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Ready or Not, Here comes Windows XP SP2
TheViffer writes "Beginning April 12, 2005 Microsoft will remove all temporary blocking of Windows XP SP2 by automatic update and Windows update which it has granted to those organizations that requested it. So unless you run Software Update Service (SUS), chances are you will get a mix of SP1 and SP2 running at the same time. Let's just hope you have these programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer and these programs that seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 patched, upgraded, or removed. Might be a good time for help desk personal to pencil in a week (or two) of vacation."
Someone please help this man...
+ G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
That nearly all the programs on that list are very old, or already have updates for SP2. Hey what the hell, it's Microsof so lets bash them anyways. Sp2 does a LOT of good things for the average Joe in protecting him from his own stupidity.
They've had plenty of time to complete any migration. The application issues have been known for enough time, that if this is still an issue, they've been slacking off for too long.
I know that it breaks some programs and has caused some people problems, but the alternative of ridiculously insecure Windows boxes running rampant is worse.
I've been running Windows XP SP2 on all of my computers (which admittedly is a small population of 3) with no problems. The built-in popup blocker is more rigorous than anything else I've seen and itself breaks many things (most amusingly Outlook Access for Web), but for the most part is plays fairly nice.
I'm a big tall mofo.
we have a list we can refer to. So many times in the past it was just a "try it and see" situation.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
this is sad news... since I have never had one good expierence with SP2... I see nothing good will come of this
In my humble opinion, this is a good thing. I run a decent sized IT shop, and I feel that not upgrading to SP2 is akin to connecting your computer/network to the internet without a firewall.
I'm going to upgrade XP now.... ummm....
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
No need for a vacation inept geeks, you can turn off Automatic Updates with group policy and you can block the windowsupdate.com site at the firewall. That is, if you *really* don't want SP2.. which IMHO seems to be (relatively!) quite stable and secure.
-- i drop mine in braille so you blind cats can read me
What does SP2 seriously add to the corporate desktop? Admittedly I haven't been in charge of windows desktops since Win2K, but I can't immediately see any advantage. Only support nightmares concerning the builtin firewall. Is a personal firewall really needed on every secretary's desk? I would hope not... they're not supposed to run any unauthorized services other than those required for remote control/remote software deployment.
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
Your advice is as stupid as your grammar.
Um, it was very well tested for almost 3 months by almost 200000 beta testers.
Why are they forcing this service pack on us? I run it on my laptop, because I only use that for light browsing and chatting, but I would never run it on my desktop. The "security enhancement" treats the user like an idiot. I know I don't have a firewall, I have a hardware one. I know I don't run anti-virus programs, I don't download anything on this machine. I know some people need to be secured by force, but I'm sure the majority of us /.ers don't need to be told what do do with a computer.
I've turned off automatic updating on my desktop, and don't plan on installing XP SP2 in the near future.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
How many of those programs in the list are either old versions, have been updated for awhile now, or can be fixed by just disabling windows firewall?
I bet the majority of them.
I'm still waiting for a slashdot post to strike fear into the hearts of everyone about the end of the world being near.
I am looking for a SWM that can keep his call times down to 5 minutes.
Why does Microsoft find it so hard to understand that concept?
You do not ADD software to a service pack. You only fix bugs in the existing software.
I'm not sure what language the second half of the submission is in, but Babelfish isn't helping. Can somebody provide a translation?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
The Thing is M$ should not be placing buggy software out there in the first place. It shoulda been througly tested before initial release.
string sig = llGetSig("dimentox"); llSay(0,sig);
Yet you will willingly go out and get the latest Linux kernel, or the latest update of MacOS X without hesitation right? Heavy handed? MS has given MONTHS (try almost 6 months) for people to do what needs to be done. If other vendors are to slow or just too damn lazy, STOP USING those vendors. SP2 is needed, simply because there are a lot of stupid people using computers. End of story.
So, what about all the folks that have the FCKGW license key for their Windows installations? I know many people who still have that code in their windows setups.
I know there is a procedure that can change the installation key, but it is time consuming to go to each computer and reset the key. Plus, it may also break any shareware programs that use a hash of the license key for their registration/serial number check.
My question is this - is this a plan to force everyone who has a - ummm how can I put this? - illegitamate copy of Windows to buy a license or shut down? Moral, ethical, and legal issues aside, I think I can safely say that it is piracy (both the "casual use the same disk to install all the computers at home" and the "professional" pirates in the far east that make disks that look almost identical to a genuine microsoft disk) that made Microsoft what it is today.
Just my do-you-have-8-floppy-disks-I-can-borrow's worth...
-RickTheWizkid
Ah, so you'll be enjoying the recent failures with 10.3.8 instead then? Just as I'm 'enjoying' my dual G5's vastly increased fan activity after installing the update? I particularly appreciate Apple's lack of ability to automatically roll the update back...
I much prefer the OS X environment, but I don't really blame Microsoft for the XP 2 failtures. A big OS patch is a big OS patch, problems can occur on any system and it's extremely likely that patches to various apps will be needed along the way.
Cheers,
Ian
Does anyone know if the appcompat system can be used to provide an XPsp1 (or earlier) environment *only* for apps that break in SP2?
:/
I'm asking both "if" it could be done, and whether it IS in fact an option if so.
That seems like a better solution, IMHO, than holding off on upgrading to SP2 forever, if it could be made to work. Of course, I don't think there's any easy way to centrally deploy or manage appcompat stuff, either...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Might be a good time for help desk personal to pencil in a week (or two) of vacation.
Give it up people. I run at least a half dozen of the applications on those lists on a few XP machines with SP2, and have had exactly 0 problems.
When will the "bashing Microsoft makes me feel good" trend end?
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
From the MS Firewall page:
The number of ports that the process uses may affect how this issue is resolved:
If the process uses more than 1024 ports, the number of ports probably will not change.
If the process uses less than 1024 ports, the program may be using a range of ports. Therefore, opening individual ports may not reliably resolve the issue.
This makes no sense to me. Do you think the author was thinking of high vs low ports?
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Seriously. On my side of the fence (OS X), we have Security Updates that are released as soon as possible after a hole is found. Then, we have major Updates (10.3.1, 10.3.2, etc). If you're more than one version behind, Software Update installs a combo updater (including all security updates), and you're good to go after one restart, no matter what version you're running. You're only exposed to the net for as long as it takes to download the package. What's so hard about that? Why this huge fuss over a difficult and long project to cram a huge-update-that-everyone-needs into one "service pack"?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Last time I installed SP2 on my laptop I got a BSOD everytime I unpluged it.
Thank you micro$oft for rendering a laptop unusable.
(Before everyone tells me to update drivers and whatnot, I updated all my drivers and still had problems, something to do with my processer...)
Both articles are basicaly saying that SP2 installs a firewall package and that some applications may experience loss of connectivity until that firewall is correctly configured.
this is a "non-posting".
Like any programs worked on Windows in the first place?
Sorry for sounding like a n00b but why wouldn't you want SP2? I mean it adds pop up and active x control to IE, plugs some security holes, and adds the security center.
Ain't got no education, u is?
What's all the fuss about? If you don't want the SP2 update, turn off automatic update! And since everyone knows there's no excuse anymore to *not* run SP2, everybody will be happy.
And by everybody, i mean not people reading slashdot.
Remember that Internet access was not too common in older days too, so any list would have been harder to get.
Noticeably one of those lists has styleXP from TGTSoft, which was hated by WindowBlinds and its users--and perhaps also Microsoft--because styleXP used to "hack" system files for its functionality and uses hacked theme files, unlike WB (now styleXP only changes the loaded system file in memory but still uses hacked style DLLs for each style IIRC).
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
"Thoroughly tested" on what sort of platforms? No matter how thorough of a beta test you do, you can't possibly hit every combination of hardware and software that will be running your software, so you can't possibly know everything that could possibly happen.
There is no bug-free software, excluding things like "Hello World".
I, personally, have had no problems with SP2 on any machine I have it installed on (three pc's at the house with wildly different hardware, and about 7 pc's in my small office with xpsp2, all running on some form of Dell)
...OK, so Microsoft is not undeserving of the "knee jerk" flame they typically get on this forum.
But the time here is pretty negative for something Microsoft did to help customers. They recognized a compatibility issue and gave their customers time to modify things before the heavy-handed automated updates broke them.
Arguing "SP2 breaks things! Bad Microsoft!" isn't helpful either--SP2 closes a number of security holes, and we're all down on Microsoft about security holes, so they're in large part doing what we complain about them NOT doing in the past. Most of the programs that will break are those that used those holes. It's not fair to argue "Microsoft is full of security holes!" and "They need to keep those holes open because I wrote my software to use them!" at the same time.
Sorry, I'm coming off like a Microsoft apologist here, which I most assuredly am not. But the "Microsoft is about to break all your company's software!" tone is, frankly, unwarranted here. This isn't coming as a suprise to anyone. Companies knew SP2 might break certain working software, and were given a pretty good window to check their software and, if necessary, fix it.
What would the author have Microsoft do differently?
You know... it's people like you that I would love to jam a broken bar dart deep into the canal of your best ear.
Most of the reasons for "Bloat", "Lax Security", and "Instability" are because of constant need to keep every version/update to Windows compatible with even the earliest versions. With this Service Pack, a bazillion people voiced out that they want security... even at the price of compatibility. Now you bitch. Had they done the same old thing, you would still bitch.
This post is simply an obvious attempt to grab some of those first post mod points. Thanks for wasting a few minutes of my life.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I guess that some apps could be affected by the built-in system in SP2, preventing apps from opening a LISTENing port on your machine. /.ers:
I know that you can let a program be allowed to open a listening server, but I would like to ask to the
do you have tried using it with the common P2P apps and google desktop? Do they work?
I'm worried to break something I regularly use....
667 The Neighbour of the Beast
On the bright side: your vendors will now *have* to care.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
You seem to fail to realize that SP2 also includes ALL hot-fixes released previous to it as well. So it too is a roll-up of all the other hotfixes previous to it, including those in SP1. SP's are no different that Apple's Major Updates. They do the SAME EXACT THING. Actually I more liken SP's to what Apple did with 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3, except MS didn't charge ya $129 to make the move.
turn off automatic updates and background intelligent transfer service in the services panel and you wont have to worry about it any more.
