Microsoft Releases SP4 for Windows 2000

Snake_Plisken writes "I checked Windows Update today on a lark and found that Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 has been released." You can read a short CNet article discussing the media player patches as well as one more about the fixes in SP4.

Yes, Yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

But when are they going to release a service pack for Windows NT4?

Microsoft's stake in Telewest plunged in value

[throwaway18]

>I think they're at SP6 for that one....
SP6a actually, SP6 had some problems.

Microsoft officially stops selling NT4 licenses
and providing support on the 30th of July, which is next monday.

I will still be running it for some time to come.
NT4 includes version 2 of IE. IE2 is so old it dosn't support http1.1 and can't access virtual hosted sites cutting it off from a lot of the web.

With mozilla it is practical to run NT4 without installing a later version of IE. Installing IE4+ and ending up with bits of

Re:Microsoft's stake in Telewest plunged in value

[Loki_1929]

"NT4 includes version 2 of IE. IE2 is so old it dosn't support http1.1 and can't access virtual hosted sites cutting it off from a lot of the web."

Oddly enough, you can install Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 on Windows NT Workstation 4.0. It doesn't appear to slow down anything at all.

"I want a new version of NT4 with updated drivers and USB support "

Yeah, that's called Windows 2000.

"Microsoft plans to maximise revenue direct otherwise."

By your logic, if I can't purchase an Intel 4004 with integrated 802.11a/b and SSE-II, it's because Intel "plans to maximise revenue direct otherwise." That doesn't sound a little silly to you? Come on, this was a product created back in 1995/96. Do you expect them to give you free support and updates in the year 2025? Even Microsoft couldn't afford to do that; they'd have groups of people paid only to support a product that hasn't been produced (read: hasn't made them any money) in more than 20 years. At some point, you must either upgrade to a newer version, or accept that you simply will not have support for things that weren't around when the technology you're using was created.

No thanks

[L. VeGas]

I'll wait until it's been ported to Linux.

Re:No thanks

[bsharitt]

I was going to start on the port, but I couldn't find to link for the source code.

Obligitory complaint...

[Chuck Bucket]

Let's get it outta the way early:

AWWWWW...I just got SP3 installed last night!

CB

Just Curious

[bloxnet]

Any brave souls out there already applied this yet? I am looking at about 100 Win2K boxes that will potentially need this...so anyone with feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Re:Just Curious

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloading it right now.

In your case, with 100 Win2K boxes, I would suggest installing it on one or two, monitoring the results, and then publishing it incrementally using Software Update Services from a Win2K Server. This at least removes you from the picture and you can go view some porn while it goes off on it's own.

Re:Actually, it's just as easy..

[SonicBurst]

You have a very good point. It can be difficult to understand what is going on using things like group policy. I fully agree that writing a script that simply logs into the machine and runs the executable is much more.....understandable. However, once you do learn and understand group policy, it becomes very easy to administer and use it to your benefit.

That said, yes, I know very well what is going on when I use group policy. ( I do it on a daily basis) Troubleshooting failed group policy can be maj

Re:Just Curious

[mr.henry]

I upgraded 5 boxes in my office today to SP4. I skipped the the Windows Update page and used the direct download available from the beast here [microsoft.com]. I have not had any problems yet.

I know this is slashdot, but I have been very impressed with Win2k. It's fast, stable, and reliable. I've flirted with XP a couple times, but I always end up reinstalling 2k.

Re:Just Curious

[mrpuffypants]

As much as I hate to say it, 2k is a really good operating system. XP uses the same kernel as 2k and it seems to run pretty well too. If it had a bit more finish to it then I probably would have stuck with it rather than going up to XP.

Funny, I'm the other way around...

[Kjella]

Because XP feels so flashy, childish and dumbed down, I'd either go to Linux or Win2k if my current XP install goes completely ka-boom. 99% of what I've done with XP is make it like 2k, but once that was done I don't see any technical reason to downgrade either.

Kjella

Re:Just Curious

[Traa]

same here. No problems with SP4. I had to reboot my developer machine after 3 weeks of uninterupted uptime (installed a new Adaptec USB2 driver 3 weeks back). That is quite a step up from a few years back when many a debug session would end in a reboot. For me windows 2000 has been rock solid and a pleasant experience. I might still pick Linux over 2000, but my work leaves me little choice (and I really don't care that much).

Re:Just Curious

[Mostly a lurker]

To be fair, W2K is a decent operating system and W2K3 is better. That said, its vendor is sleasy, deliberately breaks standards and (in my view) will eventually bleed dry anyone who locks themselves into Microsoft. For business, I use Windows a lot. But, I recommend to everyone who will listen that they should position themselves to be able to move to alternatives.

Re:Just Curious

[dasmegabyte]

I think it's telling that even though XP's been out for at least a year, 2000 is still available as an option on new Dells. I asked for it 'special when they ordered my new PC for work.

