Slashdot Mirror
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'"
This is a giant list of all of the updates, and then links to the KB numbers on the left, so you can read what each one was.
... but after reading the KB, it's an ActiveX problem that can allow a webpage to access your media library. Then again, MS has always really vague and stupid titles.
Side note: one of my favorites:
MS03-021: A flaw in Windows Media Player may permit the Media Library to be accessed
At first, I was thinking that it was supposed to do that
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.
It's not a dupe. The one you listed is SP2's incompatibilities. This is a list of things it fixes.
is the list of bugs they've *introduced*.
--Rob
This list is all the bugs that have been fixed in Windows XP through SP2, not bug fixes exclusive to SP2.
How can they fix these: "Random "0x0000008E" Error Message on a Blue Screen in Windows XP" and "Your Computer Restarts Unexpectedly When You Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to Unlock Your Computer" These are the best features in windows!
if we're close to the time when the majority of slashdot readers don't know what OS/2 Warp4 is?
I mean, this guy printed the list : http://www.microbizz.nl/buglist.jpg
Well, out of the many bugs listed as being fixed thirteen were repaired that could cause code execution...
;)
Were these bugs found internally by their team or were these found by outsiders and then patched months later because knowledge was never released?
Not Prompted to Obtain a Digital Rights Management License for Installations Created by Using Sysprep
This was one bug they could have left unfound
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.
Out of an amazing 805(?) bugs listed, this has to be my favorite.
Some programs do not work as expected when large files are opened
Are there any fixes in terms of usability or user interface?
Like the damn message that comes up VERY TIME I wake a windoze laptop from sleep: "Hi! You're connected to your wireless network again. The same network as always, but I just wanted to remind you. The signal strenght is excellent. Click me, and I'll disappear. But be sure that I'll return the next time you start or wake your computer!"
I wonder how many suicides are directly related to windows error and/or informational messages.
Ciryon
* Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4
* Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP4
* Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP4".
Are they intentionally driving up the number of bugs fixed?
-- "I'm not a religious man, but if you're up there, save me Superman..."
SP1 fixed very serious bugs in Win XP that were not on the SP1 bug list. Also, serious bugs that had been reported a long time before were NOT fixed.
326971 - Operating system does not work
Here's an excerpt from a recent article on the debacle.
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?
Issue:
Error message on a blue screen when you transfer data to a USB device in Windows XP.
Resolution:
Error message now placed on gradient green screen when you transfer data to a USB device in Windows XP.
Probably a problem discovered during 2003 testing, that, ultimately, was determined to be in XP. Happens a lot in testing that an incidental find sticks with the original summary even after finding it applies to other things.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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
This isn't a bug in the firewall.
Local applications running with administrator privilege are inside the security perimeter of the firewall and have the same rights as the firewall management GUI. Microsoft would need to be enforcing mandatory access control to actually prevent third-party applications with appropriate right from managing the firewall, so all they could do would be to leave the management API undocumented and create a false sense of security.
Don't complain, you should be applauding them for avoiding another "security through obscurity" dead-end.
326863 Operating system throttling does not work
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 just to avoid antitrust lawsuits. If any competitor claims MS destroys their market by including a firewall in the OS, MS can reply: "Well, you see, our FW isn't really secure, so you still have a market."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You can only pull this kinda crap (that MS has been proven and even admitted to of having done) when your sure it is the other guy that is blamed. Kinda like when IE fails to load a page it is the websites fault but when Mozilla fails to load a page it is Mozilla's fault.
OS/2 has been killed but it is still being used. Those customers are smart enough to know that any problems are not OS/2 fault but MS. Since MS wants them at one time or another to switch it is probably not to wise to alienate them by showing them how buggy MS software is. Once they switched and are totally locked in THEN you spring the bugs on them. It helps sell the next version. Just explain to me exactly why I should have upgraded from Win95? What exactly has been added that is so helpfull? Stability? Stabilty is a bug, it should have been fixed in a patch.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They *can* hack in an easter egg while *USING SOURCE CODE CONTROL*. And in the management reports it will show up as "fixed a misspelling".
I've done it, I know bunches of other people that have done it, and I've been directed by my manager at one company to do it.
The cutoff date for features is *way* earlier than the cutoff date for defect fixes, and on occasion we'd (i.e. my first level department) discover a feature that we needed to have in the product, but which higher level management would never agree to due to the schedule. Our first line boss would give us the OK to slime it in. It's the old "It's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission".
Would somebody lose their job? I guess it all depends on whether your first line manager goes to bat for you or not... but that being said I've *never* heard of a programmer losing their job due to slime.
--Rob
Why is this news, I thought everyone here used Linux. Or is it just me and you're all laughing behind my back?
This the list of programs that the built-in firewall will break until you add them to the exception list. Be ready to do the procedure listed in the Knowledge Base article on every machine you apply the service pack to.
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).
Sorry, but you're talking out your arse.
I installed SP2 and then it made me re-activate both Windows and Office 2003.
We've deployed it on approximately 100 machines here in the office, and haven't had any activation issues of any kind, with Visual Studio, Office, or Windows XP itself. I also fail to see how a service pack would force a re-activation.
spoke to numerous tech support and activation department employees before they gave me a new product key which could be re-activated. I felt like I was getting interrogated as to why I was re-activating the software
You've apparently never actually had to re-activate windows or office. The very first thing you can do is use the internet to re-activate. 90% of the time this works right off the bat. The second thing you can do is call their 1-800 number, and be connected to an automated phone system. You say/speak the code into your phone, and the system reads back an auth code. Bam, done. If for some reason the phone system cannot understand you, it transfers you to a Real Live Person (tm) who asks for your code, and gives you back an auth code. No interrogation. No questions at all, even.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
The processor can't detect "empty clock ticks"... there's no such thing.
If the operating system determines that no user threads have anything to do, and the kernel has run out of stuff to do to... so it's just waiting for hardware interrupts (keyboard, mouse, network, video, disk, interval timer), rather than sitting around in a loop it executes the HALT instruction which brings the CPU into a low-power state until an interrupt or trap wakes it up.
Otherwise it would have to spin in a loop for a few milliseconds, and that eats juice it shouldn't otherwise need to.
Intel Speed Step CPUs let the operating system use special MTRRs that allow it to dynamically adjust the clock speed in reaction to an increase or decrease of thumb-twiddling time as well. Because a CPU at 1.2GHz halting 50% is still consuming more power than the same CPU at 800MHz in HALT only 20% of the time.
I believe this is the thing that doesn't work in XP without Service Pack II or hotfixes. I've heard about this gripe before.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
if there were three changes....
1) That the reg tool existed as early in NT as when the registry was first introduced.
2) That the reg tool would allow you to dump and restore hives and keys to flat/text files
3) That the registry would be broken up into many hives that applications could load and unload dynamically and keep independantly.
In this fashion, for example, all the settings for a particular app for a particular user might end up as %USERDIR%/Application Data/foobar/foobar.dat and would be dynamically added under HKCU or whereever until it the relevant app was closed (and the hive removed).
You could always go back and manually mount that hive and make changes...
In this fashion, complete rebuilds would become unnecessary because you could spread out your critical config, and backup/restore parts independantly, prevent corruption or slow access from large hives, etc.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON