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Windows XP Service Pack 3 Not Due Until 2007
vitaly.friedman writes "Microsoft has published the due date for Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack 3) on its Windows Lifecycle Web site. The preliminary due date (the latter half of 2007) for the next collection of fixes and patches for Microsoft's desktop operating system is as more than a year later than many company watchers were expecting."
Whitedust posted an interesting commentary on this this other day. I agree with them.
I thought Windows Vista was due this year?
-- Linux user #369862
"2007" is a funny term for "whenever we get around to it"....
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
it would be stupid to release an update to the existing xp when the new vista is coming out. they sell on the idea of 'newness' and 'newness' would fade out with updating existing xp to an sp3.
I read that and I wasnt one bit suprised in the least.
Somethings wrong...
- Sig
I think by then half of their team will be working at google!
FREE - Java, J2EE and Ajax Audiobooks for Software Developers - www.DeveloperAdvantage.com
You can't release another XP service pack until Vista is out!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft doesn't love releasing service packs for any OS that isn't the latest one.
NT4 service packs ended about the time Win2K came out.
I'm guessing this means Vista will be pushed even further back then Microsoft have been letting on.
I don't get it.
This story reminds me of a co-worker I used to have, who used to spout off completely worthless information. One day he decided to inform everyone that the history of the letter W was not in the dictionary, much to his dismay. Nobody was ever quite sure why he cared, let alone why he felt it necessary to verbalize his observations. I suspect he submitted this story as well.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This shouldn't surprise anyone. MS wants Vista to be out before any major patch to XP. Its in their best interest as it compels more people to upgrade to Vista. XP will be treated like a red-headed step child so Vista will look more appealing. So long as they issue security patches I'll be happy. It's what I've come to expect.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Is this a bad or a good thing?
My other SIG is a Sauer.
So their release "date" is 2H 2007? Since when is a 6-month window considered a "date"?
A precedent like that really makes you wonder about the release "dates" they still can't commit to.
There have been, what, only...40 critical updates since SP2? That's a reasonable number of things to download over a modem before my operating system is usable.
=P
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
Vista Cruiser
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
no no -- they used a mat. with conclusions printed on it. and then they jumped onto the mat...
Cry me a fucking river. Do you feel that you are entitled to annual service packs? There are lots of hotfixes available so you can roll your own or switch to a real operating system.
Vista is supposed to be out in Q3 2006.
Given the number of fixes released annually I assume MS have to wait till 2007 for gigabit boradband speeds to make it a viable download.... or send a SAE for the 7 DVD SP3 set.
...after the press release from the Duke Nukem: Forever team, where they announced they would be going gold when XP SP3 was released.
This just in: Microsoft Windows XP SP3 is now renamed Microsoft Windows Vista, and will ship sometime in early 2009. Possible new features include an updated icon, a completely new marketing campaign, one driver for an HP scanner written in a drunken coding blitz at 3am, and a new desktop wallpaper prominently featuring the Microsoft Logo.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Service Pack to fix windows is already out. It's actually up to version 4. It's called OS X 10.4.4
Has anyone else noticed Microsofts gradual decrease in providing updates?
For example, NT 4 had 6 service packs and number 7 was not released. But supposedly was pretty much complete, number 7 added a bunch of features that were supposedly in Windows 2000.. and with the release of Windows 2000 just around the corner.. why would they want to make 2000 less appealing?
Also, notice that 2000 has just 4 service packs..
And it's looking more like XP will be getting just 3 by the end of life period, now... either Microsoft have absolutely amazing QA which means they're fixing all the bugs in their OS's by the last service pack or they want to force people onto their newest OS with the promises of bug fixes etc.
This is disheartening, they're trying to force people into a perpetual upgrade cycle and are being very successful at it too. I guess we can only hope that stuff like Linux and OpenOffice start making some inroads to at least reduce the price of Windows to help reduce the pressure on people who are locked into MS solutions.
I can see that a software company wants to concentrate on getting a product that is going to make them money (Vista) out the door on time, and that nothing for a service pack that is critical is going to be held back.
