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Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003
mithridate writes "Microsoft has posted the Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate. eWeek has a short review of the service pack. My favorite quote from the article is, 'The company argues that the improvements are important enough that applications should be changed to accommodate them.' I know I still have not installed SP2 because of the problems it causes with SQL Server, I can't wait to see what kind of havoc it causes on the servers..."
I am no MS fanboy -- and I will be the first to admit that Windows 95, 98, ME, and XP are unstable and crappy -- but Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server are both solid operating systems.
...Security. Oh god, that -1 for me!
But up2date tells me I need to upgrade about 50 million packages and they're all urgent security issues.
... and damned if you don't.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
You guys flame them for not caring about security, then they take an proactive stance on security which causes a few inconviences and then you bitch about that.
So a bunch of people wrote applications that take advantage of lax security in Windows server environments.
Now Microsoft is saying they won't be so lax anymore, so the applications need to change.
Microsoft is basically damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't. If they don't patch the flaws, they're bad for providing an unsecured environment. If they do patch the flaws, they're bad for breaking existing applications.
I for one fail to see how this is a bad thing... OSes evolve, and applications have to keep up. That's why manufacturers provide separate drivers and software versions for different OS versions, isn't it?
Love Windows 2000 and don't want to bother with XP? You can always run Windows Server 2003 as a workstation with this guide.
Is it just me or are others pissed off that M$ has taken the term "Service Pack" and stretched it way beyond it's intended meaning?
A Service Pack should fix bugs, provide MINOR enhancements, and performance tweaks. Anything more is a version change.
Hell, I would be perfectly happy to see the term "Service Pack" disapear entirely to be replaced by 0.01 releases and 0.1 for bigger changes, like most of the rest of the world does. At least that terminology has meaning to me.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
I hope that you mean this for a corporate production environment.
As for home use, you can simply upgrade, and turn off the firewall. That will allow most programs to work as before.
There are a couple of things that I believe have changed in SP2 that can affect you but are not firewall related: No more raw sockets, and a limit to how many connection can be created per second.
No reason to not install, especially if you are an IE user.
badness 10000
...would be to just firewall every Windows machine behind a Linux box or BSD box and use port forwarding or some other restrictive routing scheme. Even if the hardware to isolate a gigabit's worth of bandwidth ran $1,000, it'd probably still save the company money compared to the man hours required to fix custom software, test it, and install it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I know I still have not installed SP2 because of the problems it causes with SQL Server, I can't wait to see what kind of havoc it causes on the servers...
This is a little predjudicial. You may have some historical examples to draw upon, but we should cut Microsoft some slack. If they didn't release this, people would complain, and when they do, people complain. If Microsoft is willing to admit that the "the improvements are important enough that applications should be changed to accommodate them", then perhaps they are right. It's doubtful that Microsoft is going to cause this much of a hassle unless it was for a good reason - ultimately, it would be easier for them to forgo this. Perhaps it is initial flaws, but how could they get it all right on the very first release?
I know I sound like some sort of Microsoft 'fanboy', but I'm just trying to present a devil's advocate view against the Slashdot bias against Microsoft.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
that windows server 2003 will actually be able to use up to date hardware?
Will I finally be able to plug my DVD writer into my PDC and back up the AD tree?
Didn't think so. That's it, I'm going back to Debian.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
TFA says they have added the same Windows Firewall as XPSP2. However, this is one issue that I can't see being NEARLY as big of a deal as it was for XP. XP has a much bigger percentage of novice users, many of whom had never even heard of a firewall until SP2. Win 2003 is, in general, used by people who would be aware of how to deal with such things and how to troubleshoot any problems that might occur.
"No more raw sockets" is firewall related. If you turn off the firewall, raw sockets can be created.
I don't know if the connection limit is also done by the same service process or not.
is microsoft just shooting themselves in the foot again? I'm scared shitless of XP SP2, I can't imagine this being much better.
.m
Scared of what? If you install it and something actually doesn't work then you can simply uninstall it.
By now there are workarounds or updates available for most of the apps that didn't work with SP2.
In the docs they write that a server should be able to accept unsollicited connections so the new Windows Firewall defaults to off, unlike the one in XP SP2.
Hm. I'm not sure about that.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
This is more or less an indication that the initial release was premature and is what the *nix community might call a "Release Candidate", or even a beta that has few enough (!) bugs to be marginally usable.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
"The company argues that the improvements are important enough that applications should be changed to accommodate them.' I know I still have not installed SP2 because of the problems it causes with SQL Server, I can't wait to see what kind of havoc it causes on the servers...""
:)
You know for an editor of slashdot, you should really do some research.
If you use the latest service pack for SQL server, XP service pack 2 works fine. The same thing goes for running SQL 2k on Windows 2003. Maybe if you kept up with the current application service releases you would not have problems with the OS ones.
I could bitch and whine about vi, gnome, or anything else and I would told to upgrade to the latest revision. Why should you not do so on SQL?
And your running Sql server on XP? Only developers edition runs on XP. And it isn't meant to do production stuff.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I am much of an anti-Microsoft person as anybody...
:)
But, guys... this is a release candidate. It designed to test out in your test environment... Even the evil overlords say:
We advise against installing and evaluating beta software on any production computers.
When they don't fix the problems we find before they release the final version... that's when we should start the griping.
Interesting comment by the author about SP2. It made me think about my upgrade practices. On my Win2k servers I wait nearly 6 months before I upgrade or apply any patches. I just need to know all the bugs are out before I put it into production.
However on my linux server I love installing the latest stable builds. Maybe that is because the software tends to be of better quality?... Possibly masochism... maybe... Then again I do run Win2k server.
What could possibly go wrong?
Are that many people even using Windows Server 2003? Other than the .NET Framework that can also be bolted onto W2K, I don't know what the advantages are to running Win 2003. W2K both Pro and Server are very, very stable for us, and as far as I can tell, we have zero incentive to upgrade (if it's even a real upgrade). I personally don't know of a single person or company running Server 2003 for the same reason. W2K works just fine.
I don't respond to AC's.
What, you mean how UDP and TCP/IP connections are turned off by default?
Turn them back on if you need them and install SQL Server SP3a as advised beforehand.
I think you'll find this fixes all SQL Server on SP2 'problems' as I have found on 6 development machines for the last 7 or so months. It's not like there's a void of information out there on the subject. MS products suffer from so many problems that they do actually have a decent amount of information online about them. A problem affecting SQL Server and SP2 like the vague one you mention is bound to have been so common as to have been fixed.
The connection limit is done directly in the TCP/IP protocol driver, tcpip.sys which makes it much harder to remove; you have to patch the binary.
Search for "Event ID 4226".
1. You've never had to fiddle with code, edit make files, and recompile libraries, drivers, or applications for a new major kernel revision? Whatever.
2. The addition of NOOP-capable processor support is a Good Thing(tm) (except, potentially, for DRM research and fair-use overrides). Any application broken by enforcement of such a basic premise of good programming deserved to be broken, and its developers should be soundly thrashed by a wet noodle.
3. I have Windows XP SP2, which implements the same basic changes, and have not had any apps go south on me because of these changes. I'm no fan of the software firewall (better to turn of the *&$*# insecure listening daemons, not leave them running and add another layer of potential vulnerability, and I won't get into the snake oil beliefs people have about firewalls in general), but it does actually work and is a breeze to configure.
4. As others have said, I really wish they would add more device support (i.e., make the server product basically a souped-up version of XP Pro) so I could use it on my main machine at home.
5. I manage a Win2k3 web server at work and am tickled pink by the performance, maintainability, etc., especially w/r/t IIS. Comparisons to NT or even later SPs of 2k don't hold water. I'm not saying Linux/FreeBSD/etc. aren't worthy competitors, but I spend about 1/20th of the time administrating my Win2k3 box as I did my FreeBSD and Linux boxen a few years ago.
6. Most of the companies who will be affected by these changes adversely are probably the sort that are still stuck in NT or 2kSP3 (with Windows 98 or IE5/6 on the client) due to crappy custom applications.
...why not just install Linux?
Parent has a point. I personally wouldn't apply a beta patch like this - sorry, "release candidate" - until it's clear that it'll result in a safer, more reliable, and above all secure system.
(Posting AC so that I don't fall out of favour.)
so, does the PC exist to run the OS or the application? i thought the point of PC and the OS was to run the application that's useful. why does running of the application, which actually accomlishes something, must be compromise to enable the OS to run better?
i'm not arguing that OS is an important/integral part of using a PC to accomplish a task. but i feel that their philosophy is backwards. even if it's the truth, they shouldn't say it. PCs do not exist to run the OS. PCs exist to run the applications. no one cares about a PC that can run the OS perfectly if it can't run useful apps.
I know I still have not installed SP2 because of the problems it causes with SQL Server
Well duh, the code got corrupted in the time machine you used to get the Windows Server 2003 SP2.
If programs are written properly and use all the calls and procedures they're meant to then they should work with XPSP2. SP2 did not break anything, it merely patched holes that shouldn't have been there and put an extra layer between the average user and the bits they can take out their PC with. If you use an app which utilises security holes to function, it's your lookout.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Interesting. On an unrelated note, did you know that the Slammer virus that crippled the internet exploited a flaw for which a patch had been available for nearly 6 months?
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Get a free LCD monitor!
I have heard that the setting is in the registry.
Probably in the same place where the MTU is hiding.
badness 10000
I am of the mindset that I don't touch anything Windows until Service Pack 1. At least on the server side, it's very possible. For our domain controllers at a large university on 77 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, I specifically am holding off upgrading the domain to Win2k3 until SP1. I am sure many others out there are doing the same.
As for Win2k3 in general, I think it's the best Windows yet, which is still not saying much. I won't touch IIS ever, in fact we have Win2k3 systems running apache because of vendor mandates. It's stable running, but it is Windows, so I only use them to support Windows clients.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
I can't see any reason to spend several thousand dollars to make an OS run like one available for $200 or less.
Be sure to complain how much the built-in firewall sucks when you didn't spend the extra $40 on a hardware solution.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
on MSDN subscriber downloads. They're marked build 1214 which ties up with the last-but-one build of Windows XP 64-bit available. They've now just release Windows XP 64-bit build 1247 so chances are this is build 1247 of the 2003 SP1 code.
But we haven't tried it here yet: no obvious victim 2003 machine, and no problems with our web app on WinXP SP2 code.
Windows Server 2k3 really isn't that bad for having centralized authentication and stuff for windows desktops. The admin interfaces are damn good, and even things like Exchange 2003 and Sharepoint are pretty good. If M$ does one thing good, then its integration. For the most part, there big products work together pretty well. If a Linux server distro could have the level of integration and relative easiness to set up as Windows 2k3(atleast SBS, I haven't used the regular versions quite as much), then it would be wildly popular. SLES is kind of on the right track, and hopefully it'll have a lot more features when Novell releases their Open Enterprise Server next Feburary. Also, with Samba 4, hopefully it will be possible to have Windows desktops authenticate natively with Linux, and have the Linux box act as a domain controller.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
"The question is, " said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty. "which is to be master--that's all."
I think that answers your qestion.
(Doctor Who fans, though, may find additional meaning in Microsoft being The Master...)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
i still have a customer with windows 3.1 on a 386 and 14.4k modem... he's happy with it, why change?
I'm sorry, but all of the posts mentioning catch-22 or "damned if you do, ..." are full of it.
/dev/mem and is not less secure because of it. They are basically just admitting the complete and utter failure of their previous access control. In windows \\device\physicalmemory used to be controlled via an ACL. This method is good enough for Linux, so I don't understand why this isn't good enough for Microsoft.
Basically, Microsoft is breaking a whole crapload of things that don't need to be broken. Several of these changes impact me, and I can tell you that they are not improving security by turning these features off. Actually, they are reducing security by turning these off because now every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there need to go and write their own kernel mode driver to re-implement the missing functions.
For example, in SP1, there is no longer _any_ way to access physical memory from userspace, period. This is perfectly idiotic. Linux has
To further tighten security on new installations, the Post-setup Security Update Wizard blocks all incoming traffic until the latest updates are applied and Automatic Updates are configured.
We have our own tools to perform updates.
Why do so many people continue to use Windows when all they do is complain about it? I have installed SP2 on numerous machines and have had absolutely no problems. I like Windows for what I use it for, and for purposes where I feel that Windows is not the best choice I also run multiple linux machines.
If you don't like Windows or are just anti-microsoft, then just stop using their products. Maybe this doesn't happen because if everyone who had problems with Microsoft switched to linux or some other open source OS then they'd have nothing left to bitch about.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
WTF are you doing running a server database on XP in the first place? Really buddy, c'mon... SQL Server in XP?
Development. And testing.
And, as others have pointed out, running MSDE for applications that need it.
Could you please explain what are the "problems it causes with SQL Server"?
As someone else pointed out above, there's a KB about it: default firewall settings break SQL Server's TCP/IP interface. Which, IMO, you shouldn't use ever.
It's not in the registry. It's hardcoded in the tcp stack, as the previous poster said.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I put a new PCI modem in my WinXP machine and didn't think much of it.
