Microsoft Quietly Fixes Windows XP Resource Hog Problem 246
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft indicated this week that it has fixed a Windows XP resource-hog problem associated with the system's SVCHOST.EXE processes. Windows XP users affected by this problem typically found that the operating system was using up system resources for 15 minutes to an hour after startup, making it difficult to use the machine during that period. The Microsoft Update team had vowed last month to spend the holiday break tackling the issue, which has plagued some users for years. The fix involved stopping the system from perpetually checking Internet Explorer updates. Microsoft indicated that the fix was rolled out on Tuesday."
yes (Score:5, Funny)
Bye bye Windows 8 hello xp
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Bye bye Windows 8 hello xp
Maybe they need to be forced to roll out a similar fix for win 7 as that has the same bug in it .
Probably the same in 8 , 8.1 , & 9 ..
Over a decade (Score:5, Insightful)
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i never had a problem with it for 8 years i used it.
I read that the bug was introduced about 6 months ago, not years, by a Windows update. And it does not seem to affect everybody, for some reason.
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Haha! And they say piracy is bad!
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Many people running an "unauthorized" copy of XP turned off the automatic updates. No update requests, and no slowdowns.
My wife's PC has this problem, caused by a bug which I understand was introduced during an update. I turned off Automatic Updates, BUT that did not solve the problem - it was still disk-thrashing after every boot, and you have to stop SVCHOST via Task Manager or it goes on for ever.
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You've never had a problem, or you think you've never had a problem? Your machine may be completely owned and just waiting in standby in some bonnet, that doesn't mean that you know about it and has been directly affected by it.
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I have been running xp machines WITHOUT ANY UPDATES for years and have not had any issues. First thing I do, shut off the updates
The bug was introduced in a Microsoft update some time ago. Turning off updates now does not stop the problem, I find. Nothing to do with viruses.
Exponential algorithm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Over a decade (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you can look at it in another way: "They fixed a bug on a 12 year old OS?! Awesome!"
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Windows XP has been out for 12 years and they just started to look into the problem last month? Or you can look at it in another way: "They fixed a bug on a 12 year old OS?! Awesome!"
Sure wish I had some mod points left as that post was befitting of one of mine
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Or you can look at it in another way: "They fixed a bug on a 12 year old OS?! Awesome!"
As I understand it, the fix was done on the Windows Update server and wasn't actually an OS bug They cleaning up and deprecated a slew of superseded patches (mostly IE) so the OS wasn't checking for ancient, irrelevant patches. The article and people keep referencing the svchost process because the windows update service normally runs under svchost process instead of standalone (although it's trivial to configure it to do so).
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No this is really annoying for VM users.
It is not bloat but a bug. Your CPU goes 100% and the fans spin like mad and there is no way out of it. It started from SVChost.exe trying to do a Windows update and quiting after an overlfow of +1000 patches.
Many were gleaming hoping this would force the holdouts finally to get with the times.
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The bug didn't exhibit itself 12 years ago. I believe the earliest report was 2 years ago, there were workarounds (like upgrading to IE9) and this isn't the first time they've TRIED to properly fix the issue...
But what do I know, I just spent 2 minutes RTFA...
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Re:Over a decade (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, it really sounds like a couple people just did it on their vacation time because it personally annoyed them. Microsoft was not interested in actually putting it on a schedule to be fixed.
It's funny how that sounds precisely like the bug tracker of any Linux distro.
Re:Over a decade (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how that sounds precisely like the bug tracker of any Linux distro.
I didn't pay $100 for Linux.
Re:Over a decade (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't pay $100 for Linux.
Even then the bugs in Linux still get fixed faster.
But yeah, when volunteers are giving their own time to build me a killer operating system, I'm not going to harass them about a schedule. I give them thanks and positive vibes and sometimes donations. I think we all expect more from paid developers... but we don't always get it.
Re:Over a decade (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that you don't get a killer operating system but a garbage operating system. I actually want to pay the $100 to Microsoft to not have to constantly worry about shit breaking.
Linux is good for many purposes, but the desktop environments are essentially alpha quality software. Just the other day I tried adjusting the time of the Magic Lamp effect in its properties dialog under KDE. Whooptidoo, using anything than the default value gives me two magic lamp effects. And how about looking at the latest Xubuntu release, it shipped with broken sound indicator [webupd8.org] and broken power management [launchpad.net]. These are just completely silly and unnecessary regressions. If we start to talk about the Unity desktop (which represents a de facto Linux experience to many), it's just a huge bugfest which I don't even want to begin to talk about. It is also extremely slow.