2000 is, in my opinion, the peak windows OS. It works, plays well with hardware, and doesn't try and mess with the concept of the UI too much. It adds transparency but doesn't mutilate it, and you can turn off the one dumb feature (menu sliding and fading).

XP...well, XP moves shit around on me. Nothing's where I expect it to be. There are all these words...and real estate on menus is sucked up by these complicated sentences that have nothing to do with what I use my computer for.

In short, XP fights my productivity. Every time I try to do something, it slows me down in a way that I only need the first time I do that thing. It's like a tutorial you can't skip past. Whereas Win2k gets things out of my way and only tells me what I need to know. If I need more, it gives me that option.

Even "classic" mode is a bear, because the control panel is all munged up. Erg!

I like Office 2000 better than XP as well...2000 was a good year for MS, maybe it's because it was the last cycle before Balmer came in as Lord of the Sith.

Re:Just Curious

[KenR]

2000 is, in my opinion, the peak windows OS. It works, plays well with hardware
Unless that hardware is a laptop. XP is much more laptop friendly. Also, if you care about amount of time to boot, XP is a win as well.
"and doesn't try and mess with the concept of the UI too much."
Under XP:

Switch to Classic Theme (Display->Themes)

Turn off Effects (Display->Appearance->Effects)

Get rid of the rest of the visual effects (System->Advanced->Performance Options->Visual Effects.

"Even "classic" mode is a bear, because the control panel is all munged up. Erg!"
As another poster mentioned: switch to the old style control panel.

I like Office 2000 better than XP as well
It's faster, it takes less memory... But it's MDI, and it was worth the upgrade to Office XP for me just to get away from Windows 3.1 style MDI windows.

Re:Just Curious

[Qzukk]

As another poster mentioned: switch to the old style control panel.

I used XP for a while, but I spent 90% of that time switching the theme to classic, the windows to classic, the file manager to classic, the control panel to classic, the start menu to classic, the mouse control to classic, the font to classic, the desktop to classic, the sounds to classic, the...

You get the picture right? I suppose it would have made the little girl who created the UI with their crayons cry if they made it easy to turn

Re:Just Curious

[caouchouc]

When I'm on an XP machine the first thing I do is wonder whose office I'm in, 'cause it certainly ain't mine.

Re:Just Curious

[Cyclometh]

I have 5 Win 2K servers and two Win XP boxes in my home lab, along with three FreeBSD systems. The XP and 2K systems have about the same uptime as the FreeBSD ones.

The only restarts for *any* of my systems in the last two years were for moving, installing new hardware, applying some update or another, or the occasional power supply failure- had two of those in the last year. I've had exactly zero crashes related to software in several years. I get a BSOD on my laptop every now and again, but that comes with the territory of running a debugger.

I routinely get 6 months or more uptime out of my desktop, and more than that for my servers. Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing.

Re:Just Curious

[Loki_1929]

"Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing."

Alright, I'll bite - WINDOWS ME! :P

Christ Almighty couldn't make WinME stable with the help of a dozen M$ software engineers and Gates himself. A stable WinME box? Heh. If such an animal existed, up would be down, black would be white, and I'd be able to get a tan.

Re:Just Curious

[tensai]

"Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing."

Alright, I'll bite - WINDOWS ME! :P

The solution for Windows Me is a little less intuitive. It involves a large hammer and a lot of smashing. After that, not only will your computer will never crash again but you'll feel a lot better too.

Re:Just Curious

[Cyclometh]

Sometimes I think MS Bob is the Voldemort of the IT world- "you-know-what" or "the app that must not be named".

This is borne out by the sort of vaguely ill look and flinching exhibited by anyone else when you mention its name. ;-)

Re:Just Curious

[Aliencow]

Once, I had 24days of uptime on Windows 95. That's why I prefer it to Linux, it doesn't take years before you can brag about your uptime !

Re:Just Curious

[woozlewuzzle]

Since OS News had this yesterday (as did Arstechnica) I've seen a number of people installed without issue. I've done 2 servers in my lab (both were up to date on all hotfixes already) and they seem fine so far. I heard rumors (fud? who knows) that some systems that were only at SP2 had problems after upgrading, but I wouldn't think that is a widespread problem right now. Test, retest then deploy

Re:Just Curious

[winmonster]

Well my laptop and two of my desktops at work haven't crapped out since installing it this morning. I just got done streamlining CDs for Pro, Server and Advanced server. Something to watch out for - SP4 re-enabled the Background Intelligent Transfer and Automatic Update Services. It doesn't re-enable Automatic Updates if you had that disabled, though.

BTW, the md5sums for the service pack linked to by OSNews (I assume it's the same one that Neowin found.) and the one on the official Microsoft download page are identical.

Re:Just Curious

[Artifex]

My only complaint so far is that, after rebooting and logging in for the first time, it took several minutes before it got to the "loading user preferences" pop-up. Much longer than usual for a service pack or patch.