Three weeks later my computer started to power off at random intervals (1-3 days). Not shutdown, not BSOD, a _total_ power cut, as if it had been switched off at the wall.
Luckily I approached the problem rationally and removed the modem as it was the last thing I'd installed.
Hasn't happened since.
Last year I loaded a 1976 version of the PL/C (Programming Language / Cornell) compiler onto a modern IBM System 390 running zVM. And it worked, perfectly, the first time. After 27 years. Take that Microsoft ;-)
It's also a good time to look into your SLAs and get them in order. Make sure to provide a provision that the vendor has to start taking security into consideration. Have them justify why their app needs administrator privs because *I* have to justify it to my auditor. Don't let them off the hook if you can't patch. If viable, withhold payments. Communicate with peers about the level of service the vendor provides (I don't know about small businesses but in medium to large organizations it is surprising how much weight decision makers put into these informal discussions.)
This is an opprotunity not a setback folks.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Can you disable the "phone home" feature?
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Unh, hunh. And is that before, or after I've been owned?
Granted: It's not bad to push people to install security upgrades (as long as you can turn off requiring upgrades that break your network, or network security). It is, however, bad if you get a false sense of security from having that nagging ability in there.
Also: the most secure way to get updates might be using the VPN.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
"it mucks up SQL server."
I suspect that it's only firewall that screws up SQL Server. Turn that off.
Or read the notes on it properly.
If so, read the release notes. The firewall is turned off at the end of setup in 2K3SP1RC1. So, there won't be a problem with SQL Server on 2K3SP1RC1!
Of course, with open-source one can simply recompile most of the software, but application vendors' reluctance to release source is no more of a fault of the OS than the hardware vendors' reluctance to release the specs is...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Most .NET developers run SQLServer (along with IIS if they do ASP.net) on their local boxes. It's nice to have your own "private world" in which to work.
Not quite sure if you have ever worked on SqlServer, but it is really no big deal to port something built locally on XP to something on Windows Server 2000/2003.
The only pain in the ass is keeping the dB up-to-date - we have gotten around this by building an asp.net engine to compare the local database schema with the SQL scripts located in a SVN-controlled directory.
Linux or no Linux, the poster of the article states that (s)he still hasn't installed SP2 (which I take to mean Windows XP Service Pack 2) because of the things it messes up with SQL server. This begs the question, why are they running SQL server on a workstation? Windows XP is not an OS meant to run a server.
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
For the newbies, we should mention that between the steps "Grab XP" and "spend an hour customizing it" there's also a "spend two hours patching it" step.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
So XP Pro includes a copy of IIS for what reason, then? I mean, if that's not what it's meant for.
"I personally wouldn't apply a beta patch like this - sorry, "release candidate" - until it's clear that it'll result in a safer, more reliable, and above all secure system."
Yeah, that worked great with XP's SP2.
Right..
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
Of course you should use TCP interface to talk to DB from Web servers and not named pipes.
Development. A systems designer I know uses IIS on his Windows XP laptop to design the web-based systems for his clients, then deploys it to production web servers.
There's no place like localhost
I'm sure there are a lot of others that didn't make the jump to Win2000 from NT.
In my employers case they rely on Exchange(unfortunately) so I couldn't see going from NT/Exch5.5 to 2000/Exch2000 this late in the game. Win2000 is EOL March 31, 2007. Win2003 is EOL Jun 30, 2013. That allows much more time to plan the next move whether it's to another Windows version or to a UNIX/SAMBA combo
I was hoping to be able to do a Windows/Samba hybrid this round but Exchange kind of negates one of the big benefits of using SAMBA cost. you still have to have CAL's for the Windows servers so you don't save much by using SAMBA you still pay the piper. Some aspects of SAMBA can be a bit frustrating as well, driver download for example. It could be admin ignorace since I didn't spend much time on it. If you double click a shared printer on a Windows box it will allow a regular user to set it up but SAMBA won't let a regular user do it. If you do it off a SAMBA box you have to setup it up via an admin account first and then it behaves more like a "local device" and others can see it. I haven't had time I look forward to SAMBA 4 and it's AD DC emulation. maybe then we can ditch one PITA Groupware for another one(Domino) that runs native in Linux. Or even better someone will have a good true OpenSource groupware solution. If I had programming skills I'd gladly contribute but I don't.