My question: If this enrages people - why not switch over to Linux where the SOTA is always available in a no-cost distribution?
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
The day the adjective "leet" can be applied to a professional company watcher is the day I'll leave the plane... no, actually you're right: it doesn't make much difference.
Suffering with an insecure OS because:
1) M$ doesn't believe the exploit is that serious
2) M$ hasn't fixed the exploit yet, or
Spending my time waiting for a downloaded patch to break stuff, or
Oh, wait . . .
I run SuSE x86_64 and Solaris SPARC - No wonder I don't care about Windoze XP SP3. I feel much better now. Never mind.
(And before the flaming starts - NO, my system isn't secure because it's UNIX/LINUX based. It's just far easier to secure because it's UNIX/LINUX based).
*Begun, the flame war has.*
Next one after that? Won't have any service packs at all!
I'd still be using my NT4 if it weren't for the lack of USB. It was supposed to come in SP7... but didn't because 2k was released. 2k had USB support and people moved en-masse. Can't remember what XP promissed over 2k, though. Better games? Icons for children? Can't have been improved stability, right?
It was a rhetorical question. :)
we will end no whine before its time
Uhhh... Solaris does this hi2u. BSD's do as well, although most don't bundle it they roll out the patches individually. OSX doesn't release service packs, they just tick off the revision number and charge you 200$ for it. Get real... Basically you're saying you're upset that MS rolls up their patches for you instead of making you go out and grab each one yourself, or flat out charge you for those *fixes*? THE HORROR.
The new desktop theme was nice, but the service pack broke all my games.
It will take 18 months to download...
Well, it *is* hard to improve on perfection!
/sarcasm
AT&ROFLMAO
They put out service packs for 2000 after XP came out..
Or NT after 2000 came out.
While the product is still under 'support', you can expect fixes to come out. Support doesnt end on day 1 of the release of a new version, in the real world.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
FreeBSD's 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x releases beyond the inital release are effectively service packs. It's the same concept.
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
In my job, I have to fix dorm residents' personal computers for pretty much any software problem. You name it: viruses, worms, spyware, basic help, installing virus protection, and convincing people to install service pack 2.
Getting people to install SP2 was and still is a pain in the ass. They don't trust it becuase their mother's cousin's son-in-law, who saw something on TV about it, says that it can cause problems.
But just as we'll probably be just about finished getting the students to upgrade, here comes SP3.
The good news? I get to work a lot more hours when it comes time to get people to install it.
is this Redmond doing some of their creative trickery to try and get people to adopt Vista early?
Seems like most of the XP SP3 fixes will already be in Vista when it comes out. So, why wait for the upgrade when you can simply replace your whole OS for a newer one?
...But in reality, I'd say late 2006. Odds are that right after Vista is released, some show-stopper of a bug will be found, and suprise suprise, it will also have an Impact on XP. Something like that could hasten the release of the third service pack for XP. Either that, or some significant technolog change, that requires a large update to be pushed out promptly.
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
"This is horrible, this idea."
R eply&threshold=3&commentsort=0&mode=nested&pid=145 13813
-Samir Nagheenanajar
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174467&op=
... is covered by your existing license. A new version of Windows requires a new purchase.
Actually, they pushed the Vista release date forward to the end of this year...
How often do you get security patches and bug fixes for OS/2?
By the time WinXP SP3 rolls out, Microsoft should be able burn the file to HD-DVD. (Which I presume will be needed since the SP3 installer will probably be huge if you patching a virgin install of the original WinXP disc.) The only problem is do you need SP3 installed first before you can access SP3 on a HD-DVD? Hmmm...
TONKA TOY INTERFACE.
:P
I was going to say "NT + DirectX" but then I remembered that that was lumped into 2k as well. Might explain why it's the only windows OS we run at work.
No, instead, they release their point releases under clever new names like 95, 98, NT, 2000, me, xp, Vista...
They leave the version numbers off all together so they avoid morons such as yourself claiming that they charge for point releases.
Each "point release" to OS X has contained over 100 new features.
You can't say that about any of the software Microshit releases.
What a fucking idiot you are.