The fact that it doesn't seem to apply until you log in is also important - make sure you log into each machine, afterwards, so that you know it's installed.

Also, don't forget to also apply the (additional) media player 9 series patch. It's actually separate from the main SP4. Luckily, you don

EULA changes

[jmaatta]

Someone post the diffs between SP3's and SP4's EULAs :)

Re:EULA changes

[Pop n' Fresh]

Actually, they supposedly made changes to SP4's EULA in direct response to the foofaraw over SP3's. I haven't read it yet, but they apparently spell out clearly what they can do to your machine (install updates automatically) and how you can disallow them from doing it, which is by turning off Automatic Updates and the media player automatic codec download thingy.

Re:EULA changes

[greentree]

yes. for the automatic updates you simply disable the windows service by going to 'adminstrative tools' in the control panel and opening up 'services'. i do it everytime i do a clean install, as well as a few other services... such as "remote registry access" and useless things like that.

Re:EULA changes

[Ryosen]

>> Using a program (which i'd strongly reccomend to you if i could remember what/where it was)

Fortunately, I can. ;)

One tool that does what you describe is called "Process Explorer" and is available from SysInternals [sysinternals.com]. Free.

The trojan that you found sounds like one of the many mIRC replacement programs that are used for botting and DDoS attacks. We found one on our network and were able to trace it's introduction back to a website. It used an exploit in IE that allows the installation of applicatio

Remember Service Packs are cumulative

[drew_kime]

I'm not looking at the terms of the EULA to confirm this, but I've read that MS Service Packs are cumulative, in that when you install SP4 you are agreeing to install SP3 (along with its EULA). If true, this means that by installing SP4 you are agreeing to the terms of SP3.

Re:Remember Service Packs are cumulative

[el-spectre]

Yes, they are cumulative.

My understanding is that the EULA for a later version takes precedence over earlier versions, so SP4 would be the 'rule'

Re:Remember Service Packs are cumulative

[56ker]

Has the legal status of EULAs been clarified? 1) You don't sign them and 2) They often contain illegal clauses.....

Re:EULA changes

[Anonymous Coward]

s/all your base are/all of your bases/

Re:EULA changes

[DailyGrind]

SP3 EULA summary: we own you!
SP4 EULA summary: dear sir/mam, we own you.

Change Log

[Jack Comics]

Go here [neowin.net] for the change log to Windows 2000 Service Pack Four. Some of the changes are quite amusing.

Re:Change Log

[jmaatta]

It's really worth reading through. Here's a sample:

325038: Calendar Type May Change to Japanese Emperor Era When Outlook Runs

Re:Change Log

[Methlin]

You missed:
313371 Samba becoming too compatible, break it Directory services

</joke>

Re:Change Log

[Ralph Wiggam]

I also like:

One-Hour Delay Occurs During Startup with a USB Keyboard and PS/2 Mouse

I want to know who figured that out.

-B

Re:Change Log

[DragonMagic]

I guess someone didn't read well enough into it to see what it was, since I can't figure out how this got rated 5, Funny.

This bug affects only those who use Japanese Outlook, which would, naturally, use the two different date formats in Japan. The standard BC/AD year format, and the Japanese Emperor Era format. The latter is just the year of the current Emperor's term (the current emperor, Emperor Akihito, was crowned in 1989, making the Emperor Era Year 15).

I guess a little knowledge kills the humor for me.

Re:Change Log

[Some Dumbass...]

I guess a little knowledge kills the humor for me.

Correct. You see, jokes are primarily supposed to be funny. Realism isn't a priority.

For example, in reality, all your base are not in fact belong to us. In fact, I suspect you are have no base at all. It's a pity, I know, but that are the way it is.

Not that your post wasn't informative, mind you. It was. But you missed the point.

Re:Change Log

[MikeD83]

Here are a couple of the more amusing fixes for the time constrained (read: lazy).

- DHCP Service Uses a Default TTL Value of 900 Seconds
- Unexpected Delay When You Log Off
- Spooler CPU Usage Remains Above 50 Percent If an LPR Port Has a DNS Name That Is Not Valid for the LPD Server
- First Character of Each Line Is Missing When You Print with the Generic Printer Driver
- Computer Displays a Blank Screen When You Resume from an S1 or S3 Power State After You Remove an IEEE 1394 Storage Device
- Windows Critical Update Notification 3.0 May Cause a "Dirty" Shutdown
- A Laptop Computer Has No IP Address After Hibernating
- The "Look In" and "Save As" Boxes in Common Dialog Boxes Are Slow
- The "Eject PC" Command May Not Work Intermittently
- The Computer Hangs If You Call LockWorkstation() While a Screen Saver Is Running
- Performance of Microsoft Commerce Server-based Programs May Degrade Over Time Gee, what a suprise...
- Paged Pool Memory Decreases as You Add RAM
- Multimedia Device Does Not Work After You Update Its Driver
- File Server Stops Responding (Hangs) When You Rename a File
- No Audio on a Web Camera When You Resume from Hibernation
- Computer with Multiple Processors and an AGP Video Adapter Hangs During Startup
- Disk Performance May Degrade Over Time It does?

