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Complete List of Bugs Fixed in SP2
callipygian-showsyst writes "Microsoft has published the complete list of bugs fixed in Service Pack 2.
They range from the obscure like: 'File Appears to Be Deleted Although You Do Not Have Permissions on the OS/2 Warp4-Based Server' to the serious-sounding: ' Stop error message on a blue screen when you transfer data to a USB device in Windows XP'"
Why is it so hard that the editors can't use the appropriate icons for them?
It's time this site starts to grow up.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
if we're close to the time when the majority of slashdot readers don't know what OS/2 Warp4 is?
But, but, but...then it wouldn't be slashdot any more!
There are a lot of instances of the word "cumulative" in this list ("Cumulative patch for Internet Explorer..."). I wonder how many true bugs are fixed with this, not just support article entries.
Score:5, Insightful? If this were a Linux distro getting an update, this would be marked as a Troll or Flamebait. At the very least, Funny would be more appropriate.
Okay, tell meonce again how many months it took to root out those errors? Some where known for a long time. And I expected a longer list... waaaaay longer!
Modifying a large operating system while attempting not to "break" any end-user configurations is nothing short of a prodigious task.
The modifications were probably developed and committed to the Windows source tree in a relatively short period of time. However, Windows must accommodate a diverse array of configurations, including many that are very "fragile" and obscure. Because of this, the modified build likely endured an extensive testing process, hence the multiple delays.
Do you like German cars?
And you have to be in administrator mode. Oh no, you mean if I log in as administrator the programs can do bad things.
If I logged on to linux as root and ran a program it could cause the same sort of problems
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
I beleive a lot of files have been re-compiled to prevent buffer overflows and take advanateg of the NX flag on processors that support them. Many of these programs don't have a 'bug' as such, but are being made more secure.
It is a bit scary watching the install and seeing all these things being replaced.
Also the ~250MB is the admin version, that has every update. The version for home users will only have the necessary ones they need, and should be quite a bit smaller if the machine is reasonably up to date.
Probably still the biggest SP for windows ever though.
I'm not complaining. The fact of the matter is that 90% of WinXP users run as administrators. By allowing *any* software to tamper with the firewall, MS has made a mistake. All a virus will have to do is trick a user into clicking a link on a web page or something and the fw will go down. This isn't possible with zone alram or sygate firewalls... nor should it be.
This is all most people need or want to know about an update.
Care to try your hand at a plain English explanation of a "buffer overflow?"
It's a bit of a design flaw in the Windows security model.
I agree 100%. The Windows security model is broken. As I just commented in another discussion: "I hope Microsoft decides to join the 21st century and changes the default configuration so ordinary users do not run with excessive privileges, and instead requires an explicit action (as in the UNIX 'su' command, or Apple's authentication dialog) to grant installers and configuration tools temporary rights when they need it."
I honestly can not comprehend the selective blindness that Microsoft seems to suffer from when it comes to understanding freshman-level computer security.
However.
Going back to my original point: this is not a security flaw in Windows Firewall, and other firewalls like Zone Alarm are not inherently any safer... they are simply depending on security by obscurity. Unless they lose market share to the point where they don't matter to malware authors there will undoubtedly be software that disables them.
Look at antivirus software. They don't have a "Disable" API, but there are still viruses that disable them... and the code to do it as available to anyone with a copy of the world's premier virus distribution tool (Outlook).
Because if the temperatures reach those thresholds, then your 'properly designed heat solution' obviously isn't.
If you have a 'properly designed heat solution' then you should never get throttled or should only be throttled very very little.
This is a case of the OS responding to a condition *prior* to the computer locking up. The Linux kernel has a similar feature.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Most apps use some kind of lib or something to access their configs, that keeps the config to a standard, at least internally to the app. If you have another application that needs to access that config, its usually fairly easy to do so. What your saying is, its good to make it easy for any application to access any other application's configuration. How often do you just randomly pick a registry entry and decide to use it for something? When you write your program you know what you'll need and you predefine the config files or in your case the registry. As long as you know what your accessing and how to access it, nothing else matters. The worse thing about the registry is how easily it becomes corrupted. Also, as far as I know there is no tool bundled with Windows to allow you to edit the registry from the command line. So what do you do when your registry is hosed and you can't boot to a gui? I may be wrong, but I don't beleive there is a way to edit it easily from DOS, and booting into Linux is useless because the registry isn't editable with a text editor or something simple like it should be. The registry is a great idea in theory, but horrible in practice.
Regards,
Steve
I agree. After I switched to linux I noticed how many people make it seem they're running linux (because of their pro linux comments and being modded up for praising linux), but run windows. Look how many people comment on big microsoft stories. Sometimes it's over a thousand.
I want to see slashdot's webserver statistics showing what people are really running. I wouldn't be surprised if it's only 10-15% of people running linux.
I think in addition to our karma, we should have a linux-o-meter linked to our ID name. That would expose that asshole who shouts out "winblowz," "Micro$oft" and all that other childish crap who's really running windows xp in his mother's basement. There's nothing wrong with people using windows. Hell, I use it at work. It's just when the slashdot "politics" skew the reality of the situation that it starts to get aggrivating.
And by the way, yes I did switch to linux to seem cooler on slashdot because that is all that matters in life.