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Is it Safe to Use Win XP SP2, Yet?
An anonymous reader asks: "I have to run Win XP for work. However, I have not had the urge to download and install SP2 due to all of the problems that I've heard. Are lots of people still having problems with it? I know I don't have any viruses or spyware, and no, Linux is not an option. I am a consultant and my hardware has to match the client. I have done plenty of searching, but nobody has really followed up and shown what is currently happening with SP2, just what was happening when it was released. Did M$oft release any patches for SP2 yet to fix some of the reported issues? I do use a wireless network, and heard it messes up the connections. Is that true? Thanks for any help." Update: 09/18 04:15 EDT by C : Apparently there may still be some performance issues with XP-SP2, as this later article illustrates, however it may not be so bad as the article makes it out to be. Some readers are suggesting that the performance hit is due to bounds checking in the code, so it begs the question: Would you prefer a slower app that has more security, or a faster app that suffers from typical vulnerabilities that might bite you big-time, later?
Yes.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
M$oft? And here I thought this was going to be a serious question.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Did anyone manage to get it up and running on Fedora Core 2?
I seem to be having all sorts of problems.
I have deployed XP SP2 fairly widely (50 odd machines) with no ill effects. The majority of "problems" are due to the proper functioning of the firewall, so understand what a software firewall does and how to open ports for programs.
One thing that is broken is loopback addresses other than 127.0.0.1: they don't function correctly, but I don't have any software that this affected.
As far as wireless goes, we did have one machine connected via a Linksys internal wireless card and a couple of notebooks. None of them were affected by SP2, but I was already using XPs native networking so you probably will want to test that if you are working with third part networking tools.
Sig under construction since 1998.
See if any of your applications will have issues
But to be honest, i've dealt with over 1000 PCs and not a single one have had any issues with SP2. I say go for it, it may have some problems, but it sure is better than what it was before....
A survey (sorry, don't remember where, IIRC it was posted on NTBugTrack) said there's about 90% success rate, or 10% of computers have problems after installation.
Corporate respondents reported about 6% failure rate, and small bus & induhviduals were close to 12%.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
We use Windows XP on a few machines primarily used for research, and we've patched with little difficulty. All of our hardware has worked fine.
However, the machines run a very specific set of programs with little "internet" contact. XP-SP2 seems mostly to provide "buffer" for Netziens surfing around on unprotected machines having little 'net experience, which, lets all be fair, is a disasterous situation.
Bottom line, however, is that Windows XP, or any other operating system, can't stop people from doing ignorant things. Most of these things are *ignorant*, and not stupid - people who don't know proper procedures can't be expected to suddenly abide by them.
...but it totally screwed me over because of this problem. I have an Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott Core) and a Shuttle SB61G2 that I bought about five months ago. It just so happens that this particular processor/mobo combo causes WinXP to totally hang.
And as an added bonus, when I tried to update my BIOS to fix the problem, it appeared to work, right up until I restarted and got nothing but a black screen. Thankfully it was all still under warranty, and NewEgg is replacing the Shuttle (with the latest version). All I was out was the $6 for shipping and the week without that computer. Still sucks, but it could have been worse.
You probably shouldn't click this.
I'm a consultant as well, however I run Debian linux as my main distribution, and VMWare which has Windows XP installed in it. This way I can make copies of Windows XP at different phases (no patches, full patched no SP2, full patch with SP2).
VMWare is not cheap, but it's well worth the money. What's bizarre is I still have Windows lockup and crash, but my computer is a lot more stable. In fact I've never had linux lock up and crash on me.
Clients are really impressed when they see the "computer" still working (Linux), while Windows is sitting at a blue screen of death. You can have 2 or 3 copies of Windows XP, and setup a samba server on the host as a background server to store your files. No data loss, no worrying about viruses or spyware, no concern about whether to use or not use SP2 (use 'em both).
Ruby on Rails Screencast
More complex than that. To use SP2 effectively, you need to become the master of the Windows Firewall. For most things it's fine- for just about everything else patches have come out already. There is a solution for every problem you will run into- so yes, it's safe as of now.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
22 Computers, and aside from the annoying icon in the system tray that is always complaining, nothing bad yet. It does, also, take away the indication when loading if you are using XP pro or XP home.
Is the average Windows user knowledgable/concerned enough to secure his insecure (yes, even with SP2) home or otherwise box, or at least give security a second thought?
;P
No.
Oh, if anyone cares, I installed SP2 on my dad's home box right after it hit Windows Update. Turned on the firewall, and left Zone Alarm on. Walked in to use the said box a few days back and found both firewalls disabled and Kazaa running. He had also managed to pick up Gator -- whatever they're calling it now, and a few other things I care not to mention.