Re:Change Log

[kavau]

- The "Eject PC" Command May Not Work Intermittently

It was about time they got the "Eject PC" command to work properly! It's an important feature for those of us who use Win2000 on their fighter jet cockpit computers. I once lost my entire address book because the darn PC wouldn't eject before a crash landing...

Re:Change Log

[Per Wigren]

Is that the list of fixed bugs or new features?

Re:Change Log

[anthony_dipierro]

Unexpected Delay When You Log Off

They finally fixed that? Wow, that's probably going to be my number 1 reason to install SP4.

Re:Change Log

[WannaBeGeekGirl]

Unexpected Delay When You Log Off

They finally fixed that? Wow, that's probably going to be my number 1 reason to install SP4.

Yeah, now its an "Expected" Delay When You Log Off.

Oh well, my code isn't perfect either...

WBGG

Re:Change Log

[calethix]

"- The "Eject PC" Command May Not Work Intermittently"

They fixed it so the Eject PC command does work intermittently?

Re:Change Log

[Xerithane]

This is great:

"Computer Is Unresponsive When Hibernating"

If you click through to the details it means that the computer is freezing when going into hibernation. Not while it is hibernating.

Re:Change Log

[Dr Caleb]

Here's a good one:

Banner Page Always Prints When a Service That Needs to Print to a Novell NetWare Print Queue Prints

The rain in Spain...Err...nevermind.

Re:Change Log

[svallarian]

Here's my favorite: (Under security fixes)
Vulnerability in Terminal Services Licensing May Permit a Malicious User to Generate Additional Client Licenses in Terminal Services Licensing

Ooh! That nasty hacker is going to make you a software pirate!


Steven V.

Re:Change Log

[blackmonday]

Did you see this one?

325039: Turned off the groaning sound when Internet Explorer visited "Slashdot.org".

Re:Change Log

[IthnkImParanoid]

Pfff, I viewed it in IE (not my choice, attending an oracle class right now), and it looks like crap. One can only assume this web master never even looked at his page in any browser.

I don't know what you're looking at, but I'll give $5 to the first person to track down that web master, etch "tr valign=top" into a baseball bat and hammer him over the head with it.

Re:Change Log

[Anonymous Coward]

Who writes these webpages? Did somebody look at the HTML source of this page? Ever heard of a tag?

What are you takling about? It renders fine on IE 6.0 SP1 with all of the hotfixes when run on Windows XP with the latest service pack and all relevant hotfixes and WHQC certified viedo drivers, Assuming you do not have Mozilla/Netscape, Java, Lotus Notes, any Oracle product, or any software licensed under the GNU public license installed on your computer.

What more could you possibly want?

Microsoft is /.'ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the Service Pack:

101010100100100010101111010000010101101001111111 00 0101001100100000000001111110101010010101010101...

On a lark?

[mofochickamo]

I checked Windows Update today on a lark...

Yeah, right! Come out of the closet. You like Microsoft! This guy can't be trusted ;)

Re:On a lark?

[TheRaven64]

He checked it on a lark? Windows 2000 runs on larks now? Wow. Even NetBSD doesn't run on those...

Security

[Anonymous Coward]

And here [securityfocus.com] you can read about the newest security leak which is not patched by this servicepack ;)
That guy who analysed the buffer overflow also found a funny easteregg in the buggy dll file. :)

Thursday

[agentZ]

Another Microsoft patch? It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays...

Who else took a double take on that one?

[antis0c]

Slashdot, reporting on a Windows update, without making some kind of wise-crack about it?

Did Microsoft buy OSDN?

Re:Who else took a double take on that one?

[Nintendork]

Yeah, it's not like Microsoft buys ad space on OSDN. ;)

-Lucas

Great

[Znonymous Coward]

Now I can upgrade from Windows 2000, SP3, hot fix 06052003, ntoskernel patch 5.0022, security rollup 05142003. Yea!

Helpful Links

[Davak]

As always, please read before blindly updating...

SP4 FAQ [microsoft.com]
Lists of fixed bugs [microsoft.com]

DavaK

The scarry part

[pecosdave]

At around the same time, however, the operating system was ridiculed by one of Microsoft's key developers for containing 63,000 known defects and bugs. The first service pack was released less than six months later. The latest service pack apparently has about 675 bug fixes.

The Scary part is, I've found Win2000 to be the most stable and reliable Windows ever released. 63,000 defects? I wouldn't doubt it. The part that worries me with how well 2000 works, how many defects do the 9x, XP, and NT versions contain?