So, if we didn't already have SP2 - we're getting it, like it or not - ready or not. Way to chicken-choke your customers there, Bill.
:p
Only if you have automatic updates on.
This reasoning leads to one of two things:
1. You have auto-updates on, and don't know what the fuck you are doing anyway, in which case it's in the best interests of everyone that you are upgraded and at least become a smaller target to worms/viruses/other ilk. Breaking shitty software that has no reason not to have shipped an upgrade by now is no reason to contunually allow machines of this class to be availible as targets.
2. You do not have auto-updates on, and actually understand the risks/benefits to the system you are on. In this case it still is in your hands as to what gets installed. Problem solved.
In either case (1) The big bad microsoft needs to protect you from your own ignorance, or (2) you have the capability to protect yourself, the needs of the many get met.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
This is incredibly obnoxious. MS should provide some method of still operating those older programs within some kind of better 'sandbox' then just to permanently stop the function of those applications/games.
They do. RTF KB. These apps break because of no-execute protection in data segments. You can turn this off in the control panel. There's a link to tell you how.
When I finally succumbed to the annoying box on my screen that was insisting I install SP2, it broke my Windows installation so thoroughly that I had to reinstall Windows from scratch just to get things working again.
If it was a couple of applications that didn't work, I could live with that. But in this case, the machine would hang in the middle of the windows flash screen on bootup, rendering the whole damned computer useless.
Thats a day of my life I'll never get back. Unacceptable.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
The sandbox is called Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, with a copy of Windows 2000 Professional (it's still for sale).
And, yes, I know, that's $400 ($100 for VPC2K4, $300 for W2K Pro - but VPC2K4 trial CAN be cracked, and W2K Pro is ridiculously easy to find online for free).
Not MY idea, just what MS would want you to do.
Glad I am running Mepis!
As the other guy said, plus this is also a feature release - there's major security enhancements in IE, no-execute protection for data segments and nags to remind you about firewalls and virus checking.
Allright people, I compose a lot of music. My computer is running Windows XP. I use FL Studio 5.01. Upon upgrading to XPSP2, FL Studio crashed to the desktop on startup every single time. Now, I'm not sure if it was actually FL Studio or NVIDIA's AISO Nforce2 drivers. However, either way, I can't use the one program I use Windows for, so SP2 is out the door. Speaking of, is there anything remotely close to FL for Linux for music production?
I (sadly) use XP on one of my boxes, and I have found really no need to install SP2. It is on a subnet, with a linux box as a firewall/router, so I couldent care less If it included a (M$ quality) firewall. I also dont need some Operating ststem to tell me If my virus scan is working fine, I am fully capable of doing so my self. I overall am pleased with windows update, until now when it will be force feeding us all sp2...great. On a side note: SP2 broke my bluetooth, and I'm pissed. *Runs off to linux box to use Bluetooth without having to install anything and watch it work perfectally*
Bet the EULA didnt say anything about MS raping my box.
Its not an unwanted update, Its surprise maintenanc.e
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
And we all know that the latest bleeding edge Linux distros are bug free... Right?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
If you don't trust Windows Update to do anything right, I know I don't, you can use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer to give you a list of what needs updating, and all the relevant information, so you can download the patches for yourself. I use this so I can keep copies of all the patches needed on my hard drive and can install them all without connecting to the internet.
Another good way is to load up Nessus and have a good crack at one of your windows boxes.
Looks like some of the problems mentioned can be prevented by disbling the SP2 built-in firewall: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=42 2503
Just make sure the clients get the registry key before SP2 is pushed to them.
Tell that same thing to any Linux software, any Apple software... hell just about any software. Heck if all was good we would all still be using Linux Kernel 1.0, and MacOS X 10.0 (or even System 6) right? Software, by nature, is buggy, like it or not. It was tested THROUGHLY before release, but it's not like MS can actually test EVERY piece of 3rd party software on the market. Vendors gotta have something do do right?
i dunno what is up, but it appears to me that a disturbingly high percentage of recent stories are either dupes, or have miserable errors in them. wassup with that?
We still don't run it where I work because it breaks a few small (but frequently used) applications that were written in-house. Obviously these applications are not on the SP2 incompatability list, and I imagine we would find at least a couple more if we were to roll out SP2 on a large scale.
A few places got burned when all of their systems requested SP2 at the same time and downloaded it, even though the block was in place. Really clobbered their internet connections.
Might be a good time for help desk personal to pencil in a week (or two) of vacation.
Shouldn't this be posted to www.slashdot.in?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I have IIS & .net running on an XP box, SP2 broke it. The only way I found of making it work was on a fresh install, add sp2, then enable IIS.
Going to have to reinstall now, fantastic. I just don't understand why they are forcing SP2 on everyone, is it an anti-piracy purge? No more windows update if you have one of the well used keys?
I have tried several times to install XP SP2 on my girlfriend's laptop, but each time the laptop has rebooted once and then refused to boot again.
Booting into safe mode has allowed me to uninstall SP2 and restore the machine to a usable condition. I don't mind SP2, I just don't want to spend the time troubleshooting a failed install.
Even if Microsoft were to offer me free telephone support, it would still waste my time. It seems unfair to force users to accept upgrades that may very well cause their computer to cease functioning.
Any IT shop with more than 10 Windows boxes that isn't running SUS (or an equivalent 3rd party product) is guilty of dereliction of duty.
SUS is free, easy to setup, and gives you complete control of which updates roll out, how often, etc. (It can be setup to automatically roll all updates out daily of course).
Besides, SP2 is a good thing in terms of security.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
This is no different than a sysadmin pushing out critical updates to their user base. You run the 80-20 rule. You make sure it runs for 80% of your user base, and deal with the exceptions.
Now for the next part. Most companies have corporate standard images. They don't have admin access and they don't go around installing a bunch of things. So, if it works on the image it will cover most of your users and again, you work around the exceptions.
Why would you not apply a critical patch for exceptions?
In this configuration the issue of SP2 is nonexistent. All computers run whatever versions of the software that happens to be, and the upgrades are done only as necessary to run the applications (SP4 for Win2K for example is required by many.)
Glad I am running windows95! oh, wait...
I have SP2 on my home PC with IE set to block all popups, but I seem to have more popups than ever.
probably a lot, I've found teh windows firewall to be practically useless. it works on incoming only, most of the problems are outgoing. Plus, even with a firewall, theres no point when people (n00bs) don't know how to use them, "i dunno what this is... ok, lets allow it and see what happens" - seen enough pcs done over by that.
Tim (http://tim.igoe.me.uk)
Computers are like Air-con, open windows and they stop working!
Virtual PC - 2004 - Microsoft
When you run a Windows XP SP2-based virtual machine, it will perform slowly compared to a Windows XP SP1-based virtual machine."
Interesting that a Microsoft product has problem with their own Service Pack.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
For the average home user, this will be a good thing. If the XP nodes on your corporate network are set up to automagically update to Windows Update, you've probably already got bigger things to worry about.
Service packs are essentially considered new versions of windows. You pay for minor point updates to MacOS... 10.2, 10.3, et cetera. Windows users get a crappier OS but they get OS updates in the form of service packs that often add new functionality. Windows NT, for example, got DirectX in a service pack, making it possible to play Diablo :) XPSP2 includes some new security-related software, some of which works.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
(Granted, this is a trailing edge machine - VIA VA-503 / K6-III, but still daaaaamn!)
neato!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
SP2 will not automatically be installed. It will download automatically, but someone still has to accept the license agreement and manually install the service pack. There is nothing automatic about the install. Please stop spreading FUD about SP2!
HOME editions SHOULD do this, PRO and higher editions SHOULD NOT do this.
This would be a good time to float a Linux LiveCD installer image on Kazaa/Grokster/Morpheus networks, filename "WinXP-SP2.Installer.iso". Maybe a custom distro that just collects the custom install data up front in a console, then clears the screen saying only "upgrading..." until it's done.
--
make install -not war
What is more interesting is how long it takes to install. SP2 is HUGE! This will put off many. I still recommend it, though not for the firewall features. Personally, if you have broadband you should have a decent cable router with your ports closed. No this won't stop internally invited connections but it will do pretty much what the firewall feature is doing. It's a matter of staying up to date, which is essential in a Windows environment. Like it or not, SP2 should be installed. If you don't like it, seriously consider switching platforms. Yes it's frustrating, but we're in a mess. We have a dominant player on the desktop. Until Linux get's more up to speed on the desktop and/or Mac's gain some share this is what we have.
Photoshop CS v8 is their latest.
Sure, most of the apps that have a problem can be fixed by disabling the firewall. But that's because they use some form of Internet connectivity.
In other words, if Microsoft had followed good practices, they would NOT have included NEW SOFTWARE in the service pack and only PATCHED BUGS and that would have resulted in a lot fewer "problems" with this "service pack".
It's because he turned his grammar checker off instead of his automatic updater :)
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I couldent care less If it included a (M$ quality) firewall.
As this is blatently a stab at "M$ quality" (LOL DOLLARS BECAUSE THEY MAKE MONEY), would you please enlighten us with the results of your extensive testing that prove the "M$" (LOL!) firewall feature is sub-standard? Perhaps you would like to share your new exploit that effortlessly negates the firewall and connects to previously blocked ports? Or perhaps you could summarize how hard the firewall is to set up for the average user as opposed to something simple and straight-forward such as, say, iptables?
Or perhaps you could just admit the fact that you don't have the first idea what you're talking about because you're a vacuous, 10-a-penny "M$" (ROFFLE) bashing 'tard?
Thought so.
Is that like 'L.A. Confidential'?
Seriously, though, nobody should still _need_ to have SP2 blocked; there's been plenty of time to make sure everything works with it. Turning off the block should be just a formality. I am of course describing what _should_ be rather than what _is_...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
"Yet you will willingly go out and get the latest Linux kernel, or the latest update of MacOS X without hesitation right?"