--
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
Now there was a solid OS... at least in the Windows world, that is.
agreed. I had nothing but good luck with NT 4.0. I think it was Microsoft's best effort to date. If they had released USB drivers and updated directx for it, I would have never bought XP.
http://request-header.info
Perhaps in the development business, you have knowledgeable and discriminating buyers. Many businesses have IT department heads who care about job security and not overall cost-effectiveness. I've heard of MS marketing being very good at convincing IT that Windoze is in their best interest. If you're scared that every twenty-something entering the business is a linux wizard, the status quo with latest crappy corporate OS sounds good. Basically, you and you're friends are not MS's key demographic, and obviously not the bread and butter of their Salespeople either
Very true, but OS X upgrades are not so nicely priced compared to Linux or BSD :-)
I don't like how quickly Apple and Microsoft drops support for products, though. IBM kept up support for OS/2 and even PC-DOS for quite a while.
First off, I was doing this think called joking . Secondly, this technique isn't uncommon anyway, with things called "demilitarized zones" in network management. You build a three-segment network, one segment being the world at large (entirely untrusted from the server perspective) the next segment being the userland machines on your network (semi-trusted from the server perspective), and the third being the servers (entirely trusted). You configure which set of machines get which access privileges through the routing device (any router is a computer, just a specialized one) so that only certain things get through in certain ways. One might port forward or proxy all connections from the world but allow direct routing on a limited number of ports from the userland segment.
At work we route three MUX rings' worth of sites, about 120 sites total, 30,000 machines across the entire WAN on the scale of a city, and the traffic is being handled at the concentration point for all major servers and the outbound internet connection by... drum roll please... a Linux box. That's right, a Linux box. An Intel-based 64bit PCI machine with six gigabit cards and an extensive routing table. It's probably the most stable thing on the network, and hasn't burned out like so many of the switches and routers out in the field due to poor quality fans. It'll probably handle a bunch more traffic than we are throwing at it, too.
So, we could have spent a shitload on a switch like you so advocate, or we could have spent the $3,000 to build this computer. We chose the computer. It's definitely not 'hobbyist'.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
During installation the firewall is active until you apply the latest updates. Then it turns itself off.
A good idea!
"You do not support the root but the root supports you." - Romans 11:18
Interestingly, "KISS" is, although efficient, not the simplest representation of the concept it is trying to relate. It is not usually understood (or there are too many people underestimating the number of people familiar with it), and so has to be expanded in an aside. Simpler would be to remove the abbreviation, and probably the epithet as well. Remember, "Keep It Simple".
I mod down pathetic posts.
Windows 2003 is waaay more stable then any MS OS so far.. My workstation which runs win2k3 has been up for 140 days.. and i (a software developer) use it everyday..
God is real unless declared as int
Actually, IIS in Windows 2000 Pro only accepts 2 connections at a time. Not sure about XP, but I believe it's the same.
There's no place like localhost
You won't install SP2 but you'll be more than happy to sit there moaning about security holes Microsoft won't patch... if you're running XP without SP2 then you deserve what you get.
And if your computer won't boot after installing SP2... you deserve what you get!
yeah, I'm talking in a production environment.
Even if people don't make backups it isn't that big of a deal to install XPSP2.
You can run a compatability checker before performing the actual install that will give you some warnings if there are known incompatibilities with applications you have installed on your machine
Skipping that, as long as you don't select the option that says "Do not archive the original operating system files away. Selecting this option means you can not uninstall XPSP2" you will be able to remove it via the Add/Remove Programs control panel. And 'yes' the option to get yourself in to that situation is not the default and 'yes' if you pick that option the message is pretty clear about what you are doing.
So then why couldn't he be a DB developer running SQL server on his workstation? Seems reasonable to me...
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
I assume that since you posted this as an anonymous coward you were just trying to be funny or a troll since 'release candidate' is a pretty standard term in the software industry - which is more than just Microsoft.
You may also want to look up what the word 'candidate' means. Here, I will help you: candidate. There do not have to be multiple candidates nor does a candidate have to receive votes.
In this case there actually is a type of voting that goes on. When a software company has a 'release candidate' there is generally a period of time between it and the actual released product. During this time the company receives feedback from people running the release candidate. The feedback/bug reports/etc are analyzed to determine if the product is actually ready to ship. When a product is getting ready to ship certain representatives actually have to sign off on it - essentially the same thing as a 'vote'.
But, I'm sure you already knew that and you were just trying to get a +5 Lame Attempt At MS Bashing on your message.
