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Microsoft Releases Windows Server 2003 SP1
Masq666 writes "Microsoft has wrapped up development on the first major update to its Windows Server 2003 operating system and released it for download, The company said that Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 is currently available for download via Microsoft's site and will soon start showing up on new servers. Among the primary benefits of the free update is the inclusion of security enhancements similar to those added to Windows XP with last year's Service Pack 2. News.com.com has more details and commentary."
OK, I am not a Windows Server 2003 admin, but is it just me, or is it really odd that Microsoft is just now including a firewall?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
In all seriousness, I definitely like the new "PSSU" (Post-Setup Security Updates) feature. Awful name, but it does the following when someone first installs Windows 2003:
1.) Blocks all incoming traffic.
2.) Immediately guides the first person who logs on through downloading updates.
This would be such a terrific blessing for new XP users: block traffic and immediately send them off to the update site. Excellent idea.
True, but they have a few excellent ideas in there. I'm a little "meh" about the "security configuration wizard" (personally, if you're using a wizard to configure security you probably shouldn't be admining a server in the first place.
The PSSU feature, though (as I mentioned in another post), that blocks incoming traffic on first boot and immediately directs the user to download updates is awesome. Why other companies haven't thought about this, I have no idea. I really hope this gets put into the next consumer version of Windows.
They lied. 2003 is a very poor execuse for a Desktop/Gaming machine. Not even Microsoft recommends it as such.
FWIW, Microsoft did manage to consolidate things about the time of XP. The reason why they unconsolidated was to bring many of their security features to the server market so that they wouldn't get trounced on by the competition before Longhorn is released. And to actually say something nice about Microsoft, 2003 *is* more secure. Unfortunately, most of that security is added in a rather stupid way. "You can't run IE because it is insecure. Would you like to make it runnable anyway? (Y/N)" (rolls eyes)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
IMHOP, the more interesting tidbit from this article is the info that XP 64-bit should go on sale next month :-) As the proud owner of 2 athlon 64's, that's actually something I would want to know about....
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
Microsoft is also using the Windows Server 2003 SP1 code base as the starting point for the next desktop version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, which is slated to arrive next year.
Wasn't Longhorn supposed to originally be released this year? If they're going to use this service pack as a code base, they must be a long, long, long way off from a longhorn release . . .
It is quite hefty but then this is what I expect from "Service Packs" especially in one giant chunk.
"Download time remaining: 22 minutes"
So now I'm chained to box since I suspect at some point I need to click something on some dialog to complete installation (this is an assumption but past history on other updates tells me I should watch the process to make sure it goes all the way through).
On the other hand I had to setup sever based off of FC3 yesterday and out of the box it required to download 450MBish of stuff broken into 150+ individual downloads. After installing the gpg keys, I started the update ('yum -y update') and walked away from it. Other systems have something that is just as easy and dare say fool proof.
I would really like MS to bite off things in smaller chunks. I do recognize the fact that every part of the 329MB download is probably necessary but why not roll out in both a large chunk and small chunks to accomidate different enterprise configurations? I like having options on rollout but I constantly find Windows rollouts very lacking.
According to these links, Microsoft has finally figured out how Linux boots with tftp:
BartPE using PXE
Booting Windows from a Debian box
It's nice to see Microsoft pick this up. Booting Windows with standard tools, what a concept!
I'm sooooo spoiled with anaconda kickstarts... can Microsoft make deploying servers as easy as RedHat/Fedora?
Oh, you will be suprised at what I get asked to do, and this is from business people with more money to spare than I do. "Hey, can you crack this software for me?" "Can't I just load this one copy on all the machines?" So many times I have to stick my neck out and say I can't do that, or that we need to buy more licenses. With that I get an angry face and a huff from them because I didn't want to compromise myself to save them a couple bucks. I became the IT manager of this company months ago and I'm still trying to fingure out if all our installs of MS Office are ligit or not, since the company didn't keep a record of anything, not even the disks that came with the PCs.
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It's a good policy to replace MS hosts with something more securable, like Linux, anywhere possible. Outside the firewall (including "outside the VPN") is usually doable, because those are mostly servers. Inside servers are also good targets for non-MS upgrade, because they also don't have hard-to-retrain users. So Samba domain controllers and fileservers, etc, are a strategic approach. Moving all apps to platform-independent Web apps is a workable migration strategy. Eventually, I'd like to see only a well-patrolled rack of Windows client boxes in a pool for VNC or something, handling the bottleneck of opening Office format files. Then the fershliggina users can't schneider the frammistan.
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make install -not war
Why other companies haven't thought about this, I have no idea
What other companies make "server" software that allows someone to configure something without understanding what they are doing? I'm assuming the other companies you are talking about are all *nix vendors of some sort, and they don't have the same incidence of their customers plugging unpatched boxes into live, unfiltered networks.
You can either complain, or do nothing. You don't get both.
At my work, they tried W2k3 SP1 for our exchange 2k3 and exchange 2003 even refused to install saying it was an unrecognized version of windows!!!
What a piece of junk!