So I did what any sane geek would do. Turn the monitor off and safely retreat to my room, pretending I didn't see a thing!
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
There's three of us in my office, and I'm the one smacking my colleagues if they don't run Windows Update in a timely manner. The day SP2 came out, I told them to hold off until those on the front lines had installed it and reported back via some web forum or other. Later that week, the shit hit the fan, and I acquired a sagely aura (which can be kinda awkward in a small office) for sparing us the pain.
So as far as I'm concerned, SP2 has convinced those around me that the things I say (and often scream, spittle and all) about Windows are to be obeyed promptly, which means that SP2 has already made the XP boxes at our organization measurably more secure.
Thanks, Microsoft!
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Windows XP SP2, on one hand, does indeed break LOTS of things, but from what I've found, if it was atleast designed for Windows 2000/XP it should work flawlessly, but otherwise maybe. I've had some old (NT4 and Win95) apps break, but thats about it. On the other hand, there are tons of security bugfixes and to top it off, it makes IE more useable (though I perfer Firefox ;-). Some of these security things can be annoying (security center), others good (IE warns before running downloaded files), and others bad (SP2 breaks NMap and other port scanners).
All in all, I'd suggest installing it on a nonessential computer (or VMWare machine) and see if you like/need it. But remember, either you adopt it now, or you adopt it later, but you will eventually have to run it!
the machines i deal with at work are a broad mix of laptops administered by their owners, mostly college students who have no idea what the %^$#^%^%$ they're doing. i've had good results putting SP2 on them ... it hasn't hosed a single one. i would highly recommend installing it.
BS install linux then install winblows xp via vmware.. That way when you do install sp2 on the vmare xp virtual box and it blows up you still have an OS to get you by while you reinstall windowx xp on the vmware virtual box.
Sig
do a little testing a research your damn self!
one thing i will say, the 'security centre' (another tray icon) seems like a token gesture of security, i pretty quickly realised that was fluff & best turned off, as is for me the firewall (i'm on NAT.. i'm not going round opening up ports everytime someone wants to play a LAN game for chrissakes, someone will hopefully tell me an easy way to tell it to ignore LAN stuff? even then i can't be bothered to set permissions for every app) - if i want a firewall e.g. to block outgoing connections i'll start a proper firewall. I keep my virus checkers up to date myself, well AVG keeps itself up to date, although the security centre was apparently not understanding that. What's the other thing it does? oh yeah, remind you to turn Windows Update on. well great, it's on.
other than yet, yeah, pretty uneventful. it does say to backup important data before installing it, so if you're nervous or have anything important i'd advise to take that advice.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
If you use bit torrent, or some other type of swarming P2P app, SP2 limits the number of connections you can make per time period, and slows things down tremendously. Technically, it's there to slow down worms. Anyway, here's a third party patch to fix it: http://www.lvllord.de/
Watch out for cheap hardware. We had a *brand* new XP install and upgraded it to SP2, then it locked up during the boot up. We tried a few times but couldn't get the machine to install XP. So it's still on SP1. The Windows Tech guy says XP2 blows, but I think it was just the cheap hardware that was in the box.
--Ajay
I've got an Athlon64. Most programs included in Windows XP (like calc.exe and so) crashed. Third party apps were fine.
I changed the boot.ini file to include NoExecute=AlwaysOff instead of OptIn.
Alas this disables the protection against executing code on the stack, something I was looking forward to as it was advertised as an advantage of the Athlon64.
The system is fine (for) now.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Anyone else having problems with accessing the network from a Java applet after installing SP2? I don't have a computer running SP2, but I run a website that depends on my applets being able to connect back to the server (normally this is allowed in the Java applet sandbox, and I've never had issues before) -- the connection just gets cut. Works fine on Mac OS X, various flavors of Linux, earlier versions of Windows including 98, 2K, XP SP1, etc.... but I've gotten a bunch of reports from SP2 users who just get errors.
I'm connecting to the hosting webserver, using plain HTTP, over port 80. Why would the firewall kill the socket?
If anyone with SP2 wants to waste 5 minutes and test for me (you know, try with firewall enabled, disabled, whatever other variables you can think of), I'd be eternally grateful. No reward much to offer unless you're a music teacher, though....
URL:
http://www.emusictheory.com
Login as a student
username: test
password: test
teacher code: 100
Click "do assignments", pick one, hit "start drill", press a button to get a wrong answer, hit "stop drill" then "report score", then "send score report".
You may see a window pop up if the drill gets the error and tries it's new recently-hacked-in backup method.
If anyone does help out, contacting me is easy through the website.