The declining quality of the Linux desktop should be taken very seriously. These are similar experiences to why I hated Windows back in the day when it still sucked. I want to use the most stable and fast software available.
Re:Over a decade (Score:4, Insightful)
How many desktop effects does Windows have for you to play with and customize?
Everyone knows Unity is crap. So is Windows 8. And mostly for the same reasons -- hubris, and a few clowns thinking they're going to change the fundamental paradigm behind the way millions of people use their computers.
Well, except for the people who like Unity... some folks like choices. How many choices do you get with Windows?
What you need to understand is that Linux is not a monolithic thing. Linux as a whole is not tainted because one release of one distro sucks -- because Linux is not a whole anything.
That's a rather subjective and vague statement.
As someone who has used Linux desktops almost exclusively for over 12 years now, I have to say I'm quite pleased with the improvements over that time. Well, except for Gnome 3.
Anyway, if Windows floats your boat, great. I hope MS makes Windows for a long time, and that most folks continue to use it, so us Linux geeks can continue to feel smug about it. :)
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I need to test out apps now and then so install and uninstall reasonably frequently. Ever
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Stop using Ubuntu and you won't have nearly as many declining quality issues.
Shuttleworth has declared the PC dead, as a result you don't actually think he's going to spend the same money to keep the "dead" desktop software quality do you? He's investing all his resources in Ubuntu phone and tablet because he declared multiple time the future is a post PC world where everyone uses devices for all their computing needs.
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I actually want to pay the $100 to Microsoft to not have to constantly worry about shit breaking.
Yes, but the Microsoft shit did break. That is what this news item is about.
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Linux desktops have been taken over by artistic "designers" instead of people who want to build tools for getting actual work done.
As with Windows, people looking to put their stamp on a product confuse change with progress. Printed books don't constantly change format, but for some reason desktop environments are relentlessly fucked with by designers for the sake of play.
Since bleeding edge distros no longer offer anything useful, I ignore them and leave them to the ricers.
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The fact that people have to worry about their karma and being modded down for speaking the truth about the state of the Linux desktop and things that fans really don't want to hear (but must), speaks volumes about why old problems still exist with Linux and polish isn't a priority.
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"The fact that people have to worry about their karma and being modded down"
Worry about things of no value? Wake me when Dicedot "karma" will buy me something.
I give no fuck about my karma and anyone modding me down is welcome to die in a fire. :-)
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Actually, the reasons I use Linux are:
1 - Xeyes over the network. And that IS more important to me than "competition".
In fact, my Xeyes application(s) don't run on Windows, Android or Mac. They run on AIX, Solaris and Redhat. Different hardware and OSs. The common GUI IS X11. Which makes this very important... I have tried Cygwin on Windows -- and, I guess it would do... but THAT is what "Linux" is competing with FOR ME.
2 - A platform for POSIX applications.
3 - Hey, I am not bashing Windows, Android or Mac.
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Really. Kernel 2.2 is still being patched and so is Redhat 7.2?
This is the age of XP by the way.
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I didn't pay $100 for Linux.
Even then the bugs in Linux still get fixed faster.
But yeah, when volunteers are giving their own time to build me a killer operating system, I'm not going to harass them about a schedule. I give them thanks and positive vibes and sometimes donations. I think we all expect more from paid developers... but we don't always get it.
So how many Linux distributions are supported 12 years after launch? For free?
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So how many Linux distributions are supported 12 years after launch? For free?
I'd guess "none" -- but who cares?
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Not volunteers but paid developers. This is a common misconception. Check this post [readwrite.com] for a quick summary of the contributors to the Linux kernel. Linux and many big open source projects started as volunteers's efforts and eventually turned into joint ventures between companies ruled by FOSS licenses instead of by thousands of pages of contracts. Shared development is a major money saver for all parties involved and is a very efficient way to invest resources.