I can find service pack 3 just fine.. It's at this site called autopatcher. Also there's this tool to make slipstreamed and unintended installs, here. Also, windowsupates works just fine in firefox.
Fine tools from the folks NOT at microsoft..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
OSX doesn't release service packs, they just tick off the revision number and charge you 200$ for it.
Not quite...
1) Apple only charges $130 for the newest version of MacOS X.
2) A MacOS X 10.x -> 10.x+1 release isn't the same as a Windows Service Pack. It's the same as, say, Windows NT 5.0 (win2k) -> 5.1 (winxp), which, incidentally, Microsoft charged $200 for. The MacOS X equvalent to a Service Pack would be a 10.4.x -> 10.4.x+1 release, of which there are about 8-10 in the product's life cycle. Each one is between 10 and 50 MB. And the product life cycle is approximately 18 months (pre-10.2 was a shorter cycle due to a less mature system). The updates tend to include things like post-OSX-release updates to GNU tools and other FOSS stuff outside of Apple's control.
Because it doesn't make financial sense to invest R&D into OSX Malware... Yet.
Quote from the Whitedust article linked above: "... should the security of Microsoft's existing users be sidelined ...?"
That's always been Microsoft's policy, in my opinion. Microsoft makes more money when Windows is not secure because many people buy new computers when they begin having problems.
The interests of billionaires are almost never the interests of society in general. Billionaires begin to believe that they are superior.
And the only way to get people to upgrade will be to convince them they won't have to download 76 updates with Vista. Should even be true for a few days.....
All things considered, you probably won't want to migrate a large enterprise to Vista until sometime in 2008 or 2009. Seriously.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
To me, Microsoft's behavior is extremely offensive and abusive.
Because they take your money at gunpoint?
If you don't like their product or how they maintain it, buy a platform that satisfies your needs better. In any case, take responsibility for the consequences of your own choices.
"But I'm not the decision-maker..." You decided to work where you work, though right?
Ahh, well you'll be wanting Windows Vista then.
Smells like just another crappy marketing exercise to me.... good thing my next computer is going to run Mac OS / Linux (currently dual-boot Windows 2000 / Linux on my current one for games, and yes I am a transgaming subscriber ;)).
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Do you notice that Microsoft gives its old OS a new name, and people say, "Maybe this time Microsoft will treat me right and release a good product." Microsoft has found a weakness in the average person, the way virus writers find weaknesses in Microsoft software, in my opinion.
Software companies with virtual monopolies don't want to release a good product because then no one will upgrade to a new version, even if it has a new name.
"We find we need to re-load Windows XP often because of its vulnerabilities and instability."
I am not sure to whom your "we" refers. I know I am not in that set as the last time I had to reinstall Windows XP because of its vulnerabilities and instability was...well, never. Reboot, why yes I have had to do that countless times when a patch was pushed out. Hopefully that kind of architecture will be out the door with Vista. Until then I can live with reboots due to certain patches. This box has been running the XP SP2 install since, well, I installed SP2. I use it heavily every day to develop code, test, install and reinstall applications, and do my daily software development work. It could be that my company has a competent IT department, but I am sure a lot of it has to do with me not running as Administrator and not installing suspicious software or browsing suspicious websites when I am. My point being that with proper care and feeding an XP system does not need to be reinstalled often.
Because you do not run as Administrator (or root or other equivalent) on your box?
But the Cringely clock is still ticking...
It's never been about getting it right - that's expensive - it's been about getting it usable and cheap so they can sell a lot more copies than those that spend extra effort getting it right.
Most people here don't know what z/OS is, and all others are toy operating systems.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
I don't really see the relevance in explicit service packs anymore. They already put all the fixes and most if not all of the additional programs on Microsoft Update... I'm surprised they haven't stopped releasing service packs altogether. So what are service packs for? People with no Internet connection?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
This story reminds me of a guy that used to post at Slashdot, who used to spout off completely worthless information. One day he decided on inform everyone about a guy that used to be a co-worker of his who one day... oh wait.
Never mind.
Something like that, but not exactelly.
