Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ready or Not, Here comes Windows XP SP2

Posted by timothy on from the peek-a-boo dept.

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."

3 of 580 comments (clear)

  1. A Good Thing by Skuggamara · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Why SP2 by Beetjebrak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  3. Re:Hrmm by rebill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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