Well lets see - It does want to pop up and say I don't have a firewall, because my firewall hasn't integrated w/ SP2's monitoring solution yet - no biggie. I am not a fan of their pop-up solution, my daughter ran into some problems because a website she plays games on pops the games up in a popup window (older popup blocker you would just click twice and that was a "yes I really meant to open that please") so I had to configure the blocker to allow popups from the game site.
Haven't run across any other problems yet
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
thx11995@hotmail.com
I heard that if you install SP2, "M$oft" kills a kitten. Also, I heard that it ate someone's mom. I'd be careful.
I mean, honestly, this isn't rocket science or even programming.
Backup your system. Upgrade to SP2. Test. If something goes wrong and you can't undo the upgrade, restore to your backup.
The question you should be asking is "Is upgrading to SP2 safer than continuing to run SP1?" The people I've asked answer this with a qualified "yes." Personally, I'd try it on one machine, make sure it doesn't break any of your existing apps on that machine, and then phase it in on all your other boxes later.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Just to add to the general feeling here, we knock out 50 - 100 machines a week with SP2 and have very few reported issues apart from with the list that MS give. WiFi is just a bitch anyway, but third party software generally complains more under SP2 than SP1. The most common issue there is with third party software starting on boot, and then users trying to config their connections through windows.
I was surprised things went as smoothly as they did for me. I'm still hobbling along with a Voodoo3. Windows doesn't like the non certified drivers, but they work perfectly. The only caveat I have for SP2 is the absolutely god-awful "Windows Security Center". If you have an AV and a Firewall, tell WSC to sod off. It doesn't always recognize Norton AV even with norton's Patches (I'll say due to MS before I blame Symantec, I'm mean like that) and it doesn't support Sygate at all yet (it does handle ZoneAlarm, but I switched to SyGate, and now push that on all my clients instead of ZA, I'm that happy with it), etc. Plus, It's buggy, and a security hole in itself. It stores AV and Firewall data in an easily accessable file, and could even theoretically let a worm turn these features off. Also, until I disabled it it kept telling me I had no firewall, even though I kept telling it not to check any of those things (that setting just would NOT be saved after a reboot). Thankfully, it's a breeze to disable. Go to the Services console (In the Admin Tools in Control Panel), and find "Security Center". Right click, select properties. Stop the service, and set it to "Disabled". Then enjoy the rest. It's a tiny bit faster to me, actually, than SP1.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
I installed SP2 on my TabletPC. Other than the firewall working like it should, it's been just fine. No stability problems. It's nice getting a little thing saying "Are you sure you want this program hitting the internet?" etc.
For you TabletPC owners out there, you'll probably like some of the nicities that pop up. Now when you hover your stylus over a text input field, an icon indicating an On-Screen-Keyboard appears. If you click it, a miniature one appears. This means you don't have to keep the OSK on all the time. Kudos MS.
"Derp de derp."
Error Messages received when loading SP2:
Title of error message: migrate.exe - Entry Point Not Found
Error message 1: The procedure entry point GetIUMS could not be located in the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL.
Error message 2: The procedure entry point GetTextExtentPointI could not be located in the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL.
Resolution: There is a new MSDART.DLL in Windows XP Service Pack 2. Apparently, SP2 sometimes tries to use MSDART.DLL before it has copied it. If you happen to have an old version of MSDART.DLL on the system you are upgrading, it crashes and destroys your entire installation of Windows XP. After the crash, one machine would still boot, but the initial boot screen said "Windows Media Center" instead of "Windows XP Professional". This particular machine has been used by a very responsible office manager for two years without problems, and has never been near Windows Media Center. Very weird.
The newest version of MSDART.DL_ is in the random folder name created when running SP2, in the i386 sub-folder. This folder is deleted after SP2 finishes.
Run the command: EXPAND.EXE msdart.dl_ to unpack to MSDART.DLL. Then copy the new, SP2 version of MSDART.DLL to the C:\winnt\system32 or C:\windows\system32 folder, whichever is correct. (The second may be correct if you upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 98.)
I talked to someone at MS Tech support about this, who correctly identified that it was a problem with MSDART.DLL, but told me to download MDAC_TYP.EXE from Microsoft and install it. This did NOT solve the problem. MDAC_TYP.EXE has an old version of MSDART.DLL that does not contain the needed entry points, apparently.
The MS technical support representative spoke very slowly and said a lot of inappropriate things. I think it a big company like Microsoft could give its employees a better grade of weed.
After you have this problem with SP2, if you fix SP2 while it is running by copying the new version of MSDART.DLL, you MUST load SP2 again. Otherwise some users may have inoperative icons. Very weirder.
