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Failed Win XP Upgrade Wipes Out UK Government Agency

Posted by michael on from the automatic-upgrades-deemed-harmful dept.

Lurker McLurker writes "The BBC and the Register report that the UK Government's Department for Work and Pensions attempted to upgrade seven PCs from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, and ended up with BSODs on over 60,000 machines. I wonder if the National Health Service is regretting awarding Microsoft a £500 million contract now." The Guardian also has a good story.

4 of 731 comments (clear)

  1. EDS again by Hieronymus+Howard · · Score: 5, Informative

    Every time I hear about a big government IT fuck-up it seems to be caused by EDS. Yet the government keep awarding them contracts. Why?

  2. Wrong! by Mr_Silver · · Score: 5, Informative
    Bad Slashdot reporting again? Quote Slashdot:

    the UK Government's Department for Work and Pensions attempted to upgrade seven PCs from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, and ended up with BSODs on over 60,000 machines.

    In actual fact, the Register quotes:

    According to one, a limited network upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP was taking place, but instead of this taking place on only a small number of the target machines, all the clients connected to the network received a partial, but fatal, 'upgrade.'

    and then below it:

    Another source says that the DWP was trialing Windows XP on a small number ("about seven") of machines. "EDS were going to apply a patch to these, unfortunately the request was made to apply it live and it was rolled out across the estate, which hit around 80 per cent of the Win2k desktops.

    So, by merging them you get the following story:

    There was a trial of seven PC's, instead of patching only those seven, the request to roll it out was accidently performed and every computer attempted to install a botched version of XP.

    Somewhat slightly different to the Slashdot version wouldn't you say?

    In addition, I'm pretty sure that if you accidently deployed a botched version of the linux kernel then it too would probably have a similar effect.

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  3. We need to educate the decision makers by mishmash · · Score: 5, Informative
    We've got to stop this happening again, we've got to educate the people spending our money on huge computer systems which are prone to failure.

    I have found that many MPs when questioned on anything related to technology simply say that "it is a complex issue", which to me isn't good enough when such huge amounts of money and significant impact on people's lives is involved.

    There is a huge contract that'll be up for grabbs soon - EDS are preparing themselves to manage the UK national identity database and identity card scheme. This is one we could lobby our representatives on to ensure they do it right..

    Where to have the debate where it might be read by those who mater:
    Free service to fax your MP

    Boris
    Richard Allan
    Tom Watson
    Shaun Woodward
    Citing the recent and ongoing failures such as that cited in the article, and the UK Child support agency's computer failure. as well as the NHS computer system UK

    --
    UK Laptops
    1. Re:We need to educate the decision makers by mikerich · · Score: 5, Informative
      Where to have the debate where it might be read by those who mater:
      Free service to fax your MP

      Can I take the opportunity to point out that faxyourmp is for UK citizens ONLY and should only be used to fax your own MP. It is not for international write-ins or mass lobbying.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.