The parent said nothing of the kind.
"MS has given MONTHS (try almost 6 months) for people to do what needs to be done."
Given? MS sold an OS riddled with security problems. Those who wanted a fix had to wait a long time for it and the "fix" broke a boatload of functionality resulting in yet more cost for the customer. Those who don't want this mixed bag of code will now have it forced upon them, or be unable to use the update service that they have payed for. MS has "given" nothing but headaches. What "needs to be done" is for MS to deliver a quality product in the box. Their customers should not be their guinea pigs.
Really... what on God's green Earth would ever make a hacker want to break in to this? This just goes to prove that, eventually, no one will care about hacking into your system because there are calculators more powerful than this! I'm really looking forward to putting a bad-ass 50Mhz chip in this!
CPU: 80486 @ 25Mhz (33Mhz OC)
RAM: 4096KB
Video: Cirrus Logic 256KB
Screen: 640x480 @ 8-bit
HD: 170MB HD
Sound: SoundBlaster 16
Network: 14.4kbps Hayes
CDRom: Creative Quad Speed
Mouse: PS/2
Keyboard: 101/102-key Keyboard
OS: Windows 3.1
Browser: Netscape Navigator 3.0 for Windows
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
uhh, yeah... this is /. you must be new here?
hack a day
I work for a company that has only in the last month started rolling out Windows XP SP1, and almost every day we're finding shit that doesn't work correctly.
On the one hand, I'm pissed off that these problems weren't found many months ago in the testing phase, then I remember that it's beancounters and not techs making the calls of what we roll out and when, how expensive testing is, and how it's clearly better just to fix problems as they arise, then I quietly cry into my keyboard.
So, being in these two minds, I weep for the tech monkeys like myself, and pray for death to the legume reckoning wankers that wouldn't allow us the time in the first place to roll this shit out properly.
I'm perfectly happy running SP2 on my XP machine, but my tech-phobe friend is still without it, and vulnerable to all the fun and games that I'd want to put it on for.
However, about the only thing they use their PC for is eBay, and that still hasn't issued an addendum to their statement of last year that SP2 breaks eBay Picture Services. Has anyone actually tried it?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Here fucking here. I seldom agree with comments on slashdot, because 99% of the people who post here (myself excluded, of course!) are fucking cretins with no idea how either technology works, but you sir, are Right. And that's with a capital 'R', too.
why does everyone have a problem with this? if you're running an illegal copy of windows, then you don't legally deserve to have a say in the matter! you knew very well microsoft's software strategy when you installed windows XP (because you must have gotten around activation) and you will just have to deal with it. SP2 is very nice, it patches holes, makes wireless work much better, makes a lot of things more user-friendly... but maybe you enjoy running an unpatched, 4 year old version of windows. if that's the case, why don't you downgrade to windows 2000, which won't lock you out? i mean, you wouldn't pay for that either, right? and if you havent tested the programs yourself under SP2 that you claim it will break, then for the sake of public opinion, don't spout your mouth about it. all of the programs listed that i own had no problem with SP2 on the 4 XP machines under me, and all my friends' computers. and after all... this is for windows update and automatic update... if you do these, then what is the problem? honestly?!
"microsoft, i would like to download individual patches to my illegal copy of your operating system, using up your bandwidth, and your developer time making these patches, but i won't let you install SP2. no way."
...you're almost completely inept. My company has delayed rolling out SP2 for months now, even though all of the patches necessary for our software were available within a week of launch. And not just available from the manufacturer on some web site, but available on a central company-maintained site the details the "progress" of migrating to SP2. Why they haven't rolled this out, I have no idea (I've been running it since September with no ill-effects).
Any company that is "surprised" by this should be finding someone new to manage their software infrastructure.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
The problem is that SP2 activates a software firewall by default.
Large installations who usually have an on-staff admin can easily overcome this with group policies.
It's the smaller businesses with rent-a-tech that will have issues especially if they don't have a tech savvy person on their staff.
Local file sharing and printing will not work in some cases and odds are with the smaller businesses, updated patches to listed programs will most likely not be installed.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
I glanced through the lists of software that is broken or belittled by SP2. For the most part it's stuff that MS already has functionality for built into the OS (firewalls, their upcoming anti-virus software).
Either MS is pushing a program out of its market (which shouldn't have been a market if Windows was safe to use in the first place) or it's killing a program that people spend hundreds of dollars on and so obviously really want to use (Autocad 2004/2005, Pinnacle Studio, Photoshop CS, OmniPage Pro, Wordperfect, ColdFusion MX). If only those high-end apps worked on other operating systems...
Direct away from face when opening.
to start using pencils.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Why do people even use software firewalls? They are a pain in the ass. And who cares about the crappy Windows XP firewall? I think the improved IE security is a better feature.
People who are still running SP1 probably don't know enough to have automatic updates turned on anyway. Anyone interested in being "more secure" (note I didn't say just being "secure" - as that isn't Windows), should already BE RUNNING SP2.
People who are not fall into three categories:
Have an incompatible app and won't part with it or upgrade it.
Have their head in the sand and don't know about security at all.
Have an IT staff that isn't up to snuff.
We've upgraded all our XP PCs to SP2 and haven't had any major problems. We, of course, ran into a few minor issues, but they were easy fixes. We're done!!! What's the big fuss?
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
I don't care....
I run OS/2!
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Maybe, just maybe a Service Pack isn't the right place to put new features or anything that breaks backwards compatibility?
I don't think anybody would complain if MS would have just released a completely new version.
The simplest program ever was a 0-byte file in IBM's MVS operating system. (That O/S had some utilities that could only be accessed by running a "program" - and to get the utility to run without actually doing anything ... well, the solution was a program that literally did nothing).
:).
The funny thing was, someone wrote a Problem Tracking Report (i.e. "Bug") about this, and had the MVS team change the program - the flaw was that the return code register was being set in the utility, but the 0=byte program was not copying this result code into it's own return register, so the program was returning a "success" evem when a failure had occurred.
We co-ops got a chuckle out of it because of the "bugs per line of code" calculation would have had a div-by-zero problem
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
1)People complain about windows security.
2)Microsoft comes out with sp2 that has a built in firewall.
3)People then complain that the firewall makes it so alot of other firewall/security applications don't work.
4)Then they complain that things like FTP and IIS dont work....
Yes there are many applications that should run on this list, but really people, alot of these applications stop working for very good reasons.
FTP dosent work? configure your firewall. IIS dosent work, configure your firewall! Some of these programs stop working for a reason.
TruePunk | Games
You do need a personal firewall on your corporate desktops. The perimeter of your network isn't just where the line comes in from the ISP, it's the whole friggin' network. Every floppy drive, every laptop that leaves your sanctuary, gets plugged in somewhere else, and brought back home, bypasses the corporate firewall.
"They're not supposed to run any unauthorized services..." well, duh. Of course they're not. But how do you think you're going to ensure that policy is followed?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
My understanding is that PCs that are riddled with spyware generally won't boot after the XP SP2 patch. Most PCs without XP SP2 seem to have some amount of spyware on them.
This is going to generate a TON of calls.
I tried hard to not just say 'bad' quality, because It is a perfect solution for the average user who is to lazy/incompitent to buy a high quality firewall, however there are many better solutions out there for those who know what there doing. I left the insulting up to the user and their own experiences with microsoft, so If you 3 microsoft, feel free to assume that M$ Quality means High quality.
One of my relatives works in a biochemical research lab. All of their computers are WinXP Sp1 because Sp2 basically broke every single program and driver they relied on for their daily calculations, data acquisition, and analysis (some of the software is commercial, and some was custom-written by people who are currently residing in Eastern Europe and Brazil). Naturally, every worm outbreak hits them hard -- but they think it's worth it to clean up a worm once every couple of months rather than struggle with their bread-and-butter programs locking up on Sp2.
Sp2 is great for the average Joe who uses his box for email and pr0n, but if you are using your computer as a scientific instrument, then installing Sp2 changes (and breaks) too many things.
(In case you are wondering, the reason they don't switch to Linux is that some of their data acquisition hardware doesn't have good Linux drivers)
...to SuSE...
I now got a XP license for sale... but noone will buy it... strange....
You would rather leave ports exposed to the Internet? Just because there aren't security bulletins for a particular service doesn't make it safe. My firewall (BSD-based) shows incoming requests for Windows services in the log files all the time.
This isn't a matter of striking fear into anyone for bad reasons.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I like to hate on Microsoft as much as anyone, BUT I think we need to make a distinction between 'Windows XP SP2 broke this program' and 'I'm an all knowing IT person and won't admit i dont know how to configure windows properly'
... it's also interesting that Microsoft released a Service Pack for the affected product that fixes the issue...
a ds/sp1.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/downlo
You want to see real havoc, what do you think would happen if Microsoft put a really good fix into a Service Pack? For example, what if they didn't let an administrative user log in interactively, and you actually had to run Windows as a normal user. Then, of course, use "Runas" to run admin apps. I'll bet that tens of thousands of third party apps would break. Damned if they fix it, damned if they don't.
But when the CEO's machine dies or one of his apps crashed, then your "20%" rule is useless.
He will want to know WHY you did NOT test the update with ALL the apps. After all, isn't that your job?Because Microsoft took the fucked up approach of including ADDITIONAL APPLICATIONS with their "critical patches".
Look at Linux's approach. Each app has its own patch. It's easy to apply one patch and FULLY TEST IT in your environment.
And you do not get new, untested apps when you apply the patch.
Just one correction.
The people you talk about are not stupid as you like to say, they are uneducated.
The difference is in who has to take the blame.
When you talk, I see clearly you put the blame on the user ("they are stupid"), but IMHO, with me being a linux user, where most app with dangerous consequences put a dialog before your face explaining to you why it is dangerous (the OS try to educate you), the blame is clearly on Microsoft. MS do not try to educate their users, making them believe their OS deals with every problem instead.
MS fan boys should start showing respect to their fellow users, at least as much as linux users do.
