Slashdot Mirror
Vista SP1 Update Locks Out Some Users
Echostorm writes with word that Windows Vista SP1, which began rolling out via Automatic Update, has left some users' machines unbootable. The update loops forever on "Configuring updates: Stage 3 of 3 — 0% complete. Do not turn off your computer." "Shutting down"... restart and loop. Echostorm notes having found traces of what sounds like the same bug in early beta releases of SP1. It's unclear how many users are affected. So far there is no word on a fix from Microsoft.
Actually, yes. In fact, those of us inside Microsoft (I'm a Vendor, and not on Vista team) have had access to SP1 for over a month.
Something similar happened with the 10.4.11 update as well.
It appears that each little division of Microsoft is their own little fiefdom. Take a common DLL - comctl32.dll (common controls). Windows ships with one version. Office ships with another version. Applications (using Visual Studio Redistributables) ship with a third version! Each has features that aren't in the others, so Windows apps get one look, Office another look, and 3rd party apps yet another look.
In addition, the OS team forked the compiler they use from the development team. It makes sense in one aspect - all developers have a stable toolchain. However, if the dev team breaks something, instead of the Windows team making a big stink, people who use Visual Studio do.
As far as anyone's concerned, Microsoft might as well be split up into separate companies - they more or less act that way anyhow. Code's taken from one team and forked, improvements aren't folded back in, etc.
Since Vista SP1 isn't even being deployed via Windows Update until next month, this whole story reeks of BS...
In fact, all the posts to the thread in the article were made after this article was posted to slashdot and by posters with a post count of 1. They talk about SP1 on auto-update (which the original post didn't) yet that can't possibly be true because that's not the case. And oh look, echostormfury is one of the posters, could he perchance be related to the Echostorm who posted the story? I smell bullshit...
Bullshit... The amount of hardware variability has declined over the past 15-odd years due to consolidation and Microsoft's insistence...
* How many CPU makers are out there today? 2. (Transmeta is dead).
* How many companies make chipsets (north/southbridges) today? 4(?)
* GPU makers? 3.
* BIOS vendors? 3(?)
* Sound cards? 2 (Intel & Creative)
* Expansion interfaces? 2 (PCI, PCI-Express)
Now, look back to 1993-1995. How many no-name brand BIOSes caused problems? How many brands of VGA chipsets were there? CPU makers? (Think Intel, AMD, Cyrix, NexGen, C&T,...) How many expansion interfaces were there (ISA, VLB, PCI, MCA). How many brands had their own incompatible hardware, where Microsoft's HIMEM.SYS had special switches for (AST, Everex, IBM PS/2, etc.) All of these worked well with DOS/Win3.x and Win95.
No, this is Microsoft's way of saying "we don't know what's wrong with Vista!"
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
I say that because we have been Beta testing SP1 on 350 machines here at my university for some months now. Machines with different graphic cards, processors , extra hardware like scanners, different printers, graphic input tablets, and so on. That problem in our 350 machines was never detected.
So, sure, that proble may exists, but it must be some special combination that non of the testers was available to reproduce. Let it be only a 0,5 percent of Vista users who have that problem. You will read about it anywhere and think "oh, that sucks, they do not test, blah blah". Sure, only the press doesn't write about the 99,5% who didn't have any problems with it. It's a problem with proportion: do you want to see the glass half-full or half-empty. And here in /. you sure want it to be half empty.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Incorrect. If you paid attention, it was rolled out via the automatic update.
... I had it rebooting for over an hour before I stopped the madness.
So you believe everything you read? Even if you did, if you RTFA, the not-so-reliable Forum post says NOTHING about Windows Update (emphasis mine):
My install of the SP1 RC Refesh has gone wrong.
Everytime I start the computer it says:
Configurating updates: stage 3 of 3 - 0% complete
And then reboots, and reboots, and reboots
All the safe modes does the same, so how do I uninstall the installer, without being able to log in?
I got Vista Home Premium with a new Dell Inspiron 530 I bought the other day, and I found that I liked it a lot (and I've been an MS basher around here too-I'm astounded myself). I have not had any problems with Vista running any of my old Windows software and it has worked with all of my hardware. So, I'm keeping it on here rather than dicking with Kubuntu and getting that up and running. I'll just keep that on my old machine.
I got a work email from Microsoft saying that Vista SP1 was available now on MSDN. So, I downloaded it last night. Just to be sure before I took the plunge, I chatted with Dell customer support who told me not to install SP1 yet and to wait until it comes out over Windows Update. I couldn't quite get it out of them, but it sounds like Dell is still working with Microsoft on some things. More than once I was told to not install SP1 on my machine. So, I'm waiting it out.
A friend of mine works at MS... his entire job consists of setting up different lab machines for testing scenarios. All day. Every day.
So, yes. They have quite a large testing environment going on. I know you were kidding, but...
Having seen one of the many labs I can tell you that they absolutely try to hit every possible permutation. This one lab must have had at least 6,000 machines all packed very tightly into racks stretching down a series of aisles. All of these machines were constantly running regression tests on the daily builds of DirectX. This was one of several labs in this single building, and MS main campus has, what, 25 buildings?
And this doesn't count those public betas, of which there were probably tens of thousands of people at least passively testing.
Your funny math makes my brain hurt.
The number of vendors is a horrible measurement. Try variants on for size:
How many CPU variants does one of the two manufacturers currently support? Try over 125. http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUResult.aspx?f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=& Oh, and that's just for the desktop.
GPU? NVidia has 38 families of chipsets. At ~5 products for each chipset, you're over 190.
What about all of the other hardware on a motherboard? Bluetooth, USB, Firewire, network drivers and modems are some of the largest contributers to OS development overhead/headache; tell me, have you ever tried to load up Feisty Ubuntu using a Broadcomm wireless device?!?
By the way, this doesn't include all of the half-assed components people drop onto their computers like humping dog memory sticks or coffee warmers let alone all of the out of date drivers people have installed on their systems (have you checked your BIOS rev lately?).
This isn't "Microsoft's way of saying 'we don't know what's wrong with Vista,'" it's Microsoft's way of saying, "we're trying our damnedest to clean this up, but you idiots keep pissing in the pool."