SP2 did not break anything, it merely patched holes that shouldn't have been there and put an extra layer between the average user and the bits they can take out their PC with.
a)This makes no sense.
b)If these "holes that shouldn't have been there" are patched by removing functionality (which certainly happens) and/or this "extra layer" involves changing the API, then programmers can't really be blamed for using the old models...yet their programs will break after the "upgrade."
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Was the ability to run off of a SAN volume and be relatively hardware/driver agnostic -- For example: I have a SAN with production OSs running and server hardware takes a dump in a big way... I can point a less-important machine (or spare) at a preconfigured OS image, or in a pinch, the original machine's image, do some minor tweaking, make sure it is pointed to the data share, and have service quickly restored while repairs can be made on the downed hardware.
NT4 could not do this... Win2K takes more time, and is still risky (esp w/ a difft chipset), but 2K3 has an envelope for swapping out an entire server, with a different manufacturer, model, etc...
2. You do not recompile everything every time you update. Firstly, you might compile an application against libraries and/or kernel headers you have on your system - this depends on what the application is but generally this is very quick on modern systems. Sure kernels, Gnome, KDE, etc take a while to compile but then, you have a choice with Linux...
If you're going to argue against Linux then at least put up a valid argument that is factually correct.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Windows users base their anti-Linux arguments purely on speculation and FUD, it's very easy to see when they've never even used what they're complaining about.
Please remember that much of the Linux user base is made up of dissatisfied ex-Windows users so the Linux community is usually much more well informed and qualified on Windows than is the case the other way around.
Please make sure you get your facts right in future.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
... that there are so many holes to patch, that you should change your applications to open source ?????
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This will probably end up redundant, but, if you have a perfectly good install of Windows 2000 and it's doing everything you want it to then is there a reason to spend $72 to $180 per machine for XP Professional Upgrade?
Personally, I use both at home and just went through a round of spending to get the family legit on Windows XP. When you factor in the cost of upgrades to systems built in the Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 era I ended up spending a couple hundred US $$$ with educational discounts.
Since I am in an educational setting I decided to save a little cash on my development systems by purchasing the MSDN Operation Systems subscription which has releases of 2003,XP,2000 and 98.
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
Service Pack 1 would block a security loophole and open up 5 other loopholes, upon which other viruses will ride on.
So, Service Pack 2 would be released (process in a while loop, till a new OS comes up)
Their service packs, are just to keep breaking the working apps.
How long will it take until first unpatched vulnerabilities are found in Server 2003+SP1 ?
End of the week, maybe ?
I have to agree with Microsoft on this one. It is long past time for MS to bite the bullet and stop worrying about breaking shoddy software from the dawn of time -- stuff that never should have worked, but did because earlier OSes allowed unforgiveable sloppiness. There are a lot of app.s out there that deserve to die and be replaced by correct code.
I'm very much in favor of preserving backward compatibility for decent software, but many PeeCee products are great examples of how not to design and build software, and they should go. Now.
(Can you tell how many hundreds of hours I've lost trying to get antiproductivity software running for someone who simply *must* have it?)
Having recently uninstalled XP Service Pack 2 I can say that there is a little more to consider than simply "uninstalling."
Because the VERY first step of the uninstall is a warning that say "If you continue the following applications may not work properly any longer..." and then it lists the vast majority of whatever is installed on the machine. So far, I've done this twice and uninstalling hasn't led to those consequences--yet.
But as any Windows admin knows it is only a matter of time before something that only happens to a minority of Windows installs happens to one of yours.
Who did what now?
So XP Pro includes a copy of IIS for what reason, then? I mean, if that's not what it's meant for.
By that logic, Novell's "Enterprise Desktop Linux" is meant to be a server because it includes Apache and Sendmail.
Why do they bother calling it that if, since they included those things, it's really for server use?
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
No one is telling you that you cannot use Novell Enterprise Desktop Linux as a server, however; this is the difference.
In the case of Novell, it's the same OS, just packaged with different features and holding a different support contract.
Remember who XP was built for - not people running a server process.
and FWIW I'm a sybase developer now. I don't run Unix or Linux, so I have no choice but to use a dev server.
And I've programmed tonnes for SQL Server. Never once had the need to run it locally.
In fact, at home I keep a seperate win2k3 box for running server processes.
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seriously, shouldn't M$hit focus on making SP2 work before releasing more hell upon it's users? I was running dual boot until SP2 pushed me all the way to pure linux so I guess it's thanks but you're screwing yourself billy.
-Tim Louden