Too little, too late.
10.2 to 10.3 was not a minor upgrade. (There's nothing minor about Expose, but if you're not using it it might look just like eye-candy. Also the speed improvements are amazing. There were also over a 100 other features which I can't recall.)
10.3.4 to 10.3.5 is a minor upgrade, and you do get that for free.
I use SP2 at work, and do like it. (And by "like" it, I mean I don't really like it, but it's better than SP1.)
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
OSX 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3 isn't XP to XP SP1 to XP SP2.
;-)
It's more like Win95a to Win95b to Win95c to Win98 to Win98SE to WinME.
OSX 10.2 is vastly different from OSX 10.0 and same from 10.3 to 10.2. 10.4 to 10.3 again will be vastly different. The differences are greater than XP SP1 to XP SP2 or Win2K sp1 to Win2K sp2, etc...
Win95 is Windows Ver 4.0
Win98 is Windows Ver 4.1
WinME is Windows Ver 4.9
Win2K is Windows 5.0
WinXP is Windows 5.1
Win2K3 is Windows 5.2
Full versions of Home based are $200 with upgrades at $100 (Yes you can get them cheaper but this is the legitimate on the record price)
Full versions of Pro versions are $300 with upgrades are $200
OSX 10.0 (Cheetah)
OSX 10.1 (Puma)
OSX 10.2 (Jaguar)
OSX 10.3 (Panther)
OSX 10.4 (Tiger)
All versions are $129 for a full version.
(They also don't require virus protection @ 50/yr or spyeare protection)
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
And only an idiot compares a "bleeding-edge Linux distro" to a major production OS release.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Service Pack is exactly like a major update, however a service pack has other updates that microsoft has released that do are not security updates. For instance it might have updates to nslookup.
Typically SP do not have feature enhancements, but MS broke its rule so that they could secure up XP. So SP2 has a popup blocker, enhanced firewall, DEP etc.
I've googled for this, but on 2 seperate computers I've tried to upgrade to SP2 and it breaks my network.. The NIC has "limited fuctionality", can't even get DHCP address.
Firefox acted bizarrly when SP2 did work, needed to click address bar, then enter, then address bar again. IE was no better..
Rolling back to SP1 fixes everything.
MS has almost the same thing: Your "Security Updates" are MS patches or bugfixes, your "major Updates" are MS Service Packs.
A servic pack will update everyone to a common base, but don't include the security updates. It's the equivalent of a version upgrade alone, without the "combo" security rollup.
Service Packs almost always add functionality to the core OS, it's just that this time around the added functionalty counteracts the way that some software has been written in the past. Using feature XYZ directly has never been officially supported (you're always supposed to do ABC before XYZ), but until recently it's worked just fine because the OS didn't pay attention to the ABC feature.
As of SP2, XP started paying attention to ABC, so now everyone who has used XYZ without it is up a creek.
There are another couple pieces that are causing the "huge fuss", mostly for the same reason: programs relied on the previous default behaviour, but that default has now been changed.
Quoth the parent:
Oh noes! My parent used a $ instead of an S, he is clearly an idiot! Insert more drama queen ranting here!
As for whether the MS firewall is "sub-standard", why don't we look at the standard features of a firewall and some of the alternatives out there:
Quick Start (ie turn it on and it functions "out of the box")
MS: Yes
Zone Alarm: Yes
iptables: No
Outgoing Connections
MS: No
Zone Alarm: Yes
iptables: Yes
Configurability
MS: Wait, what port numbers do I need?
Zone Alarm: Yes
iptables: at least I can recognize --destination-port https
In conclusion, we see that for features that end-users actually care about, either MS firewall is either substandard or the free edition of Zone Alarm is far better than the "standard" which was apparently set by microsoft's late entry to the market. iptables by itself is certainly not what an end-user would want to use, but thats why there's configuration frontends to simplify the process.
Are you implying that in MS environment, Windows XP SP2 is bleeding edge ?!!!
If I look on my XP machines using Add/Remove Programs I can find a slew of simple fixes. I connect my PCs at least once a month to get the latest XP updates.
/. where other presumably safe programs issued patches on problems they had known years.
SP2, like SP1, is the equivalent of a major upgrade. It contains all the previous fixes in one package. This makes it very simple for users as well as provides a convienent delivery method for those with slow connections (order a CD, it comes real quick)
I would suggest that we now have 3 versions of XP
XP
XP/SP1
XP/SP2
I have found that some bugs are fixed fast whereas others take their time coming out. However that seems the case with all OS. We have had cases shown here on
Now, if only game providers would provide updates in such form or timely manner. I cannot beging to account for the number of buggy games that were shipped buggy and forever left that way.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'm not an avid supporter of MS, but I believe that credit should be given when and where it is due. SP2 is a GOOD thing. Yes it breaks some things, but that is the price you pay for past mistakes. MS realized that they had 2 choices: 1) continue supporting a horribly flawed system 2) break the cycle, back up, fix the problems and start again. They made the daring choice to back up and start again. That is impressive for a company with a multibillion dollar product with 90% market share. It still isn't perfect, but I think that they know that. They're hoping that Longhorn will solve many of these problems. Maybe they're right, who knows though. At least they tried to help everyone out by fixing the product, giving people time to adopt and adapt, and are firm enough to stick to a schedule, knowing that the fix will only really help if EVERYONE is upgraded. KUDOS to MS. (Someone better take note of this moment, it may never happen again.)
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
You are comparing "bleeding edge Linux distros" to a service pack to fix bugs in existing software.
Now, either the apps that broke were depending upon bugs in the OS (in which case, it is the ISV's fault)
-or-
Microsoft's approach to "patching" is wrong.
And please learn the difference between a bug fix and "bleeding edge".
So Fedora is a just a research toy, and should not be used for anything important? There are no significant bugs or holes in any of the SuSE / RHEL / Gentoo / ect. distros? Unless you are running Debian Stable, you should shut up.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
They force SP2 on us because Microsoft can't be bothered testing updates on XP/SP1.
If someone has outsourced program development like that, and has got no way of maintaining their code, they deserve all the hurt in the world.
Firewall is on when network stack first started
MS: Yes
Zone Alarm: No
iptables: ???
Most of the reasons for "Bloat", "Lax Security", and "Instability" are because of constant need to keep every version/update to Windows compatible with even the earliest versions
Wrong, this is due to bad design with rubber tape all other the place. Other technos are even more compatible with even older apps than on Windows, but they are better designed, so, the OS do not become so buggy with age (old X apps, Unix).
With this Service Pack, a bazillion people voiced out that they want security
Wrong again. Most people on Windows do not even understand security. Or they would all have left long before the wave of worms and virus affecting these OS. This was forced down their throat because other systems that are cheaper (Linux) obviously were far better in respect of security.
I've been periodically prompted by the Windows firewall for applications that want to access the network. Command-line FTP and telnet, for example, pop up, though FileZilla and putty did not.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Servicepack 2 has been a big pain in the ass of almost everyone who has to do something with more then three PC`s, but its still the best thing from Redmond in years!
The reason, Microsoft has *never ever* gone though changes that would impede backwards compatability, even if such changes are the only way to fix a fundamental security oversights. For some reason the whole wintel world still hinges on backward compatability, eventhough lots of it could be done away with for years now. How many people still run dos software on systems that cant run better on a real emulator?
That is, until service pack 2.
And now after many years Microsoft has somewhat fixed some fundamental problems... thats nothing short of a miracle! Its not because these few changes are gonna make a lot of difference its because they prove microsoft finally "got it". Microsoft figured out it has to choose between backward compatability or killing the internet and their market as we know it though worldwide armies of zombies, spyware everywhere and spam traffic reaching the limitations of any mail server. These are just the problems you can see, god knows what people do who can both find a hole and erase a log file.... The bottom line is that there is only so much spyware and worms a normal user can put up with. this line is approaching rapidly for the majority of windows users. Is has been long past for some people who, luckly for microsoft, don`t have a clue how to move. Its hard to explain to people who do think about what they buy that they need exchange if all they get though it is spam and worms...
So... with every story of applications needing to be replaced (
*) Basicly its the DoD is asking for security certification, noone asks for stuff that is "not substantially less secure then older competition like VMS". Try this, walk into compusa and ask for a computer that allows you to write texts and send email but that doesn`t get "virusses"..... they will sell you a virus scanner! those didn`t work in the dos days for christ sake! Virus scanners were intended for the admins lucky enough to get a know virus to help them find and clean it, they had to infect many files to be able to stick around back then. Scanner were never intended to solve any problem.
sigh
Well, not at all, you pay as well for the minor point releases for Windows ...
...
Windows 2000 is actualy version 5.0, Windows XP 5.1 & 2003 5.2
#include "coucou.h"
Better go ahead and get your vacation time confirmed and approved before the rest of your peers try the same thing.
For example, what if they didn't let an administrative user log in interactively, and you actually had to run Windows as a normal user. Then, of course, use "Runas" to run admin apps. I'll bet that tens of thousands of third party apps would break.
I wish that MS would do something like that. I'd blame the software vendors, not Microsoft.
Any software company that releases a product that requires elevated privledges to run when the functionality of the software in no way should require such privledges is inherently broken and should be recalled.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
If they can't get fixes for this, how are they going to get fixes for bugs in the programs? And don't try to tell me that the programs are 100% bug-free...
They test the custom stuff thoroughly (i.e. running old data sets through, and comparing results to their old calculations) before using it in their research. It does have bugs in the sense of "program crashes if I do x, then y, then z". It does not have bugs in the sense of "produces incorrect data". If they want to add major features, they invite the programmers back into the US for a few months of contract work, which generally involves a few extra months beforehand of making the INS bureaucracy issue a visa (and since 9/11, those delays have gotten much worse).
The rest not covered by your discription are mostly 64 bit NX problems, from the looks of things.
leave Windows and try an alternative. I have Automatic Updates off. I update manually. But if they try sneaking it in when I try updating manually, however that will work, it's going to break my computer like last time. I don't like something like 10 minute booting time and heavily lagged computer.
