Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003

mithridate writes "Microsoft has posted the Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate. eWeek has a short review of the service pack. My favorite quote from the article is, 'The company argues that the improvements are important enough that applications should be changed to accommodate them.' I know I still have not installed SP2 because of the problems it causes with SQL Server, I can't wait to see what kind of havoc it causes on the servers..."

Re:damn.

[NotoriousQ]

I hope that you mean this for a corporate production environment.

As for home use, you can simply upgrade, and turn off the firewall. That will allow most programs to work as before.

There are a couple of things that I believe have changed in SP2 that can affect you but are not firewall related: No more raw sockets, and a limit to how many connection can be created per second.

No reason to not install, especially if you are an IE user.

Re:Running Win Server 2k3 as a Workstation

[Anonymous Coward]

Better heap manager. Locked-down with minimal services by default. You have to work to make it a pig like XP. IIS6. Sharepoint services. DFS. Shadow copy. Anything that you can run on XP runs on 2003, including gaming.

Come on.

[BoldAC]

I am much of an anti-Microsoft person as anybody...

But, guys... this is a release candidate. It designed to test out in your test environment... Even the evil overlords say:

We advise against installing and evaluating beta software on any production computers.

When they don't fix the problems we find before they release the final version... that's when we should start the griping. :)

Re:Running Win Server 2k3 as a Workstation

[Foolhardy]

Er, you know that XP is closer to 2003 than 2000 is. Server 2003 is based on XP; they took the XP code base, re-added the 2000 server stuff and made some updates.
2000 is NT 5.0
XP is NT 5.1
2003 is NT 5.2

XP SP2 and SQL Server Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you mean how UDP and TCP/IP connections are turned off by default?

Turn them back on if you need them and install SQL Server SP3a as advised [microsoft.com] beforehand.

I think you'll find this fixes all SQL Server on SP2 'problems' as I have found on 6 development machines for the last 7 or so months. It's not like there's a void of information out there on the subject. MS products suffer from so many problems that they do actually have a decent amount of information online about them. A problem affecting SQL Server and SP2 like the vague one you mention is bound to have been so common as to have been fixed.

Re:Win2k & Server 2k3

[XopherMV]

Win2003 was forked from the WinXP code base. They are basically the same OS with some minor tweakages. WinXP is made for single users who usually run just a few programs at a time. Win2003 is a server OS, made for running tons of programs all at once.

That's why you often don't see drivers for Win2003. Companies mostly just write one driver for both WinXP and Win2003. That saves them time and money.

To say WinXP or Win2003 is better than the other is kind of ridiculous since they're about the same. It just depends on what you want to do. If you use WinXP for a file server, then you get the problems you deserve. Likewise, if you use Win2003 for playing Half-Life 2, then you get the poor performance you deserve.

Re:damn.

[Foolhardy]

The connection limit is done directly in the TCP/IP protocol driver, tcpip.sys which makes it much harder to remove; you have to patch the binary.
Search for "Event ID 4226".

Re:Windows 2003 popularity?

[ad0gg]

If your running asp.net under win2k it runs as an ISAPI process. With server2003 its runs natively in IIS, makes it a little bit more robust. Also like the security settings, especially being able to control TCP/IP down to the port level. Not sure if this also on win2k, if it is, it must be buried.

Re:Sql Server and SP2?

[njan]

Some (enterprise-grade) applications require the use of SQL Server Desktop Engine (the anti-virus vendor Sophos, for one, use this - Veritas would be an example of another).

In many instances, this doesn't react well with software on Windows server builds (again, as examples, SQL Server proper and Terminal Services both are broken by and break these two products in particular).

Especially in the ranks of middle-sized organisations which don't feel like splashing out hundreds of dollars (or more) for copies of windows server simply to run veritas and sophos, there are plenty of organisations which run 'server' software and SQL desktop engine / SQL Server on workstation builds of windows.

Re:Change is Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never had to fiddle with code, edit make files, and recompile libraries, drivers, or applications for a new major kernel revision?

Never. Libc has sometimes had minor compatibility problems, let alone things like Gnome, but kernel binary compatibility has always been dependable in my experience.

Re:Running Win Server 2k3 as a Workstation

[Blakey Rat]

There's this wide belief that Windows 2000 is better than Windows XP because it's more simple... i.e. less background services, less eye candy, runs faster.

