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

Re:Curious

[Z34107]

Bah. "FUD," I think the word is.

Or even built an OS that contained programs to a reasonable level and didn't always throw crap into the OS directory.

I assume you're talking about DLL hell. This has been solved since at least XP - overwriting a file in a system directory will silently fail if it's being replaced with an older copy. So, replacing winsock.dll version 2.1 with a version 1.0 because you fail at writing an installer will no longer screw up your system.

Think of Service Packs as analogous to kernel patches. Those have been known to screw up a few programs, haven't they?

Re:Curious

[JebusIsLord]

Windows File Protection only protects a static list of files installed by Windows. To quote MS:

"All SYS, DLL, EXE, and OCX files that ship on the Windows CD are protected. True Type fonts--Micross.ttf, Tahoma.ttf, and Tahomabd.ttf--are also protected."
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/wfp.mspx#E3F

DLL hell still very much exists, as I fight with at work all the time doing application packaging. Typically things like incompatible crystal reports dlls are an issue. Typically and end-user will end up with dozens of different versions of the same DLL in different installation directories, often installing to both %system% and %programfiles%. The next program installed registers it's copy, breaking the old application. App isolation works sometimes, but sometimes it also unfortunately breaks the hell out of things. WFP couldn't even help if it DID apply to these files. .NET thankfully fixed this with the global assembly cache, but that doesn't apply to the win32 world.

Back on topic, it sounds like they DID catch this during testing; which is why it's being delayed! Nice catch, MS. It isn't like we need SP3 direly, right now.

Anyhow,

Re:Curious

[revlayle]

Say what you will about MS and .NET.... .NET (as the parent says) certainly has reduced DLL hell *significantly* Also, it has become increasingly easier to "zip up a folder" of a managed app, unzip to another system and run without a single problem (unless there are hard paths in the app's config file that a well done app will detect and will 1) fix or 2) interactive ask the user "hay where is this?"). As long as you have the correct .NET runtime (which isn't anything different from any other runtime library). COM: nightmare, in fact I found COM worse than just dealing with windows DLL modules in a C/C++ app.

What a surprise

[thetoadwarrior]

It's a shame they don't have full access to all Microsoft products to test this long before the release date.

Isn't this anticompetitive?

[annamadrigal]

Seriously, if Microsoft is prepared to hold up an update of this sort and then modify the procedure to kludge their way around the problem for their own software but would just release the patch if it was someone else's application, then this seems extremely dubious to my non-expert mind. After all, doesn't this give their applications the unusual, and unfair, advantage that they might work with Windows both before and after a major update?

Re:Isn't this anticompetitive?

[i.of.the.storm]

Uh, they delayed the release of Vista SP1 for other companies' drivers to be updated, isn't that the same thing? Perhaps you should do some research before pulling the anticompetitive flag, it's in their best interests to make sure their own shit works properly, shit though it may be. (Note: That's not my opinion, but probably that of others here.)

Vista SP1 has the same bug

[Joe The Dragon]

Vista SP1 has the same bug

A Dynamics Feature!

[DnemoniX]

I work for an online retailer and one of my recent tasks was to evaluate Dynamics for potential use in house. The problem that we ran into was that the media that Microsoft sent us directly plain didn't work. We couldn't even get the package to install; hell we even read the manual. We tried it on XP, Server 2003, and 2008 beta. The installer walks you through all of the preinstall requirements and manages to explode every time. So are they sure SP3 dumping Dynamics isn't just a "feature"?

We are looking at the Apache Open For Biz suite now instead and if that doesn't satisfy management they will go with SugarCRM.

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.

Re:well done

[machxor]

They didn't really patch anything. As anyone running Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System can still break things by installing XP SP3. As far as I can tell they are not changing the actual SP3 installer so that it will not install on a machine running Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. Doesn't even sound like it will warn.

Re:well done

[machxor]

But if you RTFA you'll see that they did not patch the installer. They "patched" Windows Update to not provide you with the installer for XP SP3 if it detects MS DRMS. There have been no changes that prevent a MS DRMS user from downloading the SP3 installer exe and running it. "To help protect our customers, we plan to put filtering in place shortly to prevent Windows Update from offering both service packs to systems running Microsoft Dynamics RMS. Once filtering is in place, we expect to release Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update and Download Center"

What else will break?

[blunte]

Makes you wonder what software will break that they didn't test...

I suppose we owe thanks to the early adopters out there for testing all our updates.

Now you know why your corporate IT department is so reluctant to update software and OSs.

Re:XP SP3 = "Vista Migration Plan"

[petermgreen]

Windows XP still has just under 6 years of support left (just under a year of mainstream support left, then another 5 years of extended support).

It seems you are confusing the end of support with the end of retail and big brand OEM availibility.