If I had to guess, it's more of a social thing than any technical reason.
Most people out there just won't bother updating with the frequent small patches that are released. Witness all our family members who have never connected to Windows Update since they first booted their computer.
Giving something a name and being more official sounding, like "Service Pack" probably makes people more apt to download it.
It also has some significance with OEMs that pre-load Windows on the machines that they sell. To my knowledge, they don't load it with recent patches, but they will load it with the most current Service Pack.
-David
Go to system preferences --> energy saver and put back the setting to "automatic". The fans will come back to normal behaviour.
Because Apple, by being a closed hardware manufacturer, does not have thousands of computer configuration possibilities out there to deal with.
It's easy for them to release a security patch and be able to test that against a few dozen possibilities, and know that it's not going to break anyone's system.
Thus, if you need to do system testing, your entire job would be doing this on a daily basis if Microsoft released things patch-by-patch. While not an optimum solution, having one large test to do on semi-regular (yearly?) basis, sure beats having to test systems every single day.
I can hook it straight to the Internet, without a firewall, and it still won't get cracked.
It's all about the avenues of attack.
With Windows, too many services are running by default.
Those services can be attacked, remotely.
The first step is to limit the avenues that you can be attacked from. Ubuntu does this by not running services you haven't chosen to.
Microsoft has finally caught on to the idea of a firewall. But that is just a band-aid for the real problem of running the services in the first place.
Yeah, and how many of them want more money to update to an XP sp2 compatable version.
Nearly all of them do, has been my experience.
Either learn how to lock Windows down properly or move to an alternate operating system. Won't help you though, because if you can't learn how to secure Windows you'll never learn how to secure Linux or any other OS.
One can take Win 2000 with no updates whatsoever and lock the damned thing down so it does what you want and nothing you don't want it to do.
Every thing you need to do to it is free.
I think you'll find that IE7 when it's released will incorporate these types of techniques rather than provide any actual enhanced security.
Who needs to run scripts: YOUR BANK, YOUR 401K, YOUR CHECK ORDERING FACILITY, PAYPAL, MICROSOFT, ETC. and FEW OTHERS...... That's a PERIOD if YOUR to dumb to realize that.
These new recent popunders don't manefest themselves on a properly locked down system. I walked all over every single site posted in that recent thread and never recieved a popunder, popup or any other problems and today I'm using IE5.5 SP2.
...you also voluntarily agreed to be on the receiving end of having basically your whole I.T. world forcefully re-invented (at your expense of course) about every 18 months or so. If you are unable or unwilling to stay on a repetitive ongoing "upgrade train" then you should not have chosen to base your I.T. operations upon the Windows platforms. You should instead have based your foundation upon something with a track-record of very long term system lifespans... like the venerable IBM mainframe world, which will let you operate successfully for years and years on a slow-changing foundation. The up-front acquisition costs are much greater, but over time if you add up all the money you'll be spending on an ever-changing Windows-based I.T. operation, you'll find the long-term costs to be virtually identical... but with the mainframe way of doing things, you'll have a much less chaotically ever-changing I.T. world unlike the Windows way... which seems completely incapable of stabilizing into a smooth, long-term ride on the same road.
To repeat, SP2 does a lot of good things, such as fixing multiple problems with USB.
We've had a lot of problems with Windows not working the first time we load SP2. Rerunning the same SP2 install program fixes the errors. Apparently SP2 expects files to exist on the target hard drive that are not always there.
The SP2 software firewall is weak, partly because it does not firewall outgoing connections. A commercial or free alternative should be used. Even the free firewalls are better than the Microsoft firewall. Install the latest version of the free firewall first, so that SP2 will detect it and (hopefully) not get confused.
3) I have tried to install SP2, rendering my PC unbootable (and in one case Norton Ghost refused to restore the HDD, leaving me to do it by hand), but Automatic Updates are a nice feature to have, since they allow me to get all the updates except SP2 which will break my setup. In that case, it will be mildly annoying to download them manually, but quite frustrating to come home one day and find out that SP2 has been installed and I am one reboot away from oblivion.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
As a mac user -- and long time windows user -- I must agree that the mac update model is far better. My ONLY gripe about apple's updater is that the "Reboot or Shutdown" button dialog that appears when you download a large update dows not have a "reboot later" option. It just sits there waiting for me to click it y accident when I am in the middle of important work.
That being said, the MS updater is worse. It pops up every few minutes to bug the user. That makes it far far easier to accidently reboot because you were hitting enter when it pops up.
I only boot into Windows when I want to play a windows game. That OS is almost out of my home life!
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
iptables reads in its rulesets and starts before any of the network services are started. Well, I suppose if you mess with the init scripts you could change that, but its going to work.
Even my parents (not very computer literate folks) have a hardware based firewall and don't use windows firewall. It doesn't take any brain power at all and you can be completely secure without windows firewall.
Adobe photoshop CS works fine under SP2 - it's their "help" system that's broken. Since it's completely worthless (to open an file, click on FILE|Open ...), this is of no consequence.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I've heard much about these fan issues. I've yet to observe any of them on my network. The only G5s that whirr the fans so you can hear them are the compute boxen; the workstations are quiet.
Oh yeah, I only use windows for games too. And I don't do much of that anymore either.
I dislike the Reboot setup on OS X as well. A friend of mine does the "Force Quit" from the Apple menu and kills it like that and then reboots later. I try not to test my luck in that way.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Any IT shop with more than 10 Windows boxes that isn't running SUS (or an equivalent 3rd party product) is guilty of dereliction of duty.
SUS is ok for trivially small numbers of Windows clients. 10 yeah, 50 yeah, maybe even a 100 or so. I have nealy 1000 Windows XP desktops and fifty servers running 2K and 2K3. SUS does not scale. It falls flat on its face after about 200 clients try to use it, leaving your network in shambles that has to be fixed by hand afterwards. It is only "beta test" quality at best. Remember that SUS is still only at version 1.0 (sp1) right now. And we all know how wonderful that Microsoft version 1.0 products always tend to be interms of completeness and readiness for prime time.
Way to completely twist what I said. The post I replied to was comparing a brand new distro to an OS that's been out for 3-4 years.
What are you blabbering about again?
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Are you sure about that? I thought the problem was caused by it being on "automatic." When I set mine to "highest," the 10.3.8-induced fan revving stopped.
I have Unix underpants.
Except for application updates (iTunes, iSync, Quicktime, Final Cut etc.) almost all of the updates that appear in the software update dialogue are either called "System Update [version]" or "Security Update [date]"
Also, Software Update can be found in the first tier of the Apple menu, as well in System Preferences. It is by default set to notify you of updates daily, and gives an option to download updates in the background but to not install them.
All in all I think it's a bit more straightforward than Windows Update.
How about complaining to Adobe if Photoshop CS still doesn't work correctly with SP2? It's not as if there hasn't been any time to correct any issues...
Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put into it...
Most of the software in Linux is marked as beta software. Also, you don't have to pay for Fedora. Those are HUGE differences.
If Microsoft called Service Pack 2 a "bleeding-edge" beta piece of software and it wasn't a patch for a $300 operating system, I'd cut them a little more slack.
So if you want to compare Windows to an operating system that is freely available off the Internet, go ahead. I ask, however: what the hell am I paying for?
I'm the only one in my family that uses a hardware firewall. I explain why they are important, but they don't want to spend another $40 or whatever on hardware or are somehow satisfied with McAfee. Also, separate hardware firewalls are really only useful for broadband, especially when most people have already paid for a modem in their PC.
When people buy PCs, they want a package deal. When they are told that they need to also buy this and that, and some more of that, and this too, they start getting pretty anxious about the cost.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Yes, it downloads automatically. No, it does not install automatically.
While this is true, some of them are irrelevant and can be skipped. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are just as functional for someone who does not depend on Windows to do all their networking, for example. Also, Windows releases last longer. Sometimes this is not a good thing, but nonetheless.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If SP2 is breaking stuff, 99% of the time is because it's trying to use some network port that is now blocked with the firewall. Just sniff the traffic going in/out of one of the SP1 boxes, see what ports the apps seems to require, then open those ports after installing SP2 (or turning on the firwall in SP1)
(In case you are wondering, the reason they don't switch to Linux is that some of their data acquisition hardware doesn't have good Linux drivers)
Or mac drivers. Which sometimes drives me crazy. I work in a lab, too, and we have an image processing package which we use to make 3D anaglyphs from Z-series data acquired by a confocal optical microscope. A rep from Apple told me that they have tried to get the programmers to make a Mac OS X version of the package, and the programmers keep refusing, even though it's APPLE asking them to do it. I've requested one several times without success.
Given that there are crossplatform dev tools out there these days (RealBasic, which can be used for serious work as well as introduction to programming for new programmers, is an example -- it can compile for Windows, Mac, and Linux all) there's far less of an excuse for that these days. Write it once, compile it for everybody. And the executables are native -- no virtual machines required, so Java's slowness isn't a problem, for instance.
This application didn't even blink when it found itself running under SP2 one day -- just keeps on going and going.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Answer lies in question/supposition.
Why Vegan? No other food choice has a farther-reaching and more profoundly positive impact on all of life on Earth.
Why are scientific instruments on the internet? And if they aren't on the internet, then why aren't measures being taken to keep those worms off the LAN?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Let's just hope you have these programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer and these programs that seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 patched, upgraded, or removed. Might be a good time for help desk personal to pencil in a week (or two) of vacation."
----
Timothy,
I know you are slashdot uberkind. I am a linux freak and am more than happy to get in line first to punch MS in the nose whenever I can. However, I can't let this one slide. I think you are being way hard on Microsoft this time, and it's without merit.
If you actually *read* the stuff on the links you posted, all of the issues to expect, have to do with the firewall being enabled, and ports it might block by default.
You don't need to uninstall, remove and patch anything. You need to enable access to the ports you need, in the firewall, for the applications you use.
You would need to do this on linux if iptables were upgraded. Not that an iptables upgrade would wipe your allowed ports config, but lets let that one go for a minute and pretend that a user without IPTABLES is installing and enabling it for the first time.