On OSX, it is safe to have administrator privileges: to do anything that could mess with the system, I still have to type my password.
On Windows, however, an administrator is pretty much a root user - total power, nothing to prevent a major fuckup. Many apps do not run if you are a limited user. And there's no intermediate between too limited and too powerful.
Circumcision is child abuse.
if you had not recently installed a copy of XP...
Having an XP sp2 disk saves about 2 hours per install vs. having a plain old XP disk.
I assume that's like a worm/virus/rootkit etc?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I thought "vista" stood for everything windows was
famous for: Virus Infections, Spyware, Trojans and
Ad-ware.
Im writing this down.
On OSX, it is safe to have administrator privileges: to do anything that could mess with the system, I still have to type my password.
True true. On a Windows machine being in the Administrators group is just like being Administrator itself. With Mac OS X, just like most UNIX systems with which I am familiar, an administrator is just a member of their equivalent of the wheel group.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Why don't you actually 'do something' about Linux not being ready for you? Re-partitiion your drive and start using something user friendly like Mepis, Linspire, or Xandros. " I want to run linux so badly but the apps just arent completely there yet for me, and the usability of linux is still too difficult." Sounds like a perfect example of 'lack of initiative and commitment.' Quityerbitchin' and DO SOMETHING about it. I got into computers in 1999 (High-school dropout with GED) and found the 'Windows experience' to be unacceptable. I'm a carpenter, you're a developer? What excuse can you offer for your sloth?
Life is a gift. And my Karma couldn't possibly be 'Positive'
As the Windows fans says "it only makes sense for Microsoft from a business perspective to give more reasons to purchase Vista, since it'll then be out earlier". And it does. But not from a security perspective, which happens to be what matters to the XP users.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It took our computer center a month to evaluate SP1. For SP2 it took them almost three months to figure out what might possibly go wrong if they deploy on all local Windows XP PCs. They face complains from hundreds of users if things go south. SP3 is going to be a nightmare for them. But, all those Windows bugs also keep them employed.
Unfortunately i cant just run linux. I need apps that are currently windows only.
Also at this point in my life... Its about doing the work, and having less time to tinker with the new. If linux had the apps i needed (it has some, but not all) I would be all for tinkering in linux again.
I ran redhat for a while on one of my pcs. I found it anoying, overly frustrating... yet worth the effort. It was for the most part enjoyable but when you hit a wall, you really hit a wall. I cant afford to do that when it comes to my work (3d animation)
I could afford to do it when i was just using that linux box for email and surfing... but i found myself running wine and hating the media players in linux...
The dependency hell was no fun and extremely difficult to deal with coming from a windows setup.exe mentality. RPM was no fun. I understand that apg-get helps with all of this... but i'm still not convinced that anything in linux is as easy as a windows install package or as easy as windows in general.
is that this is the sort of support experience I can expect when I buy one of their products.
So what, pray tell, does their marketing team think would induce me to buy Windoze Vista or to recommend it to anybody else, if this is the sort of support I am going to get for it?
-----
"Yea, I know I was there when she landed..Wait, Father, she said something I didn't understand well I didn't understand any of it but what does 'Ecto gammet' mean?"
Instead of having Windows * with SP*, why can't they just use a normal version number scheming? It's not that complicated.... If Mac people can handle it, so can Windows people. How about a good ol ..? Seems logical to me. It makes a lot more sense then Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and KB3490gk, 4494055,....n-1 updates installed.....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Shit, by 2007 I'll be stealing Vista instead of XP anyways.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
OS X "admin" != Windows "Administrator".
The closest equivalent to an OS X "admin" in Windows would be someone in the "Power Users" group.
the next leap year is not due until 2008
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
So they pre emptively deciding on a release date of a patch/pack in anticipation of finding much bugs in the current system which have not been discovered yet? Or, do they already have the bug list and they will just get to it by 2007?
oh it runs under wine sure. of course if you want fancy things like " 3d graphics " and " audio support " then you might not be as happy with it.