It certainly left me scarred

[Vainglorious Coward]

Win2000 [contains] 63,000 defects?

Actually more than that - they counted as high as 65535, but then their bug-reporting software went titsup.

Re:The scarry part

[Anonvmous Coward]

"The Scary part is, I've found Win2000 to be the most stable and reliable Windows ever released. 63,000 defects?"

I wouldn't read too deeply into the 63,000 number of defects figure without considering a few things:

- A defect does not always mean "Will cause Windows BSOD". Some defects are an interpretation of a problem. Fictional example: "Defect #24013: There's a post-it note icon on Internet Explorer 6 that is mileading. It looks like the notes icon in Outlook 2000." A lot of them are probably design considerations.

- 63,000 is a huge number, but you have to remember that Windows runs on a very broad range of machines. Not only that, but there are tons and tons of people running it who are supplying defect reports.

- We each only use a small part of Windows. You'll probably never know if there's a bug in the Win32 API unless you're a programmer.

I wouldn't these types of statistics too seriously. There'll be a day when Linux has that many defects, if it doesn't already. All it takes is complexity.

Re:The scarry part

[TV-SET]

...but you have to remember that Windows runs on a very broad range of machines...

Please define "broad range". Until than - consider an example listing from the Linux kernel 2.5.73:

[leonid@sn-tower linux-2.5.73]$ ls -1 arch/
alpha
arm
arm26
cris
h8300
i386
ia64
m68k
m68knommu
mips
mips64
parisc
ppc
ppc64
s390
sh
sparc
sparc64
um
v850
x86_64

That I call a "broad range"... Not Windows.

Re:The scarry part

[Anonvmous Coward]

You're talking about processors, I'm talking about general hardware. Linux certainly deserves praise for being portable, however, it has not been run on near as much hardware as Windows has. Few companies make mass-market type PC products for anything but Windows.

Note: I'm not saying Linux won't run on as much stuff as Windows. I'm saying that Windows, because it's the de-facto standard out there, has the most hardware made for it. Sorry to bring it up.

Re:The scarry part

[pHDNgell]

We each only use a small part of Windows.

Some of us smaller than others...

Re:The scarry part

[dasmegabyte]

Well, I guess another difference here is that Windows is one conceptual app does a lot of apps, compared to Linux being a lot of apps that do one thing.

Windows 2000 is, after all, equivalent to the linux kernel, glib, x server, window manager, web server, web browser, etc. ad nauseum. I wouldn't doubt that there are more than 63,000 conceptual functions of Win2k -- not even considering the obscure combinations of these, like opening a print dialog in IE vs opening a print dialog in Paint.

There are a countably infinite number of combinations of these as well. If testers, during their "what wierd shit can we make this OS do" phase, discovered 63,000 obscure bugs but 1,000,000 plus functions worked perfectly, I'd still ship the thing.

After all, all software over ten lines has bugs and implementation decisions. Some of those 63,000 may have never been found by consumers, while thousands more were no doubt discovered on the first day of release. That's how this industry works. Nothing is flawless or bulletproof...the benefit that Linux has is daily releases. Of course, that's if somebody cares enough about your bug to fix it...you might get stuck doing it your damn self.

Re:what a troll.

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Come on, how many icons and groupings can a default win2k have wrong? I doubt they have 10,000 help pages."

Doesn't sound like ya know, does it? I don't know how you can leap from an "I doubt" comment to a "this is clearly..." statement.

"This is why Windoze 2000 can't run more than a few days in a row."

Funny, I had a home-made Tivo running Windows 2000 that had an average up-time of 3 months. I've got an NT4 Exchange Server that's been up for 80 days here. We used to have an IIS webserver running gon NT4. It was up for well over 6 months. We never needed to restart it, but we did have to physically move it a couple of times. My desktop machine has been running for about 13 days now. It'd have gone longer but my UPS is flaking out on me. Not bad for a machine that I do 3D animation and play games on.

" Trust your observations to tell you that software simply sucks."

Think I'd be defending 2K if I had 'observed' that the software 'simply sucks'?

"Balderdash! Windows2000 runs on intel 386. Wince runs on ARM. That's it. What do you think this is, free software that's compiled to specific x86 processor families, Motorola, ARM, Alpha, "

A machine is not a processor, it's a complete setup. Never heard of the old "Windows is on 90% of desktops" stastic before?

"you will always be at the mercy of the service patch that requires you to give up hope of privacy."

Actually, if you had read the EULA instead of going by the sensationalized Slashdot version of it, you'd know that the purpose isn't for MS to go sniffin around your machine. The reason it's there is to support a number of the features they added to Windows to deal with the virus problems that have been plaguing it. Go read it.

"Pull your head out of your closed source place please."

I would suggest you do a little thinking on your own instead of repeating all the stuff you've heard on Slashdot that gets modded +5 Insightful.