C'mon man... before you spout "facts" make sure you understand them and are doing it accurately.
This one really lowers the bar for acceptible slashdot postings. MS is actually doing something to improve security, and slashdot ed's are bashing them.
l8,
AC
apparently I missed the part where you couldn't do program fixes/patches without being physically in the country where the software is going to be used.
For instance it might have updates to nslookup.
And to the EULA.
Disclaimer: Evil EULA appeared to be fixed in W2KSP4.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Err... Perhaps you should advise your relative to suggest to HR to hire some competent admins. They can effectively seal the computers they use in their work from access from the outside world. All it takes is a protocol to communicate the results to the outside. Put a firewall in front of all those computers (preferably one that does NAT and protocol analysis), close every single port and protocol, then open only the one that passes the data through.
Then they wouldn't even need to patch those computers.
They could justify the expense of keeping these machines for data analysis only (i.e. as extra computers) by simply calculating the costs they incur with every worm/virus/etc cleanup.
So you are saying that Linux is not ready for prime time because it does not cost $300?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Wow, that is great ancedotal evidence. Now can you provide any specifics that prove that anybody that knows what they are really do knows the exact cause of the issues? I run both XP SP2 and Linux(RHEL 4 to be exact) and don't have the issues that most people seem to have with Windows. I prefer Linux, don't get me wrong, but all I do is make sure automatic updates are installed and make sure my av signatures are current several times/day and I've never had a virus/worm/trojan.
There is no bug-free software, excluding things like "Hello World".
Typical Microsoft fanboy argument. The number of problems people have been having with SP2, and other Microsoft products are way, way beyond an acceptable level.
Go and use a real OS, dumbass.
Might be a good time for help desk personal to pencil in a week (or two) of vacation.
You may think that's funny, but I used to work with a guy who was in charge of physical security and badge access for office moves. Every time there was a major office move he would schedule vacation the day it started, leaving all his unprepared underlings to deal with the mess. Hilarity ensued. His sister was married to a big muckety-muck in the company so he got by with it - at least, until the divorce.
It's really easy to implement a policy that will disable automatic updates on all corp clients. They can also block access to the windows update site on the corp firewall.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
An innocent question the other day gets hit with "Flamebait" mods and this simple observation of SP2's alleged popup blocking in IE gets Troll rated? How is this even close to being a troll? It's not even on the same planet as a troll.
No, he is barking up the wrong tree just like you are!
Agree, SP2 for XP is a neccessary evil in any pro IT shop. We're slowly rolling it out with SUS and so far I have had ONE workstation that had post-install problems. The problem was caused by spyware. After I cleaned it all off and reinstalled the service pack, she was just fine.
Moral of the story: The list of programs this breaks is nice to have, but unless you are in a situation where you can't upgrade the program that "breaks" AND you can't possibly disable the windows firewall, Service Pack two is pretty much a piece of cake.
Who did what now?
Thanks for adding a little ray of sunshine to this otherwise hilariously uncharasmatic web site.
In which case you desperately need a lawyer, a PR guy, and a new line of work, probably in that order.
I've heard loads of technically competent people say they've installed SP2/latest updates/etc. and not had a problem. For each two of them, I've heard at least one equally technically competent person tell me about at least a major software failure, and frequently the whole system being rendered inoperable and requiring a reinstallation. Just last week, my whole company backed out an official MS patch for WinXP that came in through automatic updates after we traced the sudden breaking of our Samba servers to that patch.
A slightly more secure system that doesn't run the tools I need to run is not an improvement over a slightly less secure system that runs the tools I need to run. Please understand this.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
joke's on them, my copy ain't legit so it won't install it.
Updating a BIOS is an inherently dangerous thing to do, and on many systems can easily render the system permanently useless. If a "security patch" requires updating the BIOS to work, I'd bet a large sum of money the problem is the security patch.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Parent is obviously an off topic troll. So why is it modded +5 insightful?
SP2 is evil. It kills all the loopback ranges except 127.0.0.1. Very recent releases of SSL VPN programs like Nokia Secure Access System are unable to deliver most of their port-forwarding based resources. It would be nice if their was a way to shut off that protection!
God, Root, Whats the difference?
You say "it'll auto update unless they're running SUS" then "helpdesk should schedule a week or two of vacation". Any business that has a dedicated help desk and isn't running SUS needs to fire their IT staff ASAP.
Is there a bug in mkdir? I don't bloody think so.
One of my relatives works in a biochemical research lab. All of their computers are WinXP Sp1 because Sp2 basically broke every single program and driver they relied on for their daily calculations, data acquisition, and analysis (some of the software is commercial, and some was custom-written by people who are currently residing in Eastern Europe and Brazil). Naturally, every worm outbreak hits them hard
I hate to say this but if they have home-grown softwares that blow off with SP2 AND they get hit by every single worm each time there's one, you might want to start doubting about the competence of their IT department rather than SP2. Probably Microsoft know better about IT and programming with Windows than a biochem research lab.Sp2 is great for the average Joe who uses his box for email and pr0n, but if you are using your computer as a scientific instrument, then installing Sp2 changes (and breaks) too many things.
Again this is true in your particular case, not with the vast majority. SP2 did not break Mathlab, Maple, etc. And they are scientific tools used every day because they are built correctly.Install a PIX firewall on your network... EVERYTHING stops working. Yes. That's right, you have to configure!
If you don't know how to configure your crappy little MS firewall, maybe you shouldn't be running your crappy little MS Web Server.
First of all, I have found that all the incompatibility comes from two realms: NX-bit protection and the new Windows Firewall. Both are easy to disable.
/NoExecute=OptIn or /NoExecute line. (Go to System properties, Advanced tab. Startup and Recovery startup Settings button. and hit the edit button in the new window., it will open up your boot.ini file).
NX (off): Edit your boot.ini by removing that
Clear, simple, and every application will no longer flip out. + you'll get a boost in performance (I take a 10% performance hit when NX is on my laptop, far more visible in photoshop than any other application).
Windows Firewall: First off, GET A BETTER FIREWALL! Next step, net stop sharedaccess and find it in your services (Start->run: services.msc) Disabled it.
Horrah! Your windows should now perform in it's old SP1 ways. (I have yet to find any application to fail after these features were disabled). Oh yeah if you get annoyed by that Windows Security Center, in it's main window on the left side it has a way to change its notification (to completely off because nagging programs suck).
[!] No, I can't see my comments. They are not worthy of +3 moderation.
I'm saying that it's pathetic that you're justifying Microsoft's crappy service pack by comparing it to software that doesn't cost money.
"This new and expensive car you just sold me is a lemon!"
"Yeah, but if you bought a used car, it would have problems too!"
When I pay a lot of money for an operating system, I expect it to be good enough that I don't have to justify its flaws with the fact that the free alternative has problems, too. Why shouldn't I use Linux if they both have the same problems but Linux costs $0 and Windows costs $300?
Ohhhh the pain of it all.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Thank you for correcting the news, i was freaking out a bit because my xp sp1 works perfect as it is and i would not like to find surprises because of sp2. I dont need sp2 as my xp sp1 (the way i have it working) is perfectly fine for now.
If I told you SP2 had a spell-checker, then would you install it, please ?
Again bugs happen in ALL software. You are not still using SUSE 5 right? or if you are a Mac user you still are not using 10.0? ALL OS's give us headaches, every single one of them. What needs to be done, isn't just for Microsoft to do, it's for ALL OS's to do, and guess what we are ALL guinea pigs every time Apple, some Linux distro or Microsoft releases a new OS.
Like...uhm...the vendor of Age of Empires?
But the Service Pack does not cost any money, and even many people here at Slashdot think it is a step in the right direction for M$!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
While WUS will be nice when it comes out, SUS is here now, and it simply works. Sure, it's not very scalable, and if you've got a single SUS server it's an all-or-nothing deployment for target OUs... but seriously, it's free! It's functional! I've only got ~100 desktops to manage, but those desktops running 2000 or XP point to a SUS server for approved patches, and I can't count the number of steps it's saved me in the year it's been in place.
The moral of the story is, if you're NOT running a SUS server in your Windows infrastructure, start planning your deployment now -- you'll be glad you did.
Next to last, run on, sentence could be rephrased or have a few commas added.
If you read it enough times, it does say: "Hope you've patched, upgraded, or removed these...."
Maybe the lab is using the wrong tools... if everyone will generally agree that "XP is the best MS has done so far, but really isn't revolutionary otherwise", do you really need a mouse cursor with drop shadows on a lab instrument? Wouldn't a purpose-specific OS -- or at the very least a much more basic OS -- be ideal?
Or at the very least, isolate the fuck out of these computers. If the hardware driver says "works with Windows XP and XP SP1", then realize that these computers will never be updated: disable the god damn web browser, kill IIS and every other service, throw them on their own firewalled subnet. If the lab techs need email & web access, provide them with dedicated computers just for that purpose.
I mean really... your lab instuments shouldn't be downloading "fixes" for "changing the default music store link", adding support for languages no one in your company can read, or installing the latest Media Player.
Photoshop listing, under the loss of functionality
"PhotoShop CS 8.0 Adobe
Program installs, but will not start."
howabout a third list microsoft
Loss of functionality to me, means, something, somewhere does not work as it used to
a third list
"PROGRAMS THAT SUCK EGGS under xpsp2, and will NOT FUNCTION"
I realize all function is a 'loss of functionality' but that doesn't really cover 'total loss' in my book.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Yes, I would leave ports exposed. IMO if you don't have any open ports you should be kicked off the internet.
I am trolling
They shouldn't be necessary. The only reason you need one is if you have a severely broken tcp stack or an insecure server running. Don't run servers you don't need, keep up to date any that you do, and use an OS with a half-decent tcp stack and you're fine.
I am trolling
with a group policy to make SP2 unavailable, you got SP2 in the fall of last year.
This change is only going to effect Corporations who had asked MS for a mechanism to block it so that they had time to finish compatability testing, and make roll-out plans. Even then, if they're using SuS, they can still block it for as long as they want.
