Microsoft Quietly Releases Windows 2003 SP2

Several readers noted that Microsoft has quietly released 32-bit Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 for download. (The 64-bit edition is still showing as a release candidate on the site.) The installation of SP2 may potentially regress hotfixes that have been deployed previously; Microsoft has released a script to scan for hotfixes that may potentially regress.

Comments

Where is XP sp3?

[Joe The Dragon]

even just a update roll up would be nice. When you install a new xp sp2 system there is a lot of updates that you need to.

Re:This is one of the reasons I prefer Debian.

[suv4x4]

Very good point. Why does MS prefer big honkin' files over a more granular approach anyway?

Microsoft doesn't prefer it: their corporate customers do, as they have to perform lengthy and expensive tests to confirm all of their mission critical apps work with the SP (imagine doing it after every patch).

Also the GP said that in Linux updates just mean the app is "updated" and there aren't any backwards incompatibilities... Hehe, I'd love to be that naive myself. Just consider however, we don't all run amateur home servers for our php blogs.

Re:This is one of the reasons I prefer Debian.

[mobby_6kl]

Most of the updates in SP2 have been already released as separate patches by now. If the system was kept up to date, this SP will only download/install only the few things that are missing and you don't have to go back and re-install anything.

Basically, an SP is mainly a a convenient way of getting an outdated system fully patched-up.

List of regressed hotfixes

[DanMc]

I analyzed the script and extracted the list of possible hotfix regressions. None of them appear to be standard hotfixes. None are installed as part of a WindowsUpdate or SP1. If you have these on your system, you probably installed them after searching the KB to solve a specific problem. Many of the updates do not have public KB articles or descriptions, so you'd have to have gotten the patch after being sent the patch from MSPSS. Here are the public hotfixes that are regressed:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/898073 = [IE6 crashes on] digest proxy authentication [to https sites] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918005 = Battery power may drain more quickly [after unplugging or undocking] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918837 = power management is turned off [after disabling WakeOnWirelessLAN] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924078 = [error opening] Properties [...] for a network printer on [WinXP] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924301 = AutoComplete feature [broken after following javascript link in IE6] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925020 = [Lockup when using] USB device on a multiprocessor computer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925240 = warning message [...] new password that does not meet the requirements http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925513 = Error code Winsock [...] "WSAECONNABORTED (10053)" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926047 = [Misplaced] AutoComplete box [...] in Internet Explorer 6 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926132 = ...WMI does not clear event registrations when the corresponding sink... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926754 = STOP: 0x000000D1 (parameter1 , 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xf27b4e8e) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926940 = SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 stops responding http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927291 = Dfsutil /import" command takes a long time to finish http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927493 = Winsock programs may exhaust the system's non-paged pool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929620 = increased paging to the hard disk when you run an SAP R/3

These fixes are regressed, but they're not published on the public Knowledge Base:

"919757" "925290" "926305" "926513" "926583" "927197" "927436" "927893" "928194" "929066" "929759" "930620" "933452"