( please spare me from the 'wtfbbq it works for me stfu n00b rtfm' as it doesnt "just work" and if i have to go manually enter mode lines ever again i will kill myself ) Not to mention i seem to remember something about paying for the version of wine that actually runs it nice (cross over?). I could be wrong about that and im not sure, but that might be why i gave up on it.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I ahve my doubts. Nice try at elitism tho'
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're already above the dictionary.
Moderators: Before you mod this Offtopic, consider this - wouldn't it be nice if Slashdot had an "Offtopic" thread, like Groklaw does, so that people like me who have to get some irrelevant remark of their chests, can do so in a clean, well-lit place, without having their karma repossessed? Just an (offtopic:) thought.
you had me at #!
Eumm Eumm Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler?
Because Windows 2000 was Microsoft's more serious operating system. Without that, businesses would have been extremely unhappy.
Windows 98 and ME would often self-destruct, in my experience, because the registry would become irreparably corrupted. Windows 98 was an "I'm looking forward to a new OS" operating system.
I mean, it's not like Microsoft really has that many security issues -- I mean, their last big blow up was way back last year. (and don't get your nose out of joint about how long this year is... It's about the same length as any other year :-).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
If anything, I think they should release more Service Packs...
Not a bad idea. How about one service pack for every individual patch? That way we're both happy.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
See, I told you! http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169529&cid=141 27993
That which does not kill her only prolongs my agony.
Apple does not charge customers for the so called "service packs" They are all free. 10.4 tiger and 10.3 panther are not service packs, any more than calling XP a service pack to windows 2000. the service packs would be the updates of 10.x.1 -10.x.9 of the OSes.
Umm how is security effected?
A service pack is basically a rollup of all the patches released. So a computer that has updated using windows update will have the exact same patches installed as one with SP3.
So it affect convience not security.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
You can't be convinced unless you try it. I use gentoo... probably not the best to start on for a newbie ;-), however, the gentoo forums have been helpful and complete with EVERY problem I have found. I have to use windows during the day, as a sysadmin trying to convince the PHB's away from windows is like pulling good teeth... but as for 3d animation... have you ever heard of blender? If you want to know more about any of this, email me.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
.. why the heck is the periodic Service Pack shot so essential to you?
With the exception of SP2 for XP which was a larger kind of initiative, all service packs are just a combo of the latest patches in a single package.
If Microsoft was just going after the SP demanding frenzy they can always pack the WMF update with few other bugfixes, call it XP SP3 and be done with it.
With the advance of Internet, it's just a lot less essential to pack changes as "service packs" anymore. Did we have autoupdates over the Internet back when NT4 ruled? Well that might explain why it had 6 SP's where Windows 2000 had 4.
I don't care so much about new features, overall improvements to the OS, or even upgrade paths/incentives as much as I just want to avoid having to install 50+ updates and three reboots after a clean WinXP SP2 install. Any word on whether they'll offer a patch roll-up, or anything of that sort?
IMO, it would be really nice if MS released a quarterly roll-up package that encompased all patches since their last service pack release.
True, but good luck finding any new updates for previous versions of OSX.
"They wouldn't have to release these multi-hundreds-of-megabyte horrors. No other operating system does such a thing- Not SunOS, Solaris, the BSDs, Linux, OS X, OS/2- you get nice little security patches and bugfixes on a continual basis."
I downloaded the 10.4.4 update to OS X the other night, and it was 120 megabytes. It was the combo update all the way from 10.4.0, but still, what a whopper. I'm afraid pretty much everyone has to do monster updates these days.
Sigh.
I disagree. For it to be a service pack for XP means it would be free. There will be nothing free about Vista.
Wasn't that something the dinosaurs used?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
What I meant is that FreeBSD 4.0 is a new version, FreeBSD 4.1 is effectively a FreeBSD 4.0 service pack.
Same with FreeBSD 6.1, when it comes out.
It's the same concept, symantics aside.
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
To be perfectly honest, I'm still running XP SP1 on my Windows machines. I'm aware the annoying new features and prompts in SP2 can be disabled, but whatever new security features it implemented have most likely already been cracked. I feel like less of a target by running a legacy version of the OS, rather than the newest and most-targeted version.
