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Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003

Posted by michael on from the security-is-priority-one dept.

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..."

4 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. Catch-22 by rackhamh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  2. Running Win Server 2k3 as a Workstation by mr.henry · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Love Windows 2000 and don't want to bother with XP? You can always run Windows Server 2003 as a workstation with this guide.

  3. Re:damn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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?

  4. Re:Service Pack vs Version by typhoonius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you're missing the point.

    What the grandparent means is that bug-fixing Service Packs and feature-adding upgrades should be kept separate so you can grab the bug fixes without worrying about the new features breaking shit. Both would ideally be free.

    Hell, look at Apache; they're still updating the 1.3.x line just for security and using the 2.0.x branch for adding new features (which break a fair number of old things). If your site is already running 1.3.x reliably, you don't want to shake it up for no reason--servers are supposed to be reliable, not flashy--but you want the latest security patches. So you can keep grabbing the 1.3.x updates.

    With Windows, you don't have the choice; you pick the devil you know or the devil you don't. Everyone says Microsoft is damned if they do or damned if they don't with the Service Packs, and it seems like their customers are in the same position.