If you use the words "Microsoft" and "Quality" in the same sentence, does God strike you dead? Apparently not.
You can call Microsoft about SP2: Call 1-800-936-5700. Choose 1. Wait until the recorded message gets through trying to get you to go elsewhere and press 5. It was free for me, at least. The two support representatives to whom I talked did not help me. However, they were pleasant and conceivably might help reduce a feeling of loneliness.
Other issues:
SP2 may not be able to run on an infected system. Run virus checkers and spyware checkers before trying to load Windows XP SP2. I recommend Grisoft's AVG free personal virus checker.
For spyware removal, run both the free AdAware Personal and the free Spybot Search and Destroy. One may find things the other doesn't.
Virus Checkers: Disable virus checkers and non-SP2-aware software firewalls while loading SP2.
ZoneAlarm software firewall: Upgrade to the latest version of ZoneAlarm, if you use it, before trying to install SP2. Disable the Windows firewall; ZoneAlarm Pro provides much better security. For example, ZoneAlarm Pro renames the file name extensions of attachments that have file name extensions that signify an executable file. There are 44 of those, if I remember correctly. ZoneAlarm provides outgoing protection, as well as incoming protection; the firewall in SP2 provides only incoming protection.
Disable harassments. After you load SP2, there are two new entries in Control Panel: Windows Firewall and Security Center. Go to Security Center/ Change the Way Security Center alerts me/ to disable the messages that haras
Were those 1,000 PCs corporate computers that are all identical, running identical software?
Are the computers mostly identical, with just a few programs loaded, or is there considerable variety?
Are the problems all with the Windows SP2 software firewall? Can they be cured by running ZoneAlarm or some other software firewall?
I just looked at your comments. Why do you feel the need to comment on EVERY fucking thread, saying shit just to say it? If slashdot sucks, it's because of whores like you.
I don't feel like wasting my karma on you, just please stfu.
There is ntohing really wrong with XP2. Some people are not very computer savvy and do not know how to deal with any software and they think when somethng does not APPEAR to work the way they THINK it should work, they throw their hands up and say it is not good. There is always going to be patches and fixes because it is impossible to test anything with every computer in the world and besides it is all how you operate your computer. Do you run utilities to fix it? Do you keep it clean by using a file cleaner/registry cleaner, firewall with the firewall in XP2? That is a good idea and I do it. I had to recycle my modem but that is normal with new security fix software! I had no problems installing it on 17 different computers with Windows XP Home. People need to learn how to use a computer right and quit being lazy and quit their crying and blaming companies and other people for their own doing.
If the machine has T.V. Media installed on it, remove it before installing SP2. XP will crash on loading if you have done this. Here's the MSKB article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=885 523&product=windowsxpsp2
We have had SP2 deployed to over 150 machines at my organization, and have had only 2 instances of problems after installing SP2, and both were caused by the T.V. Media issue. It is fixable if you encounter this (see article), but time consuming; over an hour to fix it.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
Thank you for not using the non-word "boxen".
I get a lot of people asking me about SP2 so I made a page detailing my SP2 suggestions. I think SP2 is in general a good thing, but some people need to disable some features.
If you are running a NX enabled CPU (AMD64) you MAY have issues with SP2. This can generally be resolved by disabling DEP. Disabling DEP will also solve most program incompatability, but I recommend running with DEP on unless it is giving you problems.
I also dislike the SP2 TCP/IP stack, but that can easily be remidied. I have provided all the needed instructions on my page on this subject: http://www.woods.us/sp2
You don't mean I've wasted my time making this Apple // worm do you?
I live in a country in the Middle East that blocks all kinds of internet access, and I used to get around that by tunnelling out through SSH.
Till I upgraded to SP2.
Now my machine can't connect to loopback addresses (the entire 127.0.x.x space), not can it connect to localhost. I can't uninstall SP2 either. I'm seriously considering reinstalling XP (No, I can't use Linux. My company's product requires Windows)
Also, I have a Wi-Fi network at home that uses a USR9106 ADSL Gateway & Router and a Linksys WRT54G as a repeater. Since SP2, I have difficulty logging into the network when both are active. If I switch off the Linksys, it works. Weird.
By chance, is it an eMachines M6805 or an M6807? If so, it's the BIOS. same problem here. I told them about it, and the manual fix. Their newer BIOSes have the fix - on the M6809, 10 and 11.