Then again, I don't want to become completely obsolete just because I don't want more of Microsoft's crap on my sytem. In my opinion, if SP3 gets pushed back from 2007, then all the better. I can stay in my little obscurity bubble for longer.
Does anybody have any compelling reasons for me to upgrade to SP2 other than "...but it's the most recent version!"?
What will Microsoft do considering Vista should be released by then? Will there be in house competition, or will this be the final SP before XP support is dropped officially or otherwise? I dont see why they would maintain XP if Vista is their new market venture, since it would make more profitable sense (no pun intended) to stop support of XP to sell Vista.
If they did, why did they add the feature of reading/writing/formatting to FAT/32? (too drunk, dont remember specifics.. sue me..) That wouldn't make much sense to me. 2k could read and write to FAT partitions, but I honestly could never find any option upon intial install that allowed me to format (or quick-format) an HDD before installing 2k on it, whereas XP did.
This is just me being naive, but that kinda counts as keeping part of their base, since that was the filesystem they mainly relied on back then. Granted it may give some slightly better performance for stuff like games and things that depend on faster finding/access time, but for reliability, I think I'd stick with NTFS... now if only Windows would get a clue and allow ReiserFS as somethign they could support/run from. The only thing IIRC that they need to do is include the full unmodified source code with their distro, under GPLv2?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The August 2k and September XP pack you mention both fix a very common problem both machines had at that time. Blaster! That's why those packs kept being released, because a large percentage of corporations and other businesses were still running old 2K boxes!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I personally think (even though I am an MS fan for the game support and other F/OSS programs that have migrated over to the dark side) that Microsoft isn't planning these problems, they code them themselves, unintentionally fooling themselves into believing it's a 'feature' without doing any real testing first! They're too overcome with joy at the technology they've stolen that they've just creamed themselves and moved on to the next robbery!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Cost to upgrade XP to SP3 for most users = $0.00
Cost for new OS? $100+ easily.
Why wait for the upgrade? Its cheaper!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
this is just stupid. Do you honestly beleive "we" (microsoft employees) just sit around thinking "crap, we accidentally made this a bit too good. Quick, lets check in a bunch of integer overflows and null-dereferences!" ?
Or maybe you think that our product cycle works like this:
1: generally define what we think should go into product
2: bust ass for multiple YEARS trying to get it all done
3: modify plan in light of things that happened in multi-year time frame
4: arbitrarily decide to NOT ship 50% of our features because they were all the way done and worked great, but, you know.. we need more stuff to ship in the future
Unfortuneately, as you're all too aware, we have a big, 20 year backlog of bugs and design problems, and we hope to chip away a little more than we add with each new feature, which we also have a multi-year long queue of new stuff we think we can add. The only feature-complete peice of software i am aware of is TeX. That means that for everything _we_ make, we think there's more left to do.
Do you beleive that there is no progress in the field of computing? Do you honestly think we pay developers and testers to sit around doing nothing for years at a time?
Every person i work with is frustrated about
- how long it takes us to ship
- how many features we have to cut
- anytime a bug affects a customer
Nobody i work with is saying "lets save that for the next version, because we cant think of enough new stuff to make a new version. All the ideas we're capable of having, we've already had, and we just need to space them out."
I can tell you i was pissed off when i heard some of the cuts for Vista. I bet the Vista team was 200x as pissed as i was - they weren't working crazy hours just so dipshits on slashdot could ask when we'd get around to "cloning OSX".
How did you get modded insightful?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
You said that you are a Microsoft employee. Microsoft programmers seem fine to me. It seems to me that it is Microsoft managers that cause the problems.
..."
I agree with this: "... we [Microsoft] have a big, 20 year backlog of bugs and design problems,
It is believable to me that Microsoft programmers work hard. But they seem simply have no influence whatsoever in the way Microsoft is managed. I've sold Microsoft products since April of 1983, and have developed the impression that Microsoft programmers are not allowed to finish their work before they are re-assigned elsewhere. Every Microsoft product I can remember was sloppy when it was first shipped. Then, over a period of years, programmers are assigned to fix the worst bugs. But the products never reach excellence. Microsoft products always contain grief for the reseller and grief for the customer.
