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Interview of the Windows XP SP2 Dev Team

Posted by Hemos on from the one-step-forward? dept.

Masa writes "SuperSite for Windows has a nice interview called "Windows XP Service Pack 2: The Inside Story". The interview gives a good insight, what kind of a project the Service Pack 2 was, how it got started and how huge effort it actually was." The ITMJ Product Guide is part of OSTG, as is Slashdot.

4 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Note IE by spac3manspiff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Looking at the timeline, almost half of it was filled with 'fixing' Internet Explorer
    Just drop IE and spend more time on the freaking OS.

  2. such a waste... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The people at Microsoft know what is wrong with Windows. They have a variety of reasons for not fixing it. I can't say I agree with them completely but some of them make good "business" sense. It's too bad they care more about "business" than the quality of the product itself.

    When Apple did MacOSX, they basically created a "WINE" for MacOS9. Not everything was/is perfect but a great many things continue to work without problems. They didn't sit back and say "oh... we have business reasons for not overhauling the whole OS and starting over from something more secure and stable from the start."

    I have said it before and I say it again: Microsoft is perfectly capable of doing exactly what Apple did: Make a new OS and make a WINE to run the old stuff until people finally migrate over. I'm not a developer but there are plenty of examples out there to show it's not impossible. I know I can't be the only person who has ever thought of it and I wonder why they haven't done this at Microsoft already? Some people here have been kind enough to put forth some reasons why Microsoft hasn't just abandoned its current Win32 model -- essentially business reasons -- so can someone offer some likely reasons why Microsoft wouldn't build a new OS and then make a WINE for backward compatibility?

  3. Insightful quote... by gwiner · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "Todd: We knew we had a bigger problem than just enabling the firewall. And so at that point, I sent out a mail to everyone in the division saying, "This is what we're going to do. We're going to take a little bit more time to do it. And if you want to submit a security feature, you should do so, and then show up at this room." Well, the next day, it was standing room only, and everyone had a security feature that they wanted to check in. It went all the way down from things like the new Bluetooth stack, to the new Windows Media Player, to the new Group Policy stuff, and on, and on, and on, and on."
    I find it interesting that MS is so aware of their security problems internally, yet still claims to put an emphasis on security. This exchange seems to be good evidence that they ship ahead of any thorough security analysis/testing. Not only did they realize on closer examination that their own firewall didn't work, but half the division shows up with suggestions for known security concerns. Clearly this shows people's voices are not being heard. I guess I'm not surprised, but this seems like fodder for a lawsuit.
  4. Sigh^2 by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 5, Insightful
    After reading TFA I don't know whether to laugh or cry:
    • Microsoft's best are not able to turn off Media Player 8.
    • Media Player 9 went thru a "security audit", so it must be better than 8, which has been tested by several hundred million people.
    • Enabling a firewall breaks *everything*. Apparently they havent heard of a simple GUI with easily-understood checkboxes. (See IE options... for the classic counterexample).
    • They somehow expect a semi self-anointed czar of security patches to gain everyone's support.
    • Nowhere is it mentioned the (estimated) 45,000 uses of unsafe string functions in the source code.
    Sigh^3?