The fact is that XP, once configured close to Windows 2000's defaults, is actually quite a bit faster than Windows 2000, uses the same amount of memory, and still has all the features built-into XP. (Like Remote Desktop, System Restore, more advanced IE.)

In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to still be using Windows 2000 with Windows XP available. Grab XP, spend an hour customizing it, and you can make it basically a clone of 2000 but with more features.

Re:Windows 2003 popularity?

[Malc]

If you're buying or leasing new systems, it's probably a better idea to go with Windows Server 2003 than an OS that's five years old. Sure there's good reason not to jump on the new OS bandwagon, but I think it has proven its stability. Think about it: in three years time (which could be well within the lifetime of those servers), Win2K is going to be getting very long in the tooth. Almost as long in the tooth as NT4 is now.

Anyway, all our new servers use the new OS. Obviously tested it first. It's a lot nicer to work with remotely, and is just generally better all round (shock! horror! Microsoft's marketing turned out to be true!).

Re:Sql Server and SP2?

[RupW]

Thanks for the link - so default firewall settings break SQL server's TCP/IP interface: I didn't know that.

That said, you *shouldn't* be using the TCP/IP interface pretty much ever. If your client is on the same PC you should use "(local)" which will use either named pipes or shared memory IPC; if you're accessing another PC on the same network you should use named pipes and if you *really* need remote enterprise manager across the NET you should remote desktop into the PC and run it locally. Then there's no SP2 vs SQL Server issue *at all*.

Re:Please enlighten me...

[RupW]

Could you please explain what are the "problems it causes with SQL Server"?

As someone else pointed out above, there's a KB [microsoft.com] about it: default firewall settings break SQL Server's TCP/IP interface. Which, IMO, you shouldn't use ever [slashdot.org].

Re:Win2k & Server 2k3

[flosofl]

All the consumer-level (read: home user) products up to XP were DOS based. In other words, DOS was the framework and the GUI's were slapped on top(95 beta actually used 7.0 as a version on boot disks made with it). This includes 3.x, 95, 98, and (shudder) ME. XP Home is the first consumer-level OS from Microsoft that is NOT based on DOS - it uses the NT kernel. IIRC, MS made a BIG deal about the fact that XP home was the first non DOS-based OS for home users they've released (a goal for a LONG time).

Re:Scoff all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, troll, but Windows Update shows third party driver downloads for me...

Re:Win2k & Server 2k3

[MyHair]

By that logic Linux as loaded by loadlin.exe could be considered DOS based. From Win95 up I don't believe any system calls made it back to the DOS boot system (save perhaps DOS TSR programs/drivers if loaded?), but it was in memory lying dormant somewhere.

Maybe I'm being pedantic. Even if what I say is all true the Win9x line was a hybrid of 32-bit and 16-bit and switched from protected mode to real mode and back as it saw fit. (thunk compiling)

Re:HOOLD THE PRESSES!

[Foolhardy]

Never heard of slipstreaming [microsoft.com], eh? Install the patches before you install the OS.

You can also export registry hives and user profiles so you don't have to input those customizations manually for every install.

Re:Catch-22

[DavidD_CA]

I looked on the site but couldn't find the list. Care to post the URL?

I would suspect, admittedly without looking at the list yet, that the majority of these "broken" applications are the same ones that were "broken" when SP2 came out for XP because of the default firewall settings.

I heard that unplugging your 'puter from the internets also "breaks" thems programs, too.

Re:Win2k & Server 2k3

[Billly Gates]

I thought they were identical?

When I install my nvida driver for my pc when it was dual XP/2k it installed the exact same dlls and all the drivers I find on the net have Windows XP/2k.

I believe they are the same except for some newer hardware and things like digital camera's. It would not make sense for MS to make a totally new set of driver api's.

I use to work repairing copiers and apps like the bios flash utility for copiers would crash laptops running XP but run fine under w2k. This was not driver code causing the problem.

I do wonder if the Windows 95/98/ME group were the ones who screwed up XP. The Windows2k group came from the NT group.

But a bad driver model could also be to blame for a crash. Bad drivers rarely crash a unix system unless the hardware is totally dead.

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