The same applies to distributions, which are ofter
Re: Over a decade (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I paid for it in negative time. Time I got back not futzing around with a different update mechanism for every app, all of which want to run simultaneously on reboot. Time not spent being bombarded with scareware ads from the various 'protection' rackets 'required' to run Windows smoothly. Time not spent tracking down and installing drivers for various bits of random hardware, because it just works out of the box. Time not spent rebooting for every update or every file that needed replacing while it was in use. Time not spent figuring out which 'analytic and debug log' needed to be activated to find out how to fix a problem. Time not spent waiting for Event Viewer to load slower than a flight sim. Time not
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Re:Over a decade (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference here is that the linux distros are free and MS charges big bucks for their OS's. When you pay for a product you expect it to work properly- well, maybe YOU don't, but I do.
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Expect all you like - you still agreed to a license that stated that the software is not warranted as fit for any purpose, including the purpose for which it was sold. I'd dearly love to know how exactly software companies are allowed to include that as a standard disclaimer, seems like it should run afoul of some pretty serious consumer protection laws.
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Re:Over a decade (Score:5, Insightful)
> Unfortunately I don't waste mod points for AC's
Dear Asshole,
Mod points are supposed to be used to increase or decrease the visibility of a post for the readership. They are NOT intended to be used as a reward or punishment for an individual.
HTH.
Great to know that they fixed it! Finally. (Score:3, Funny)
What next: Are they going to tackle the memory leaks in the Commodore 64 Operating System?
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My C64 never crashed .. maybe a better joke would have been to mention Windows 98, 95, ME, CE, 3.1 or every single version of MS DOS ever released.
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CoD piece (Score:2)
If you want to attract more female contributors, don't use "codpiece" as a captcha.
Probably assumed that a "piece" was a firearm, and a "codpiece" was a firearm in Call of Duty video games.
ObXP: Do Call of Duty games even run on Windows XP anymore?
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Ha! I'm not wearing a codpiece. Fooled you!
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
The performance issue was a constant check for updates.. for another program notorious for performance issues....
This is why I really wish that Microsoft was *truly* forced to allow IE to be ripped out of their operating system completely.
At this point, just give it up guys. You had over 10 years trying to make a browser. Let it go....
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I use IE all the time to download Chrome on new systems....
Though, lately I've been doing more and more front end work. It's where I'm finding money. That unfortunately requires me to use IE most of the day to make sure what I'm working is rendering across browsers correctly.
Otherwise I use Chrome. Opera is just not my cup of tea, Firefox sucks balls now (seriously. they couldn't have fucked up more if they tried), Safari isn't all that good, and that leaves IE or Chrome. Gee... I wonder....
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you run the modern browsers on a recent OS?
Firefox is usable again and uses the least amount of ram. IE starting with 9 started acting compliant and normal. I couldn't believe it in 2011. IE 11 has an issue at work because it is so standards compliant that it no longer supports legacy jscript code that launches IE specific flash. It runs like it should. This of course angers the MBAs and the luddities and slashdotters still think it must be the same as IE 6 and wont touch it!
IE is actually good and if banks stopped feeding it broken IE code from last decade it would work. Firefox still is missing some things but I really like that it has true adblock. Google is so limited that adblock plus only stops it from appearing on the screen. The ads still run and track you and install malware. You just do not see it etc.
FYI adblock plus now works with IE as well!
Times are changing and I feel it is safe to say MS wont ever do an IE 6 again and can't. I do feel Chrome could become that role in the next couple of years if businesses give up after Windows 7 and go all tablet in 5 years. With Citrix that is a possibility if Windows 9 blows.
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I have not run FF for at least 2 or 3 years now. It really was hilariously slow compared to previous years when it was the only usable web browser around.
It's nice to hear that IE is getting better, but my experience day to day is that Chrome is way faster in page loads and general operation (javascript). Personally, I would go back to IE if they are that good because I don't like supporting Google. They are so anti-privacy right now it's horrible.
The biggest problem with IE from what I understand is that i
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IE 11 is still behind and MS like Apple and Google want to keep it that way and have people write apps instead that use the HTML rendering engine below. Adblock plus is available for it. But like the previous poster stated many websites that have not been updated in awhile have issues with IE 11 as its javascript is too standards compliant :-)
They see IE and feed ancient code. MS fixed the issue with HTML and CSS with this as Apache recognizes it as Firefox now, however it still feeds ancient javascript sad
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Firefox is still a piece of shit. I gave it 3 months until about 3-4 weeks ago (after a long hiatus because of non-resposive UI issues) and guess what? It still sucks. Don't care how much RAM it uses. Don't care how many plug ins it has. One browser tab makes the entire thing non-responsive. Chrome fixed that issue what... 6+ years ago now with process per tab?