"Free software has fewer bugs and does more than any dinky windoze distro will ever. "

That's a myth. I'll give the Open Source community credit for responding to bugs in a timely manner, but you need to face facts that Open Source Software is rarely both well designed and bug free. Run a few commercial apps in front of an ordinary user and then run a few free apps in front of an ordinary user, most of the time he or she will be able to tell you which is which. "well, the commercial one seems to be friendlier to me while the free one is confusing to use."

" The complextiy you are thinking of is a legacy of all the dirty tricks M$ used over the years to kill of software rivals. That does not exist in free software and never will. "

Yeah, that's scientific. Heh.

"This is why free software PCs don't have to be turned off until the power fails."

Riiiiiiiight. We'll see how stable your Linux machine gets when games start becoming available. You'll find out just how 'rock-solid' it is then. Linux machines are not being used like Windows machines are, so drawing comparisons like that is not very informative.

Nice bit of Linux propoganda tho. Bucking for a +5 Insightful? :)

Re:The scarry part

[nachoboy]

"Five nines" leaves you only 5 minutes 15 seconds of annual downtime (0.001% of a year).

I guess if you're running your entire infrastructure off of one measly little server then you only have a little more than 5 minutes a year of downtime for your enterprise.

On the other hand, if you're really in a situation that requires 5 nine's of reliability, you probably know about things like clustering and load balancing, redundant backups, and hot-swapping.

In the end, it's not the uptime of one machine that mat

Port...

[NecroPuppy]

I checked Windows Update today on a lark...

Quick! Somebody port Linux to a sparrow so we can stay ahead of the curve!

Today songbirds, tomorrow fur bearing mammals! :)

Re:Port...

[Surak]

Of course, the fact that *BSD hasn't been ported to larks, sparrows or any songbirds of any kind at this point just proves that *BSD is, in fact, dying. :)

Re:Port...

[daeley]

African or European sparrow? ;)

Obligitary EULA quote

[Realistic_Dragon]

...the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisments said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighbourhood, 4) and in fact failed entirley to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutley, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be able to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchasers own property would result in the attention of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches. Crowley had been extremley impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: 'Learn, guys.' - T Pratchatt and N Gaiman

And to think that in 1990 that was written as a joke... now it seems like a rather accurate description of reality.

Oh no! Even numbered Service Pack!

[Zerbey]

We all know what this means, another service pack will be hurried out shortly to fix whatever awful bug this one introduces... :-)

This says a lot

[stinky wizzleteats]

I checked Windows Update today on a lark...

That just says it all right there, doesn't it? Checking the patch levels on the most widely used operating system in the world is considered a flighty, fickle act one does in a moment of insanity.

It's almost enough to make me wish I didn't relate to the sentiment.

To give them some credit...

[gosand]

Now I know it isn't popular with the kids these days to give credit to MS, but their bug reports are pretty extensive. They contain information about the problem, the cause, and the fix. Click any of the defects listed here [neowin.net] to see what I mean.

I hate to say it, but when I read changelogs for many Linux apps (or the kernel), they simply say "Fixed bug in foo.c". That doesn't tell me a whole lot as an end-user.

Re:To give them some credit...

[luugi]

Now I know it isn't popular with the kids these days to give credit to MS, but their bug reports are pretty extensive. They contain information about the problem, the cause, and the fix. Click any of the defects listed here to see what I mean.

I hate to say it, but when I read changelogs for many Linux apps (or the kernel), they simply say "Fixed bug in foo.c". That doesn't tell me a whole lot as an end-user.


It's true. But that's because Linux apps developers don't have to follow a strict template when submitting bug fixes. Some Open Source projects are strict for the code but not the comments.

Re:To give them some credit...

[1010011010]

You can, on the other hand, diff foo.c against its previous version and get MUCH more information than a MSFT bug report will give you about an issue.

Re:To give them some credit...

[Doctor O]

You can, on the other hand, diff foo.c against its previous version

Of course I could diff, but it wouldn't tell me *anything*. I'm a sysadmin, not a programmer. I want to know what's fixed, not a summary of code changes even someone fond of the language used and the project itself might not understand.

This point, of course, is completely useless regarding Windows, because the source isn't available anyways, but even on the *BSD and Linux machines we have on our network, I'd never diff even if I *were* a programmer. I'd check the changelog to find out where the respective patch(es) concerns us, test it on an appropriate machine and deploy it if everything still works fine after patching.

This means thorough testing anyway if you're talking mission critical machines. This takes a lot of time. I don't know about your job, but at the company I work at, this pretty much takes up most of our time as management doesn't get what we do and thinks another sysadmin or two would be overkill. Diffing would be completely out of the question. No time. (And I wouldn't care anyway, there's lot of other stuff I'd prefer fixing instead of looking at hacks in detail.)

Yeah, I got one of those emails too.

[MickLinux]

Except [uoregon.edu] this is what it was: a trojan, but with an all new date, and an all new filename. Someone has just rereleased this baby.

