought in Redmond cubicals ("Works for me! Must be rock-solid!") then the last 15+ years of Microsoft treating their users as beta testers makes a lot more sense.
Wouldn't it be fantastic if the SP2 updater would first run Ad-Aware or an equivalent and kill all the spywarer on the machine before installing the actual updates? After rebooting, users would be astonished by how quickly Windows would work.
'Holy Crap Maude, my WeatherBug is gone but this thing shore is runnin quick!'