Wait a minute..

[mweather]

People actually use that POS?

In a nutshell

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nutshell:

  * one of Microsoft's own software breaks after installing SP3 for Windows XP.

  * the software that breaks is a business application, and not some security program requiring undocumented API calls or system drivers

What are the odds that software from others will break, too?

A cynical part of me wonders if SP3 contains breaking changes to make life harder for WINE, and possibly other solutions.

Does anyone have more info regarding the specific reasons for breakage?

It must be hard...

[jberryman]

getting all those glitches in on time for release.

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.

Re:I'm not suprised

[PopeRatzo]

Microsoft is not one monolithic entity, as many believe, but a group of different business units.

At least that was the assertion by the Justice Department. I don't think MS sees it that way.

Our fears confirmed

[MrKevvy]

SP3...apparently broke a Microsoft application, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System...

Service Pack withdrawn because it breaks the Microsoft DRM System. Cue tinfoil hats.

Amazed

[jdc180]

I'm amazed the submitter didn't go for the glitzy headline: "Microsoft breaks RMS"

for glitches, just use a karnaugh map

[solweil]

They should have just filled out a Karnaugh map and done the overlapping square trick. That gets rid of some glitches.

Re:XP SP3 = "Vista Migration Plan"

[DudemanX]

No, you buy a Vista Business license which is downward compatible with XP Pro.

I've already built a slipstreamed SP3 machine

[spywhere]

After one false start a few days ago, caused when someone posted build 3311 (a release candidate) as the final RTM, I downloaded the final release this morning. I immediately slipstreamed it into a (XP Pro SP2) CD folder, threw an answer file winnt.sif into the i386 directory, and burned a bootable CD.
Then, I swapped a blank hard disk into this very HP DV9000 laptop, and did the clean unattended SP3 build.
The build went OK, I installed all my apps with few surprises, and now I'm back up on my old user profile (since I'm on a domain, it even remembers my stored passwords).

A few observations:
--They didn't add too many drivers: SP3.CAB (which presumably includes all the contents of SP2.CAB) is only 19587 KB in size, a mere 7 percent larger than the SP2 driver file released in August 2004.
--I don't think any of those added drivers helped my DV9000: I ended up installing every single device I had to update a few months ago when I last did a clean SP2 install.
--They did, at least, include the High-Definition Audio update in SP3. This is helpful, since Microsoft no longer offers the update for download; building a clean SP2 box with HD Audio previously required one to find a copy somewhere else before the sound -- and often the modem -- drivers would work.
--It doesn't include IE7, and my customized Google installer wouldn't work on the SP3 installation, so I had to get it from Windows Update.
--As one might expect, it saved quite a bit of time on the post-build Windows Updates. Not counting IE7, Office or hardware drivers, this particular machine has only downloaded half a dozen updates so far.

Re:I've already built a slipstreamed SP3 machine

[Sentry21]

I keep evangelizing this program on Slashdot, but it keeps being worth it, so I'll do it again.

If people are going to build slipstreamed XP discs, they need to start using nLite. It allows you not only to slipstream in SP3, but also things like Windows Media Player 11 (nice), and there are packs you can grab from the site to add things like Firefox, Acrobat, Sun Java, FoxIt PDF Reader, and so on.

â¦THENâ¦

You can go through and remove stuff. Windows XP has a ton of drivers for video cards. It doesn't support most nVidia video cards, or newer ATI stuff either, but it DOES support old Trident cards (likely even my old 256kb Trident card). it also has support for (and drivers for) ATM networking (even in the Home version, afaik). You can strip all of that out. Also feel free to take out fax support, dial-up-networking support, Domain support (if you use XP Pro at home, or MCE), and so on.

Take out Windows themes. Add other ones in. I make all my systems default to the MCE 'Royale' theme, because hey, it's nicer. You can increase the maximum TCP connections (instead of patching later); you can enable the uxtheme.dll patch to support non-signed themes. Change default preferences, like disabling theme support entirely, turning off animated menus, setting the default folder view, and others. Remove services you don't need.

I've managed to strip down a 680 MB XP Pro SP2 disc to a 150 MB SP3 disc; at the same time, I configured it for an automated install (with the exception of choosing partitions), I added custom themes, I added drivers for the ethernet cards, video cards, and sound cards I use (including drivers for Parallels and VMWare), and bam. A Windows CD customized precisely for you.

You also save a HUGE amount of space on-disk after install, the install takes less time (a timed test in a VM went from 1.5 hours to 10 minutes).

It's an amazing little tool, and I can't compliment the author enough, other than by letting people know.

Of course, if you have Vista but want to fit it onto a CD instead of filling a DVD, you can check out vLite also. Strip out all the crap you don't need, and save a ton of time.