And yes, IE since version 9 is actually half decent. Guess what? Also multiple process.
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Uh huh.
I shouldn't have to roll that change out in group policy because some idiots at Microsoft destabilize an entire fucking operating system looking for updates to a single program for upwards of an hour after start up.
That's assuming I even have group policy. The number of companies with XP using them effectively as thin clients without domain controllers is the majority, not the minority.
That preference is just a hack and a cheap work around.
I really thought they would never actually fix thi (Score:5, Informative)
I repair old computers to be resold and the amount of time it would take to get the first updates was the single longest time waster of re-installing a fresh copy of XP on an old machine. The last 2 days it only took about 5 minutes for XP to figure out what updates were exactly needed instead of what had become the normal several hours.
Re:I really thought they would never actually fix (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like you should have rolled the updates into an updated xp iso. Search the MS kb for more info.
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I thought M$ did this on purpose to make XP users dump this old OS. :P
EOL installation media (Score:5, Insightful)
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This.
I'd be happy to pay Microsoft for a blessed EOL XP SP4 and/or Win7 SP2.
Re:EOL installation media (Score:4, Informative)
Or someone will release an unofficial service pack like it was done for 9x
http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/ [htasoft.com] (that one I didn't know about)
http://www.freewarefiles.com/Unofficial-Windows-SE-Service-Pack-a_program_16791.html [freewarefiles.com] (that's what I use on my old 486 vintage box)
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I think nLite [nliteos.com] will do what you're after.
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What I'd really like Microsoft to do for XP (...) is when the product reaches end of life, create a new installation medium which includes all the updates
Isn't that obvious? It shouldn't be a wish, it is a requirement (Even Ubuntu does that).
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I agree, but you can make your own slipstreamed version. Or better, a net-install that have the latest updates for people with fast network connections.
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"A spokesperson confirmed that activations will still be required for retail installations of Windows XP post April 8. "Windows XP can still be installed and activated after end of support on April 8,"" [zdnet.com]
Everytime I posted about this sort of problem (Score:2, Insightful)
in the past the astroturfers and other MS fans said I was full of crap because I said my computer took 10 minutes to boot to a useable state. Screw all of you. I stand by my past assertions that MS OS's are crap- they always have been and always will be.
When are they going to figure out what causes my Win 7 to take 10 minutes to boot to a useable state? Maybe in 2025...
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I hate to be the one to tell you this, because I am about the farthest thing from a Windows fan... but the problem is probably you and the amount of stuff you have starting up on your machine at boot time. Use "msconfig" to turn some shit off. I've gotten lots of Win 7 machines to a minute or less startup, down from 5+ minutes, and the problem is always the same: bloat.
Then again, the obvious question that occurs to me is: if your user experience is so bad, why haven't you switched to something else?
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I'm beginning to think that that disgrunted bottom 10% that MS throw off each project has ended up working with up
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My Vista system used to boot from BIOS to usable desktop in 15 seconds. I timed it. It's a lot worse now (almost a minute), but it hasn't been cleared out properly for 4 years or so. This is on a striped pair of oldish 500gb hard drives.
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Is there anything stopping you from disabling Windows updates?
I disabled all Windows updates on my MS machines in 2012. But I do run a good antivirus program on all of them and the antivirus updates itself.
Never had a virus or malware problem since then. Not visiting warez sites and not clicking on email attachments helps a lot too.
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Agree: my office XP laptop (with an i5) took 12 minutes to boot to where I could even crowbar Outlook open.
OTOH, my SSD-upgraded 2008 Mac Book Pro on Snow Leopard goes from cold metal to ready to work in 20 seconds.
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Yet, I can actually copy files from disk to disk on Windows or my Mac without the responsiveness of say, trying to start an app at the same time from one of the disks going to shit. Linux needs an IO scheduler that doesn't either suck or require fucking around to make it responsive to user interaction under load.
Running both Windows and Linux on this machine (Core i5-4430) and as far as disk IO goes, Windows blows the doors off Linux on it, in terms of responsiveness when copying files. Can it be tweak
Bloody hell? (Score:2)
Really guys? People get crappy performance for years, and it's due to trying to update IE?
