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Windows Operating Systems Software Microsoft

Microsoft Releases SP4 for Windows 2000 673

Posted by CmdrTaco from the eye-patch-you-patch-we-all-patch dept.
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.
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Microsoft Releases SP4 for Windows 2000 More

Microsoft Releases SP4 for Windows 2000

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  • Yes, Yes... (Score:2, Funny)

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

  • No thanks (Score:4, Funny)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:16PM (#6305834) Homepage Journal
    I'll wait until it's been ported to Linux.
  • Let's get it outta the way early:

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

    CB

  • Just Curious (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bloxnet ( 637785 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:18PM (#6305845)
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:20PM (#6305893)
      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:Just Curious (Score:5, Informative)

      by mr.henry ( 618818 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:22PM (#6305905) Journal
      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 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <.moc.liamg. .ta. .stnapyffuprm.> on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:34PM (#6306037)
        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.
        • 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 (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Traa ( 158207 ) *
        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 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:06PM (#6306361)
        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 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dasmegabyte ( 267018 ) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:53PM (#6306699) Homepage Journal
        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 (Score:5, Informative)

          by KenR ( 41927 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @05:48PM (#6307098)
          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 (Score:3, Funny)

            by Qzukk ( 229616 )
            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 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by woozlewuzzle ( 532172 )
      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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by winmonster ( 515415 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:27PM (#6305963)
      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 (Score:3, Informative)

      by Artifex ( 18308 )
      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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by jmaatta ( 550428 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:18PM (#6305859)
    Someone post the diffs between SP3's and SP4's EULAs :)

  • Change Log (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jack Comics ( 631233 ) * <jack_comics @ p o s t x s .org> on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:19PM (#6305878) Homepage
    Go here [neowin.net] for the change log to Windows 2000 Service Pack Four. Some of the changes are quite amusing.

    • Re:Change Log (Score:5, Funny)

      by jmaatta ( 550428 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:23PM (#6305918)
      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 (Score:5, Funny)

        by Methlin ( 604355 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:12PM (#6306420)
        You missed:
        313371 Samba becoming too compatible, break it Directory services

        </joke>

      • Re:Change Log (Score:5, Funny)

        by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) * on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:13PM (#6306428) Homepage
        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 (Score:4, Informative)

        by DragonMagic ( 170846 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:20PM (#6306484) Homepage
        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 (Score:5, Funny)

          by Some Dumbass... ( 192298 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:34PM (#6306584)
          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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by MikeD83 ( 529104 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:42PM (#6306144)
      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?
    • 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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:52PM (#6306228) Homepage Journal
      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 (Score:4, Funny)

      by svallarian ( 43156 ) <svallarian@h[ ]ail.com ['otm' in gap]> on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:01PM (#6306325)
      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.

    • Did you see this one?

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

  • Microsoft is /.'ed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:20PM (#6305884)
    Here's the Service Pack:

    101010100100100010101111010000010101101001111111 00 0101001100100000000001111110101010010101010101...

  • On a lark? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mofochickamo ( 658514 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:20PM (#6305885) Homepage Journal
    I checked Windows Update today on a lark...

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

  • Security (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:20PM (#6305886)
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by agentZ ( 210674 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:20PM (#6305890)
    Another Microsoft patch? It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays...

  • Who else took a double take on that one? (Score:5, Funny)

    by antis0c ( 133550 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:20PM (#6305898)
    Slashdot, reporting on a Windows update, without making some kind of wise-crack about it?

    Did Microsoft buy OSDN?

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:21PM (#6305900) Journal
    Now I can upgrade from Windows 2000, SP3, hot fix 06052003, ntoskernel patch 5.0022, security rollup 05142003. Yea!

  • Helpful Links (Score:4, Informative)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:22PM (#6305904) Homepage
    As always, please read before blindly updating...

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

    DavaK

  • The scarry part (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pecosdave ( 536896 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:22PM (#6305906) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Vainglorious Coward ( 267452 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:38PM (#6306090) Journal
      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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:50PM (#6306208)
      "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 (Score:3, Informative)

        by TV-SET ( 84200 )
        ...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 (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:54PM (#6306707)
          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 (Score:5, Funny)

        by pHDNgell ( 410691 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @05:16PM (#6306863)
        We each only use a small part of Windows.

        Some of us smaller than others...

      • Re:The scarry part (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dasmegabyte ( 267018 ) <das@OHNOWHATSTHISdasmegabyte.org> on Thursday June 26, 2003 @05:26PM (#6306950) Homepage Journal
        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.

  • Port... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NecroPuppy ( 222648 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:23PM (#6305921) Homepage
    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! :)

  • Obligitary EULA quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:32PM (#6306008) Homepage
    ...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! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zerbey ( 15536 ) * on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:32PM (#6306021) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by stinky wizzleteats ( 552063 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:33PM (#6306032) Homepage Journal

    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... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:39PM (#6306093)
    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... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by luugi ( 150586 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:47PM (#6306191)
      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... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:37PM (#6306601) Homepage

      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... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Doctor O ( 549663 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @06:06PM (#6307206) Homepage Journal
        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. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MickLinux ( 579158 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:53PM (#6306239) Journal
    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 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PingXao ( 153057 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @03:57PM (#6306273)
    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 (Score:3, Funny)

    by anarcat ( 306985 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:01PM (#6306320) Homepage
    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... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bluethundr ( 562578 ) * on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:20PM (#6306481) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:3)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Thursday June 26, 2003 @04:54PM (#6306716)
    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 (Score:4, Funny)

    by zebs ( 105927 ) * on Thursday June 26, 2003 @05:10PM (#6306804) Homepage

    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? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stinkwinkerton ( 609110 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @05:43PM (#6307062)
    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... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AtariKee ( 455870 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @12:36AM (#6308900)
    ... 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...

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