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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..."
...Security. Oh god, that -1 for me!
... 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.
...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
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.
I would not call XP unstable, but it is now suffering from what linux users have suffered for too long: bad hardware / drivers.
If I put cheap memory into the machine - I should expect it to crash. If I run bad drivers - I should expect it to crash.
I do not believe that 2000 is that much more stable than XP. 2003 I do not know, but I guess all of these have the same level of stability, however XP goes on to more computers made out of crap, and therefore it craps out more.
Windows9x was crappy because it did not implement correct separation of processes from each other and from the kernel.
badness 10000
"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?
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.
If your running asp.net under win2k it runs as an ISAPI process. With server2003 its runs natively in IIS, makes it a little bit more robust. Also like the security settings, especially being able to control TCP/IP down to the port level. Not sure if this also on win2k, if it is, it must be buried.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Some (enterprise-grade) applications require the use of SQL Server Desktop Engine (the anti-virus vendor Sophos, for one, use this - Veritas would be an example of another).
In many instances, this doesn't react well with software on Windows server builds (again, as examples, SQL Server proper and Terminal Services both are broken by and break these two products in particular).
Especially in the ranks of middle-sized organisations which don't feel like splashing out hundreds of dollars (or more) for copies of windows server simply to run veritas and sophos, there are plenty of organisations which run 'server' software and SQL desktop engine / SQL Server on workstation builds of windows.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
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.
If you're buying or leasing new systems, it's probably a better idea to go with Windows Server 2003 than an OS that's five years old. Sure there's good reason not to jump on the new OS bandwagon, but I think it has proven its stability. Think about it: in three years time (which could be well within the lifetime of those servers), Win2K is going to be getting very long in the tooth. Almost as long in the tooth as NT4 is now.
Anyway, all our new servers use the new OS. Obviously tested it first. It's a lot nicer to work with remotely, and is just generally better all round (shock! horror! Microsoft's marketing turned out to be true!).
No. Windows 3.1 was a GUI on top of DOS. The real reason why you saw so many crashes and blue screens on the Win9x line is what the grandparent post said. This is why there were "familiar" places the OS would crash. It's because another app or driver would consistently write to that location and, since the separation wasn't there, blue screen the box.
-Shippy
Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Windows 2000 only has service pack 4. This "Service Pack 6" may be some ill-meaning program, sounding like it is helpful, like an internet speeder or something.
I know you just mistyped, and I'm being a real jerk. I understand why that mistake may be made. First, NT, which 2000 is upgraded from, is on version 6a. Internet Explorer, the default browser on 2000, is also at version 6 something. Same with outlook express, default mail application. WAIT! 3 programs all at version 6? That's 666. MICROSOFT IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
CARRIER LOST
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
All the consumer-level (read: home user) products up to XP were DOS based. In other words, DOS was the framework and the GUI's were slapped on top(95 beta actually used 7.0 as a version on boot disks made with it). This includes 3.x, 95, 98, and (shudder) ME. XP Home is the first consumer-level OS from Microsoft that is NOT based on DOS - it uses the NT kernel. IIRC, MS made a BIG deal about the fact that XP home was the first non DOS-based OS for home users they've released (a goal for a LONG time).
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Windows 3.1 (extended mode) took over memory management as well as DOS was real mode and Windows (ext) was Protected Mode.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
By that logic Linux as loaded by loadlin.exe could be considered DOS based. From Win95 up I don't believe any system calls made it back to the DOS boot system (save perhaps DOS TSR programs/drivers if loaded?), but it was in memory lying dormant somewhere.
Maybe I'm being pedantic. Even if what I say is all true the Win9x line was a hybrid of 32-bit and 16-bit and switched from protected mode to real mode and back as it saw fit. (thunk compiling)
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.