Fortunately, a few things clued me in:

(1) It said it was from Microsoft. But the URL said from a Verizon ad.

(2) It called me a Microsoft Client. I've never felt so humiliated. I do *NIX or Mac.

(3) It claimed to fix ALL the known security flaws in Windows. This one should have been obvious.

(4) It was advertised to work on Win9x, ME, and 2000. My guess is that Microsoft doesn't do a whole lot for Win95 people who haven't upgraded. I could be wrong.

(5) It included an executable. [??? how did that slip past my ISP??? They normally strip executables.]

Anyhow, for those of you who use Windows, be aware [once again, and again and again] that those trojans are not to be run.

Yeah, right

[PingXao]

MS wasn't happy with the "premature" disclosure on BugTraq of the new [com.com] IE6 bug.

"Its publication may put our customers at risk or at the very least cause customers needless confusion and apprehension"

Of course, the existence of the bug in the first place never put their customers at risk. What a crock of shite. Reminds me of MS's recent purchase of a virus protection sooftware company.

1. Sell software with security holes
2. Sell protection against those same holes
3. Profit!

The arrogance is astounding.

no french package

[anarcat]

Comment?!

There is no service pack for the "french" version of W2K, like there was for the 2nd service pack. I do hope they end up making one or that it doesn't matter which one you install...

I downloaded the 2nd service pack *twice* last time: one time in english (to realise it wouldn't install) and one time in french.

Fun-fun-fun.

Ve Haff Vays...

[bluethundr]

Interestingly enough, the only two languages SP4 appears to be available in, currently, is English and German. [microsoft.com]

Not to say that Microsoft is authoritarian or anything, but I can just hear Colonel Klink saying it now...

Ve Haff Vays of MAKING YOU UPGRADE!!!

Hibernation fixes

[gad_zuki!]

Thank bob for these. I've been waiting for these for a long while. Hibernate is a real time saver, but I can do with less device problems and without the occasional corrupt MBR when using it.

Interestingly enough, XP does an excellent job at hibernating, but my next laptop will be running OSX. I can't see myself paying out for an XP upgrade. Pretty colors, system restore, and it breaks PGP for only 150-200 dollars? No thanks.

The Lark

[zebs]

I checked Windows Update today on a lark

Are you using an update of the Avian Carrier [faqs.org] standard? Or is there simply a lack of pidgeons in your area?

If its a new standard, can we see some benchmakrs, and comparisons with the Avain system. Also does it support IPv6?

Thanks

Why be an one of the first?

[stinkwinkerton]

I can't for the life of me understand some of the comments I read in response to this article about SysAdmins who are actually INSTALLING this thing right now to a bunch of users without testing!

This isn't a flame against Microsoft, it makes sense to fully test anything like this, be it OSX, Redhat, Windoze, whatever. Those that are deploying without testing are doing SysAdmin's in general a complete disservice-- it makes us all look bad when something goes wrong.

It just doesn't make any sense to me to even consider deploying before it has been out a while and tested. A service pack is a cumulative rolloup of security fixes and bug fixes and occasionally some enhanced features. Yes, there are additional fixes that haven't been distributed yet, but unless you HAVE to install it, you can wait a couple of weeks and test it in production before deploying it to everyone in your company.

Look at Winnt SP3 and SP3a. They released SP3a shortly after 3 because of some problems with the service pack. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be the sysadmin who installed it on all my clients to discover all the problems! Crazy!

My experience with SP4 so far...

[AtariKee]

... is somewhat troubling. I am unable to cleanly reboot the box (it just lays there like a lame date), and I had to remove two instances of a file called mobsync.exe in order for my system to regain stability. With this file running, I was unable to run any instances of the explorer (including control panel) and the entire system became unstable. Luckily, I was able to bring up the Task Manager to kill it, and used Find to find/delete the files. The file protection box will pop up, of course, but you can decline to have the files reinstalled.

Just my experience so far...

Re:Just keep in mind...

[Amon Re]

What do you think we are? a bunch of piraters?

Re:Just keep in mind...

[chia_monkey]

I am!

I rate pi at 3.14159

Re:Just keep in mind...

[My Name Is Neo]

Actually, it's not the fact that it's pirated that a service pack wont install. The service pack installer checks your CD key against known pirated keys.

The most well known XP Pro Corporate key (which had shown up on newsgroups months before XP was released) is banned. I've tried to install XP SP1 with it, and it just error's out. There are a few places on the net however, where you can find tutorials on how to change the XP CD key.

I would expect this new service pack does the same thing.

Re:Just keep in mind...

[My Name Is Neo]

Yeah it is; that's odd though, because I've tried it on at least 6 different machines, and it refused to install on all of them until I changed the key. Did you just use the Windows Update to install SP1? Perhaps that works, because I downloaded the entire SP1 and installed it offline.

Re:Just keep in mind...