You said, "I can tell you i was pissed off when i heard some of the cuts for Vista. I bet the Vista team was 200x as pissed as i was..."
You seem to be saying what I am saying above. Microsoft programmers are not managed in such a way that they can possibly deliver a nicely finished product. Is that correct?
Change in subject: I usually don't like personal web sites, but I liked yours.
Slashdot people! Here's a technical man with a wife who seems wonderful.
The idea that male computer specialists don't have women friends never applied to me. People often tell me that they are impressed with my wife, and they're right to be impressed.
My wife has more patience than I, which means that she is very helpful when we are trying to find the cause of some degradation in Windows XP. There is some weird problem with permissions that occurs on a very few machines. There are serious deficiencies with the Chkdsk utility, which makes it difficult to troubleshoot problems.
I remember when were having serious problems with Sysprep. It was buggy. Then Microsoft released a new version. Microsoft documentation is poor, largely because it is so scattered.
My overall impression of Microsoft is that Microsoft products are sloppy, and that Microsoft managers are lacking in idealism. I've always had the impression that Microsoft programmers would prefer to do a good job.
Avalon is the new 3D Desktop system, and MS wats XP having it, but not before Vista is out. So the XP3 (With Avalon and other number of features) will be out later the vista is out.
Oh i'm aware of that linux is used in my industry but really its not used for animators workstations. Its true that programs like Maya, XSI, and Houdini are all available for Linux, but most people still are using them on the windows side due to a larger complement of apps available such as photoshop and many other programs be it zbrush, to various utilities etc.
Linux boxes are primarily used as a render servers/slaves. Shake is still out on Linux, and yes people do use xsi and maya, especially houdini on linux but they're so few in numbers compared to the window box side of things.
Its great that linux has a handful of the major applications (even though they do lag a little behind the windows version in functionality sometimes but not by version, usually by a feature here and there)
I'm willing to try linux again, but i think the issues stiil exist in that it needs to be a little easier. I do need to try more flavors of linux but i also have work to do. A linux transition needs to be fairly seamless i think at this point. Of course not at the expense of linux's useability, or making it look like windows... but to put things in places that make sense to users, and not burying settings in txt files that arent accessable by a ui component. Also the whole install packaging thing. I know its gotten better but is it as simple as a Windows installer yet?
Like other people have said it's becuase vista is coming out. But for a different reason, windows media player 11, internet explorer 7, WinFS and other such technologies are planning to be backported to to xp. However, seeing as most of these "features" arn't even compleate on Vista maybe 2007 is MS way to say "when it's finished and working and we have had 6 months to try and switch people over to Vista, then XP can be updated".
SP3 ?? why? my XP is on SP1 yet, and i have 0 virus, 0 spyware, 0 malware ...
If SP3 take off the big problem on "Microsoft Windows XP", with is the "Microsoft" name, i will upgrade.
that's one of robert x. cringley's predictions thwarted already..
MilkMiruku
I fully afree with you.
I have had XP home on my laptop for 3 years now with no reboots. In fact it hadly has to be booted at all.
Now that I think of it, I have only booted it thrice.
1 to initialize the oem install.
2. to test that after i resized it's partition down to 4GB
3. to run a windows only bios update.
absolutely bullet proof as it has been gathering dust ever since.
just kidding around, i did boot it up a couple of times to install service packs and AV updates in the event I accidentally boot it in a harsh environment (read:anywhere there are other windows boxes)
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
Oh, sure. It is OK for Microsoft to take 18 months for an upgrade, but Debian on the other hand...
For those that missed joy of SP3 for WINDOWS XP cataloged by private source, I listed all updates that it contained. I had good luck with all except couple, so be prepared for "RESTORE" OR "ADD/DELETE" when you get LOGIE on updates.Any trouble will be slowdown from that last one specific update, not whole mess, which really helps computer puurrr. http://www.geocities.com/tsvondrashekmd/WASHINGTON .html
Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.
WINDOWS XP Service Pack -X- 396 mb. http://www.geocities.com/tsvondrashekmd/WASHINGTO
There are a few issues here. First of all, reinstalling Windows to solve every problem used to be viewed as the sign of a weak IT guy where I work and in the industry. The idea was every problem has a cause and a solution and putting yourself and the user through the inconvienience of having to backup all their data and reinstall windows and their software for what could be an easy solution from the knowledge base etc was a waste. That has changed here in the last couple of years.
Now, with the advent of a heavier network and server infrastructure we have all user data and documents stored on a network share and every profile is a roaming profile - nothing important at all is stored on the local workstations anymore. We also created, and keep updated, a network-hosted Norton Ghost image for each workstation type. The process of restoring the system to a 100% pristine condition from that Ghost image takes 10-15 minutes and a trained monkey could do it - and trained monkeys cost far less and free up time for the real admins to not have to deal with it anymore.
So, we have come to a world where it really is faster and easier to start with reinstalling/reimaging the workstation. It is the first step in troubleshooting as it is so quick. After that if the problem persists there is a diagnostic set that is run to check if it is a hardware problem because the reimage rules out a software issue for the most part because of the QA and testing before the Ghost image is certified/deployed.
If you feel more comfortable reinstalling your system every six months then do it but set up a system where it is really a quick process and non-issue. This sort of practice in dealing with the desktops seems to be the way the industry is trending these days...
Just after I wrote all that down & made my second website in 7 years, oops, out comes original, I just downloaded it, so remember use Romanian mirror for fastest service. http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhancement s/Windows-XP-Service-Pack-3-Preview.shtml
Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.
WINDOWS XP Service Pack -X- 396 mb. http://www.geocities.com/tsvondrashekmd/WASHINGTO
Here is more development of my ideas of what I consider to be enforced sloppiness by Microsoft management: Why no check of user code? Sociology.
Matt, I can tell you something felt strongly by those of us who work in the field: We're suffering badly. Windows Vista is just Windows XP renamed and extended, which is just Windows 2000 renamed and extended. When Windows XP was released, it was very buggy, and caused many time-consuming problems. Windows XP SP2 is much improved, but we are spending days with extremely serious problems. If you would like one example, see the Windows Update Newsgroup. People are being dragged over the coals by the incredible inability of Microsoft to provide a service that works reliably. We ourselves have spent at least 30 hours in the last 3 months wrestling with Windows Update errors.
If sufficient care is being taken, we are not seeing it.
We use Acronis for imaging. We find that trojans attack the operating system, and we need to re-load Windows.
Remember that old images need to be updated eventually. We are making new images now rather than restoring old ones. That also fixes the problems we have been having with an infection at a customer's site.
In general, Windows XP SP2 gives us a lot of very expensive grief. For example, we wasted 1 1/2 days recently when a critical update caused some OS functions to stop operating. This problem was acknowledged by Microsoft, but only after many lost hours. Microsoft could have built the fix into a patch Tuesday adjustment, but decided to let users waste their time instead.
usualy, there are more to service packs then just the outstanding updates. In more recent years, These upgrade/updates only availible to service packs were not availible any other way.
It took three months for microsoft to release an update to the help and support feature that fixed a hole were someone could delete any non-protected files on a computer without any user intervention. Of course microsoft sat on this for 11 weeks before releasing a service pack that fixed the issue but you could only get hat fix from SP1 (xp) for three months (never hit windows update, it had to be downloaded specificaly) and microsoft claims the only reason the fix was released seperatley was because large shops complained about SP1 breaking things and couldn't use it but needed the fix.
If that isn't evidence enough, try to get the IE popup blocker without installing SP2. There are more examples but those two show your not up to date or secure form just doing updates.
Funnily enough, there is no option under 2KPro that allows me to format a filesystem as FAT.
*throws in another disc from a different employer*
Same thing here. No on-install option to format to FAT.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
What huge features did you last $129 credit card payment get you? A seach menu? Widgets? XP Service Pack 2 added just as much, enhanced firewall, security center, ect... The difference, I didn't pay $129.