Hopefully they backport it. I'm NOT voiding my warranty, and I've already uninstalled SP2 (couple of my games took a shat after trying to install)
Worst case, I take it back to BB, show them that it b0rks with SP2, and they give me instore credit towards a new one, since they won't be able to fix it. (Already talked to a buddy who's a tech - he said that's what they'll do)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I have 3 Windows desktops and a Powerbook with a Linksys wireless G+B router. One of the desktop PCs (AlienWare with notebook wireless PC card) was updated to SP2... totally hosed the wireless network. As long as the updated Desktop was turned off and the router was reset, the rest of the network was fine. AS soon as the SP2 box booted up it would mangle the network and all other connected devices would lose access.
After about 8 hours of testing the network and changing settings and turning off services on both the SP2 PC and others we decided it had everything to do with the new BroadBand Connection control panel and zeroconf service.
Apparently SP2 was broadcasting an adhoc network of it's own, not recognizing that a network already existed and somehow DOSing the router. We tried turning off the service but then the SP2 PC couldn't connect without 3rd party software...
In the end we just reinstalled Windows XP Pro on the AlienWare PC, turned on backup/recovery so we wouldn't have to reinstall again if a future patched version of SP2 still caused this problem and went on with our lives.... making sure to turn off auto updates.
At some point we will attempt to apply the service pack again but not until we have plenty of free time to deal with collateral damage.
--my story
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I'm the person who posted the original question (I know, I know, I need to get a login).
I apologize for the M$oft usage, I was in a hurry to type the question, and accidentally used M$oft because I see it used so much on this site. I read Slashdot way too much.
One of the main reasons I was asking was because I had told my company of 30 people to hold off on installing it until we heard that it was safe to use. When it first came out, problems were being reported everywhere, it was crazy how bad it seemed from all of the reports. I read dozens of sites, hundreds of posts, etc...
But then lately I've stopped hearing anything about it. I wasn't sure if Microsoft had released patches for SP2 yet, if the problems all had workarounds, etc... Many of the people at my company probably have spyware on their machines, some probably have viruses. They disable firewalls and antivirus whenever it gets installed and set up on their machines. This was probably my biggest concern, since I'd heard that it trashed computers with viruses or spyware.
I use SSH, VPNs, and I also have my 802.11g wireless network running at home using a Belkin router.
I just wanted to thank everybody for their input (even those who post really strange comments or offtopic comments. You never really know what you'll see in posts on this site). I'll probably test installing it this weekend, after creating my own system restore point and backing up all of my critical data.
Thanks,
Dave Hamilton
I've got a couple of boxes with XP on them but I usually use Linux. So I've decided to just sit this out for a while and leave the XP boxes as is. I prefer not to be Microsoft's guinea pig.
Jim Lynch
Tech Analyst and Community Manager
"the performance hit is due to bounds checking in the code, so it begs the question: Would you prefer a slower app that has more security..."
NO, IT DOESN'T:
beg the question
to beg the question - definition by dict.die.net
How to (and how not to) Beg the Question. From "On Language: Semantitheft," by William Safire. The New York Times, May 13, 2001
and how can he go online to fix them without being at risk?
Install a personal firewall like BlackICE immediately after you install the OS. Then connect to the net.
1. Work: 10 systems; no problems, save boss thought his PC was a little slower; found newer wireless drivers to load on the wireless systems (they're actually running much better now, probably from the driver/SP2 combination); all systems using Windows firewall. Setup responds to Active Directory policies okay as well.
2. Home: 2 systems; no problems. I did have some issue with GNUcleus, but they've updated it, and it seems to work better with the http://www.lvllord.de/ patch.
Life is irony, and nothing ever goes as planned.
Dell had to "exchange" the Dell 8400 they sent me for an entirely new CPU. My first day on my brand new computer, I decided, before doing anything else, I'd install SP2 and get it over with. Mistake!
My XP Pro never fully installed SP2 properly, and after many blue screens of death and hours on the phone with both Dell and Microsoft SP2 support, Windows was so corrupt that it would no longer start and my RAID drives were no longer recognized!
Needless to say, I have not and will not install SP2 on my new CPU. What implications I'll have from that, I don't know.
I have to say this though: Microsoft's SP2 support line was helpful and friendly. Truly professional and knowledgeable folks.
As for Dell support, it depended on who you got. And I talked to many people that day! I was very discouraged by the fact that when you call Dell support, an American "support manager" answers at first to register the customer call, but then transfers you to somebody in India.
I work with folks from and in India at my day job, so I have the upmost respect for their incredible talents and dedication, but...
I can only imagine "Billy-Bob" from the American South being transferred to some person in India whose name is 20 characters long and whose accent is more than evident.
So, by not installing SP2, what am I risking? What am I missing out on? And will I be able to install any other Windows Updates if I continue to ignore SP2?
I am pretty sure XP and Linux will run on the same hardware.