I don't. I'm still using 2.4 series kernels, still using 1.x apache, and the day I am forced to upgrade is the day I switch OSes. I've tried 2.6 and apache 2, they don't work for me, so I put a line for each in /etc/portage/package.mask saying not to upgrade to them. I should be able to do the same thing with windows.
I am trolling
Sp2 was a good thing, the machine im currently running on, is a compaq presario 2286, with a 250mhz cyrix mII processor, granted its now using a K6-2+ and ive recently overclocked it, and the fact that ive upped the ram to 252 mb, but all in all, the fact that sp2 requires less processor power is a great thing for me, so what if the firewall breaks shit, dont most of us use things like zonealarm or other third party firewalls anyway, so why cant we just turn off windows firewall? i mean sure, programs got broken, but then again, people should update, or usually anyway.
Soap box, Ballot box, Jury box, Ammo box. Use in that order.
Perhaps the grandparent is a Debian user. In which case he could have a point.
I am trolling
Umm.. you are aware that SP2 is a lot more than just a firewall and the security center, right? I don't even use those two technologies and I see a lot of improvement with SP2.
For example:
Popup blocker (yeah, you can install google toolbar or others as well)
No Execute protection (Yes, it's possible for an attacker to get around it, but so are door locks.. that doesn't mean i shouldn't lock my doors)
reworked RPC management (this is a biggie since it's going to prevent other kinds of RPC based worms if another vulnerability in RPC is found)
Manage Add-ons tool in IE (this lets you easily disable any IE extension, making it hard for spyware and adware to hide)
ActiveX improvements (Clueless users don't need to click yes to continue surfing when an activex dialog appears. Now you get the same yellow bar that Mozilla copied from IE)
And a whole lot more... frankly, I won't let any machine I manage NOT run SP2, it saves a lot of work in the spyware cleaning department.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
just disable the firewall it fixes 99% of the known problems
You can with Microsoft. Just go back and keep using Windows NT 4.0.
...that's a new feature in XP SP2... ;-)
There aint no way I'm letting SP2 on my machines. That's why I always leave automatic updates turned OFF. If I can't get sercurity updates anymore, so be it. I've got software that is incompatible with SP2 (doesn't work at all) and versions that were fixed added features that made the products worse than before. (Divx 5.11 is much better than Divx 5.2, much more pixelation appeared in that version than earlier versions.)
that blocks web servers like IIS from working. I usually have to disable the Windows Firewall and then use Sysgate Personal edition or something instead.
;)
I advised people using older software not to upgrade to SP2 yet, it looks like they haven't taken my advice as programs are breaking.
Oh well, back to using GNU/Linux for a while until Microsoft gets their sh*t together on Windows.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
It states specifically that Adobe Photoshop CS will install, but will not run, under Windows XP SP2 on the 64-bit architecture.
There is no listing referring to the 'help' system. If only it were that simple of a problem.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Why don't they just unplug their machines from the internet? Put it on a firewalled segment, or lock down the machines tightly so they can only run the 2 or 3 apps that they need on them. The other programs can be run an second machine. Windows XP has excellent ACL on NTFS. Too bad that not enough users/sys admins learn to use them.
Do the "relatives" you refer to in your post have admin rights? In successful corporate roll-outs no user should need (or have) admin rights, or even write permission to most directories. Stop bashing WXP without learning how to use the built in tools.
By the way, how do I turn on access auditing on my Mac OS X? How do I keep a user for deleting a file while still allowing them to create a new file in the directory? Oh wait, there's no permission bit for delete. Love it, or hate it, the permission and auditing features in NTFS leave OS X back in the dark ages.
Listed as an affected App is Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. It states that Virtual PC runs much slower then it would on the same system without Service Pack 2.
As someone else said, that's the Vendor's fault. In this case, the vendor is Microsoft.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Maybe for people running Linux, for the ones of us still in the BSD realm it's going to be months before we get a native port if ever.
"Again bugs happen in ALL software. ..."
Nice try, but it's a bogus argument. You're assuming that because no OS/update-path is perfect, they are all equally flawed.
The service pack doesn't cost money, but then again, the downpayment for using that operating system is $300. Network exploits have been a big problem since Windows 98, but they still didn't bother to put a firewall in their software until now.
Once again, I shall ask: what are people paying for when they buy Windows? How do you justify paying money for something that doesn't even have a decent multiuser system that blocks malicious executables from invading the system? Why did it take so long to put a firewall in Windows to block against network exploits? Why did Outlook have a scripting language built-in that could invade computers? These are major security oversights that were all being abused in the times of Windows 98, but even though they had three years to see the result of their mistakes, they went ahead and repeated those mistakes in Windows XP.
Ready or Not, Here comes Windows XP SP2
This is really about time.
Anyone waiting with this patch should have by now had time to evaluate the effects of SP2, and complain about the software they run, and even install e.g. Windows 2000 instead, if necessary. Slashdotters often say the patch is Red Hat or whatever, but this is not always an option due to lack of operating system support and alternative software for other platforms. Wine is not always the miracle solution either. I do believe though there are good options to running unpatched versions of Windows XP.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
How about Microsoft testing their own programs? ;-)
:-)
Yes, I agree with you as well in general, it's ridiculous to assume a major OS overhaul from a patch to be totally without problems. I've already had issues going from Linux kernel 2.4.x to 2.6.x. Who cares. It's life with complex software environments, where software beyond the OS developers' control is involved.
However, again, I must say I was still a bit surprised to see Microsoft's own software in the list.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Indeed. Grandparent AC got it backwards; set it to anything but "automatic".
You can't disable the web browser, another MS Innovation(TM)
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I don't think anybody would complain if MS would have just released a completely new version.
Are you kidding? They would have complained louder than ever.
"You mean we have to upgrade to a whole new version to get the security fixes?! Microsoft should have fixed their current OSes!"
There's really no out for Microsoft. No matter what they did, people will complain. About the only thing they could have done differently is a more modular update, so companies could pick-and-choose updates, hopefully securing their systems as best as possible while keeping their old code running.
And even then you'd get people complaining that it was too complicated, they should just have released everything as one large patch...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
"Microsoft wants another $100 from everyone. They need new shoes."
"You don't need anything that Microsoft doesn't make."
Things a Windows user would hear if he spun the hard drive backwards.
People commonly use M$ or Micro$oft...
... I always thought this was because the '$' looked similar to the 'S' ... And because Microsoft and MS were registered trademarks....
i ew=en-us&st=b&na=82&qu=ms/
. htm/
It appears that Microsoft is a registered trademark, but MS is not. However, MS-Dos is a registered trademark. Even though other microsoft products are commonly reffered to as MS Excell or MS Word.
I did find one website that states that MS is a trademark of microsoft... but search for "ms" on the microsoft site and the search page will ask if you meant to search for "microsoft".
http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?v
http://www.hitachi-support.com/trademarks/ename_m
http://www.hwcs.com/company/trademarks.asp/
http://www.snmp.com/company/trademarks.html/
"Like when one of the recent upgrades to OSX caused all our macs to lose the ability to print on the network. There are plenty of problems with it"
Paper is sooooooo 80's.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Just in case you didn't know, SP2 breaks many p2p applications. Read this before you upgrade!
An eMule post explains the problem.
I installed SP2 a couple months ago.
I already ran my own (software) firewall that did both ingress and egress filtering, along with running Firefox as a web browser.
SP2 hasn't done anything noticeable for me, except that the wireless network dialogs are a lot nicer.
I'll admit that the firewall drove me nuts for a bit: it was always popping up, telling me it was doing me a favor by blocking legitimate traffic. I ended up turning it off, but only because I had my own firewall already.
When I find myself using IE (infrequently), I do find that it'll now occasionally put a bar across the top informing me that it's barred various malware from installing itself. Between this and the firewall, SP2 is a very good thing for the average computer user, and is of little harm to those of us who already found something to do it.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Holy timewarp Batman. It's 1989 again and nslookup almsot works!
Meanwhile on real computers:
"Dig is your friend" - Paul Vixie
(never mind there are problems in that bind9 only works with the dig in bind9. Interoperability anyone?
"BIND has the same problem as Windows. The damn thing just deosn't work." - Dan Bernstein
Need Mercedes parts ?
you are a wus
if you are not running sus !
c'mon, someone had to say it.
While I run three networks, one at my house and two small business networks, in an "enterprise configuration" where the workstation desktops are controlled by a Windows (or properly configured SAMBA) domain controllers, you can easily go into the Group Policy and disable the builtin firewall for all computers. You can also specify that for laptops when they are in the company domain their firewall is disabled, while when they leave the network (I.E. a user's home network), the firewall option is available again.
In addition, if one is really worth their title as a corporate sysadmin (shame on those with the MCSE title and don't know how to do this), you can configure the group policy to open certain ports of all desktops for just what you need, while keeping the rest of the firewall up.
However, usually in a corporate environment, you would want the builtin firewall turned off, as the computers are already behind another firewall anyways before the internet. But for those paranoid sysadmins who fear their users' stupidity to download a trojan or bringin in a rouge system (for example), can turn on the builtin firewall as an added level of defense against virus/trojan/etc. brought in by stupid employees. (Though it shouldn't be a problem in the first place if the sysadmin is competent about setting appropriate user rights and enforcing company computing policies.)
The other thing is that SP2 contain security fixes that will help patch holes in the system, so you need it anyways even if you don't want the firewall. It is just that the firewall and the "Security Center" is the most notable visual change that everyone can easily see.
Who posts this c..p? Microsoft removing the block is the fact of the article, but the whole 'two weeks of vacation' thing just beings the quality of this website down. Editors should be ashamed.
Do I still need the XP firewall? I also just bought Norton AntiVirus and it comes bundled with Norton Personal Firewall. Should I use Norton Firewall instead of XP firewall. Or do I need a software firewall at all?
Interesting as Microsoft used to be very good about breaking other vendor's software with their products. I still remember the old quote about DOS 3: "It's not done till Lotus won't run." And then there way they modified Windows 3.x so DR DOS couldn't be used with it.
