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XP SP2 Adoption Lagging Overseas
Vizquel wrote to mention an eWeek article reporting that Microsoft is frustrated with the lack of Service Pack 2 usage overseas. From the article: "During a keynote at the Security Summit East here, McKee said Microsoft has so far distributed more than 250 million copies of XP SP2 to provide a hardened shell around the operating system but the low upgrade levels remains a disappointment."
He then hurtled a chair in the direction of Japan.
I am wondering if he is referring to the upgrades of licensed copies. If not countries such as China and others with almost institutionalized software piracy might cause this lack of upgrades. If it is for licensed versions, I could assume a lack of bandwidth being somewhat limiting. I personally have had no issues with XP SP2 either time I installed it, but the second time was much more pleasant because I had my cable internet connection.
Beware the fury of a patient man
- John Dryden
Overseas are frustrated with SP2 obsession with registering.
Well, SP2 adoption is slow because piracy abounds in foreign land, especially in Asia. Windows updater checks the authenticity of the installed windows and refused to install SP2 (and other updates) if the check fails. For some reasons, critical updates can be downloaded from time to time, but not always. Coupled with lack of broadband internet and clueless users, I'm not surprised at all to hear this news.
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Error 500: Internal sig error
I recently had to re-install XP on a laptop that came with SP1. It took about 4 cycles of going to the Windows Update site, getting it to install the patches, and rebooting. It was over an hour before I was done. I have a hard time imagining regular users wanting to do this. MS needs to change their update process so that it can be done all at once.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
It refuses to install with exact same pirate keys that SP1 refuses to install.
If your key allows SP1, it allows SP2.
Yes, world is filled with idiots still spreading the ages-old 'Devils0wn' XP release from the beginning of time, which does not allow SP1 OR SP2 installation without changing the key.
However, changing the key takes all of 30 seconds, and tools (+list of 'valid' keys) can be found online in about 2 minutes of googling.
I spent six months in a third world country. There are two major reasons why XP SP2 wasn't in use there:
1. The license restrictions were tighter than plain XP,
2. It required over a day to download.
Heck, the guy who came over to install my DSL told me not to install it. Naturally, I didn't listen...
There is a very very simple reason.
:) ) I quickly figured out when SP2 blows up and when it doesnt. 99.99% of installations will go just fine as long as the computer is first cleaned of all the spyware and viruses, and you make sure that drivers are at least in the ballpark of being up to date. Skip those steps, and there is a very real risk that you get to reinstall everything (or, at least, get to do a repair install with a CD that has SP2 slipstreamed into it).
I work at PC repairs. I see SP2less computers every day. MOST of them have legal copy of windows(!)
The reason why SP2 uptake is slow, is that when it was released, some people with virus/spyware-ridden computers just went and installed it - and their installation promptly blew up, since Microsoft for some odd reason didn't test their upgrade with every piece of malware out there.
So, the 'common wisdom' made rounds with lots and lots of clueless lusers; "Don't install SP2, it will just mess up your system and make you reinstall everything". Even *I* considered the upgrade hazardous during the first few weeks due to couple of blowups I'd seen.
Only thru trial and error (on customer's computers
Now if just one person tells 10 friends how his computer got all messed up due to SP2 (when it reality it was already mucked up by ten cubic miles of spyware), those ten will tell horror stories to 10 of their friends how they heard that SP2 is bad.
Boom, SP2 adoption rate takes a huge broadside hit.
I *still* need to reassure people who bring their computer in for repairs that installing SP2 is not only a good idea, but almost downright required if you plan on keeping your system connected to the internet. Standard operating procedure is to install all windows updates when fixing any problem, be it spyware, viruses or plain old hardware problem - yet I still sometimes get calls after the fact to the tune of 'how did you get SP2 installed? I thought it'd just mess up my computer so I was too afraid to try', while in fact there was zero reason why the user should've not installed it.
Now pirate copies are another story; Yes, I see those very commonly as well.
They fall into a couple of categories;
- Clueful people who know what they are doing (99% of these are computers with real hardware faults). They have SP2 and all updates installed, and windows update is working fine, with WGA circumvented. They are aware that MS 'pirate blocks' are not stopping anyone who knows how to use Google and can read.
In these cases there is no problem. Never was.
- Clueless idiots who "got my copy from a friend". Some have The Old Version with no SPs, and then whine how it never works right and always get viruses. Most have SP1, but havent' installed SP2 because they've "heard that it can't be installed" - when in reality it would work just fine. Most of these turn around and buy a genuine copy in case their system needs a full reinstall due to malware infestation so bad it can't be completely cleaned up within sane number of expensive techie hours.
For those I can't really go and install the SP2, as company policy says that any OS issues related to pirate copies are customers problem. Sure, I can clean up malware assuming it doesn't require a reinstall, and I can drop in any stuff the automatic update gives, but generally I don't even bother trying SP2.
Now, Microsoft's 'anti piracy measures' have definitely caused them to sell more legal copies to the clueless idiots who 'trusted their friend to install a free copy', and then got burned by the Windows Update and/or SP2 install key blacklists. However, as long as their system worked, they really don't care if its updated or not. I've seen systems where the damn computer contained all the financial stuff of a small company, NO BACKUPS, with system full of viruses and other crap to the point when it no longer boots - and the owner didn't care it hadn't been updated. He was just pissed that the computer stopped working, and was
I don't know, maybe he's not trolling. Not only do I not like SP2 for the reasons I'll get into below, I still run Win2K SP4 on most of the PCs on this lan. The one exception is a R40 which came with XP and I haven't had the time to upgrade to win2k, as all it does is delete spam and I don't really work with it that much. All I've done is reset it to the Classic interface but you can still smell the XP Inside.
In August another machine with a factory XP install which had gotten SP2 died mysteriously overnight after accepting yet another automatic Windows update. A random windows corruption happens, but doubt was thrown when one of the WIn2k machines lost windows the next week so I turned off all automated updating from Microsoft. I didn't like them auto-rebooting anyway.
Both these machines' drives scanned clean in postmortem, they run behind a hardware firewall, and we also run zonealarm and F-Prot AV. They all have IE but it's rarely used and it's encased in the popupcop wrapper anyway. All software is paid for, the products are all together in case of a BSA visit. I'm done with updating, these things run beautifully as long as MS doesn't fuck with them. Frankly, Windows Genuine Advantage and Microsoft XP Product Activation gives me the willies. WTF do they harass paying customers while the pirates get away with their custom disks w/ no activation. XP SP2 sucks, beyond the gross Fisher-Price interface, there are certain problems, expecially pertaining to deleting files from flash cards that XP suffers from, that make it unusable in my business.