[My Name Is Neo]

I wouldn't know. I would say no because the key and ISO showed up in newsgroups at least 2 to 3 months before XP was released (There's even a picture of someone holding the rip in front of Microsoft's X days until XP launches sign). I myself had it one month before...Not that I kept it or anything ;P

I'm sure Microsoft got wind of the key long before anyone actually used it and I would guess whoever may have gotten the key was issued new a new one.

Re:/. Minor Versions?

[abh]

I wouldn't call a Service Pack for one of the most popular operating systems just "every patch". Service Packs come out about once a year.

And if you really want to talk about relevance, I'll guarantee you there's far more Win 2000 boxes out there than any of the Free OSes...

Re:The Funniest Fix

[JasonMaggini]

This site [jazzkeyboard.com] has a pretty good list of weird MS Support documents.

Re:At least it's not $129

[FueledByRamen]

They (Microsoft) already did that; it's called Windows XP.

Don't believe me? Go look at the version numbers on 2000 and on XP.
Windows 2000 = Windows NT 5.0
Windows XP = Windows NT 5.1

Re:At least it's not $129

[styrotech]

If this was Apple they give it a dot rev and charge $129 for it.

Same deal - XP (NT 5.1) is only a dot rev past W2K (NT 5.0).

I think 2003 Server is NT 5.2, but don't quote me on that.

Re:Well...

[MeanMF]

You can use the handy official Microsoft desktop support lifecycle wizard [microsoft.com] to see how long they plan to support each desktop OS version. Windows 2000 will be fully supported through 3/31/05, then it will enter "extended support" for two more years (extended=more expensive). After that you're on your own. Win2k server follows basically the same guidelines [microsoft.com], except that in the "extended" support period you need to pay for non-security-related hotfixes.

Re:No link for EULA

[thebatlab]

SUPPLEMENTAL END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 SERVICE PACK 4

PLEASE READ THIS SUPPLEMENTAL END-USER
LICENSE AGREEMENT ("SUPPLEMENTAL EULA")
CAREFULLY. BY INSTALLING OR USING THE
SOFTWARE THAT ACCOMPANIES THIS SUPPLEMENTAL
EULA, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS
SUPPLEMENTAL EULA. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO
NOT INSTALL OR USE THE SOFTWARE AND, IF
APPLICABLE, RETURN IT TO THE PLACE OF
PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND.

THIS SOFTWARE DOES NOT TRANSMIT ANY
PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION
FROM YOUR COMPUTER TO MICROSOFT
COMPUTER SYSTEMS WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT.

1. GENERAL

This EULA is a legal agreement between you (either an
individual or a single entity) and Microsoft Corporation
("Microsoft"). The accompanying Microsoft software
includes computer software and may include associated
media, printed materials, online or electronic
documentation, and Internet-based services
(collectively, the "Components"). The Components are
provided to update, supplement, or replace existing
functionality of Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional,
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows
2000 Advanced Server, and Microsoft Windows 2000
Datacenter Server (the "Software"). Your use of the
Components is subject to the terms and conditions of
the end user license agreement (either from Microsoft
or some other entity) under which you have previously
licensed the Software (the "Software EULA")
and this Supplemental EULA.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALIDLY LICENSED COPY OF
THE SOFTWARE, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO
INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE COMPONENTS
AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS
SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.

2. GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF YOUR USE
OF THE COMPONENTS

a. Installation and Use.
Provided you comply with all applicable license terms and
conditions contained in the Software EULA (which are
hereby incorporated by reference except as set forth
below) and this Supplemental EULA, Microsoft grants
you the right to reproduce, install and use one
copy of the Components on each of your computers
that is running a validly licensed copy of
the Software ("Computers").

b. Reservation of Rights.
The Components are protected by copyright and other
intellectual property laws and treaties. Microsoft
Corporation or its suppliers own the title, copyright,
and other intellectual property rights in the Components.
All rights not expressly granted to you in this Supplemental
EULA are reserved. The Components are licensed, not sold.

c. Capitalized Terms.
Capitalized terms used in this Supplemental EULA and not
otherwise defined herein shall have the meanings assigned
to them in the Software EULA.

3. AUTOMATIC INTERNET-BASED SERVICES.
The Software features described below are enabled by
default to connect via the Internet to Microsoft
computer systems automatically, without separate
notice to you. You consent to the operation
of these features, unless you choose to switch
them off or not use them. Microsoft does not
obtain personally identifiable information
through any of these features. For more
information about these features, please see
your Software documentation or the Microsoft
online support site.

a. Windows Update Features.
Under the Software's default configuration, if you connect
a device to your Computer and the correct device driver is
not available on your Computer, then Windows Update
features on your Computer (including Device Manager
and the Plug & Play CDM Module) automatically attempt
to check Microsoft computer systems via the Internet
for the correct device driver. Having this happen
automatically makes Plug-and-Play