AFAIK Windows XP has *always* had a firewall. It was just off by default and buried in the network settings until SP2, when they did the wise thing and turned it on and made it conspicuous.
At the very least, I know it was there in SP1, because I used it. Not the best solution, but nonetheless it did the trick without using rediculous amounts of rescources like ZoneAlarm did.
Still, grandparent is completely incorrect to compare Fedora Core to Windows XP SP2. Even so, I would be willing to bet if you lined up the number of bugs and exploits for the two systems, you'd find more bugs in the XP column.
Also, don't believe that the optional firewall is the only enhancement to SP2. If it were simply a firewall, most software wouldn't break.
Specifically, Unigraphics NX2 crashes since SP2, and there is no updated fix for it yet. On the other hand, Microsoft doesn't compete with UGS, so there's no reason for MS to list them as 'broken' software...
Sure, UGS should haved fixed their software months ago. Sure, it's not Microsoft's fault that they haven't. But don't think this list is the only problem users will have, and it's irresponsible to pretend that it is.
Fortunately, I have SUS, which will not allow SP2 to automatically install, but I feel bad for the sysadmins that aren't aware of the potential random problems they'll have on that fateful Tuesday...
Ahem
1. Install Firefox.
2. Add *.windowsupdate.microsoft.com to trusted sites.
3. Disable everything in "Internet Zone."
4. Remove stuff from local zone.
5. Run Firefox and Make it the Default.
6. Grab a spyware program which adds sites to "Restricted Sites"
7. Turn Everything off for "Restricted sites"
8. Make windowsupdate.microsoft.com the start page.
now lets see them try and use it !
Type unto others as you would have them type unto you.
Seriously. I've got it, I installed it right after it came out. I run it on my laptop. My laptop is a 1.7ghz celeron which had 256mb of ram. I had to upgrade to 512MB ram because sp2 bogged my system down so badly. It also confilicts with my symantec stuff.
Why do I want this pig? Does it really make my PC more secure?
If you have write and execute access to the directory, you can use the "mv" command to replace the current write-protected file with another by the same name (different inodes, different datablocks, and goodbye to the old data!).
That's like locking the window but leaving the barn door wide open.
Am I the only one that is concerned about the timing of this relative to the April 15 IRS Filing deadline?
I'd hate to be at Intuit or H&R Block when last-minute filers flood the support lines with issues that have *nothing* to do with the tax software...
Yikes.
I service home computers. And I will tell you that your average user does not know how to configure an outbound firewall like ZoneAlarm. Nor do they know how to deal with the popups when a new program comes along.
A universal "outbound" firewall will have to be far more comprehensive in intelligence for home users. Basically, it needs to work automatically. And I'm sure that this would be a major undertaking.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
In other words, ZoneAlarm and iptables were designed to provide security. The MS firewall was designed to provide the illusion of security, much like SP2 as a whole.
"Tens to hundreds of desktops isn't a problem if they're set up properly."
And there's the rub...
Windoes is easy to administer yourself, just point andf click. Therefore, since it is so easy anyone can do it, all the windows machines must be set up properly and there is no problem.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
You guys can take vacation. That'll leave more for me. KA-CHING!
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I have ~5 years old ThinkPad (no reason to upgrade since I don't play games) and SP2 hoses it. It will intermittently freeze if SP2 is installed. I've updated the BIOS, all the drivers, tried a clean install, disabling as many new features as possible, everything.
Guess the only way to stay secure is going to be dumping Windows for this machine. They should have kept the security stuff separate from the rest of the crap.
the first program listed that it blocks is " AOL Toolbar version 1.13.2" isn't this a good thing?
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
As this is blatently a stab at "M$ quality" (LOL DOLLARS BECAUSE THEY MAKE MONEY)
No, dollars because they make Visual Basic. In fact, Microsoft started as a developer of BASIC programming language interpreters, starting with Altair BASIC and including the ROM BASIC in many 8-bit home computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In such versions of BASIC, the name of a string variable would always end in $.
In addition, dollars because it saves seven bytes in the cramped subject line of a Slashdot comment.
I've recently installed Epson scanners on OS-X and Win2K and had none of permissions problems you mention. The HP scanners that they replaced, on the other hand, dwelled in Permissions Hell on both platforms.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Lovely, we discovered after we had started to roll out SP2 that it broke CA's Anti-virus. Well not completely, only the remote install part of it stopped working as some of the remote RPC's had been turned off by default in SP2. Now everyone in the IT department is debating wither or not to turn this little feature back on. Windows XP with anti-virus or full SP2 without AV?
The second list, which is marked as a list of applications that don't work after installing SP2, is actually a list of applications that need ports opened for them. This is not terribly surprising, and would need to be done for any firewall that people had installed.
While I can understand how a sysadmin looking at the prospect of 100 or 10,000 computers possibly going kaputz is scary... get some perspective. It's not like the system is upgrading to a different OS, it's just adding a firewall and a few other protections that certain applications weren't expecting. Try out your must-have software on an SP2 machine before the update happens, but chances are unless you're doing some silly undocumented mumbo-jumbo for efficiency your apps should run fine.
The ______ Agenda
Not enough documentation SP2 sort of seems like a good idea, but why doesn't Microsoft provide a list of all the registry and GPO setting's it makes. Or why isn't MS providing tools to manage SP2 or work with partners on this.
You aslo have to let them use office update
You're absolutely right. The goes for all *nix platforms, too. Lack of good ACL support is one reason my superiors would never consider rolling out tons of Linux servers at work.
At my office, we currently have 3 Linux servers that I administer and it's damn embarrassing every time I have to explain to somebody the limitations of *nix permissions. Believe me, in a mostly Microsoft environment, it comes up more often than you'd think.
If some of the major distributions would start adding better support for POSIX ACL's, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Unfortunately, as it stands, Microsoft has *nix beat in this area, hands down.
I call troll and will smack with my +3 Winxp CD. obviously trolls dont know what linux is.
All the poor slobs who are planning on filing their taxes at the last minute will have to pay top dollar for MS tech support.
Very nice timing there MS.
It would probably help if they'd discovered that you can put an SSH server up on XP so that bandwidth isn't such an issue.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Paris Hilton Photos and Phone Numbers
I still run XP SP1 on my computer. With a decent firewall (Kerio, Sygate, etc.), antivirus, any browser other than IE, and some common sense, XP SP1 is just as secure as XP SP2. Locking down those computers should be easy.
Otherwise, consider upgrading to Windows 2000. Windows 2000 SP4 is the only to get an upto date, fully patched Windows system without all the crap found in XP SP2.
You missed the part where a 4-month long software development project is vastly more likely to succeed if you interact with your target users on a daily basis in face-to-face conversations, and get immediate feedback on any features or misfeatures you introduce. Waterfall design just plain doesn't work if your manpower and time resources are limited.
Like...uhm...the vendor of Age of Empires?
If AoE cannot be run under a Power Users account (heck, I can't imagine why games wouldn't need anything beyond Users), then yes, I will blame the vendors for either incompetence of malice. There is no other reason for forcing a gamer to have admin rights.
I said it about Ion Storm with Thief 3, and I said it about EA/Maxis with The Sims 2 (though the latter apparently learned their lesson and fixed the problem in a later update).
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Okay, you got me (I'm not a strategy game fan). Yes, the MS division that produced Age of Empires is either incompetent or malicious.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Just make different IP pools at DHCP server for desktops and laptops, or something.
Then use as a default route some central point with firewall or filter that handles both sides as hostile, preferably add snort or some other IDS as well.
It's not idiot-proof since the compromised laptop is in the same physical LAN with the desktop machines but you can detect fuckups almost immediately.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
I mean seriously, I almost got naucious trying to read this article. I had to read it 5 times just to figure out what the hell the article was about.
If you're pathetic like me and don't know how to properly spell or use commas, the it is a damn good idea to make short sentences instead.
Please shoot whoever wrote this article and then shoot the bastard that posted it without cleaning it up a little
Well, no, Windows minor releases do not last longer ...
Mac OS X
10.1 25.09.2001
10.2 18.09.2002
10.3 24.10.2003
Windows
5.0 (2000) 14.05.2001
5.1 (XP) 10.09.2002
5.2 (2003) 24.04.2003
#include "coucou.h"
> Is there a bug in mkdir? I don't bloody think so.
This is because you don't know anything about software development. You are a wanabee developer that believes his shit doesn't stink. We do error. Everybody do error. This difference is how we deal with it, and do we plan for those errors. I do, and obviously you don't.
When you said 'there is no bug in mkdir', I instantly thought of 3 or 4 obscure bugs that can be into it (for instance with -p, weird paths, devfs, mount points, unicode filenames, case-insensitive filesystems and disks full).
I was *absolutely* sure that there are bugs in mkdir. So I thought about FreeBSD, one of the most robust OS out there, which have its cvs web-accessible.
mkdir source code in the repository is 10 years old, and got 32 revisions. Of course, this code was written even before.
Latest bug in mkdir: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=71743
Closed 6 feburary 2005.
Not even three weeks ago.
I urge you to reconsider your wisdom on software engineering. Read 'Writing Solid Code'.
And stop assuming anything is bug free. Even TeX.
Yes, but what if I want to use XP pre SP1? I can mask later versions for any package I like, individually, at any stage - I could stick to 2.6.8.1 kernel if I particularly wanted to.
I am trolling
The end IS near! Reboot!
Then you simply turn off AutoUpdate/Windows Update. It's not all that hard.
But I want to use that to maintain the rest of my packages. It's just a few things that I want to keep at earlier versions. Why can't I automatically install other security fixes but not SP2 or anything that depends on it?
I am trolling
ummm... why should a patch for SP2 be a 4 month long software development project? It hsould be just that, a patch. And it surely shouldn't take them 4 months. If it does perhaps you need to move to a new development/patching process with a dedicated team instead of a couple of people you found on the internet.
Shortly after a meteor takes out Redmond.
I am not the only person who remembers this program - and it looks like there were two more patches on that 0-byte program after I left IBM.
Heh.
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley