Last-Minute Glitch Holds Up Windows XP SP3

An anonymous reader sends word that Microsoft Windows XP SP3, which had been scheduled to hit the Web today, was pulled back at the last minute. SP3 apparently broke a Microsoft application, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. Their solution is to set up a filter to make sure that no system running the affected software will get automatically updated; once the filter is in place, SP3 will be released to the Web. A fix for the incompatibility will follow.

Comments

Curious

[TubeSteak]

You'd think Microsoft would test Service Packs against all Microsoft products while the SPs are still in Alpha or Beta.

Re:Curious

[Romancer]

That is what alpha and beta testing is supposed to address. It's not unreasonable to expect that during the beta testing of a piece of software that they would try and make sure it was compatable with at least the software packages they sell.

And secondly, this is what happens when software isn't sectioned off from the os and contained with reasonable restrictions and documented APIs. This would be a really simple thing for them if they even stuck to their own standards. How would if break another application if they had communicated a set of standards to both departments on how to program properly. Or even built an OS that contained programs to a reasonable level and didn't always throw crap into the OS directory. /rant

well done

[geekoid]

they caught an error and patched it for everyone else while working on it.

This can happen to any patch that rolls out. It's when it's not caught that we should complain.

No, I am NOT an apologist.

I'm not suprised

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Firstly, the type of organisation using retail management systems tend to be conservative and not bleeding edge because downtime costs money. They would not be playing with beta SP releases and would not be seeing problems.

Secondly, Microsoft is not one monolithic entity, as many believe, but a group of different business units. The DRMS folk aren't going to drop their current activities to check whether a different business unit's updates work.

Thirdly, so what! Why not ship it anyway with a release note saying "Don't use with DRMS!". SP2 broke some MS developer tools and that did not stop them shipping it. Some organisations had to wait months for updates before they could migrate to SP2.