That's pretty lame, even for Microsoft.
Why fix it now? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll bet it persists in Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 or it's prodigy would exhibit the problem. I just looked over the patch Tuesday fixes from this week and there's no mention of anything for SVCHOST however there is a nice memory leak that's been around for a long time in oleaut32.dll. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2870467 [microsoft.com]
I guess they don't take advantage of static or runtime analysis tools at MSFT.
Windows 9 (Score:2)
CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder, how much Co2 has been released into the atmosphere, with this bug present on millions of computers, over decades, causing PC's to eat more electricity than they should.
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Far less than would have been caused by XP users "upgrading" to Vista...
If you want to calculate something... Figure out how much energy would be saved if everyone had stuck with Windows 2000 for the past decade and a half, instead of upgrading.
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you need to find out how many computers had XP on them : (X)
multiply that by how much power these machines use on average per second (watt hours/360) (P)
find out how much carbon was emitted by power stations during that time. (C)
find out how much energy was generated, (E) and divide (C) by that.
and then divide that number by (P)
That's how I'd do it.
Why fix it? (Score:2)
They should have released a bug that makes the OS alone eat up the whole PC, and leave nothing for the applications. That way, everybody can be forced to migrate.
Where, exactly, would be up to them.
Figures that it would be something stupid (Score:2)
so all those slow downs are so a system service can check for internet explorer updates? A program which shouldn't even be integrated into the OS?
really MS? Knock it off.
windows embedded systems based on XP still get (Score:5, Informative)
windows embedded systems based on XP still get updates for some time and firms can buy more update for XP as well.
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Windows Server 2003 supported until mid-2015 (Score:5, Interesting)
Suppose if they didn't get it over the holiday and it wasn't done by April 8th, they could have perhaps saved themselves all the bother and turned off all update checks
Windows Server 2003 is supported longer than Windows XP despite using the same update mechanism and nearly the same kernel. Extended support for Windows Server 2003 ends on 7/14/2015 [microsoft.com], and this problem will only get worse for servers over the last two and a half years of extended support. So there's a benefit for making a fix for Windows Server 2003. And if the same fix applies to Windows XP, it doesn't cost Microsoft that much to release the fix for both, and the gesture of goodwill could help deter companies from switching to GNU/Linux or OS X instead of buying Windows 8.1 + Classic Shell.
CORRECTION (Score:2)
one and a half years
Touché. But that's still 18 months of the server being able to do its job of serving instead of sitting and looking for updates, 18 months of one fewer annoyance that might push IT into "screw it, I'm switching to Linux" territory.
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If the summary is correct I don't really see how this affects servers all that much... The summary says it is an issue in the first 15-60 minutes after startup. Servers are generally up for longer periods of time so the actual impact would be low for W2K03.
A PC is rebooted monthly and suspended more often (Score:2)
The summary says it is an issue in the first 15-60 minutes after startup. Servers are generally up for longer periods of time
If by "uptime" you mean wall time between reboots, I don't see how it differs. A desktop PC is rebooted monthly to install updates, and it is put to sleep (suspend) after hours. A server is the same; it just doesn't sleep unless it's used only during business hours.
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Partial downtime / reduced capacity still represents money though. In some cases, large amounts of money. There are a lot of realtime call processing systems that run 2003 because the vendor doesn't support, or charges a lot of money to upgrade to software supporting, Server 2008 or newer. The systems need to come online in a specific order instead of all at once (might be 4-10 or more) and if you have a vendor onsite doing maintenance, charging by the hour, who can't leave until it's verified operational,
Re:CORRECTION (Score:5, Informative)
If the summary is correct I don't really see how this affects servers all that much... The summary says it is an issue in the first 15-60 minutes after startup. Servers are generally up for longer periods of time so the actual impact would be low for W2K03.
It's about time they fixed this. I intermittently run a Virtual Machine version of XP. A few months ago, I noticed windows update service (running under svchost) would chew up 99% of the cpu when booted up for 10 minutes. Seems the problem was windows updates check for the presence of every single IE update ever released, when they were all superseded by the latest IE cumulative updates anyway and not per-requisites for anything else. I'm not sure why they are patting themselves on the back, when they just did the equivalent of declining superceded updates in WSUS (generally done in seconds, btw).
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Not for me, dam it... My lease finally ran out on my old XP work laptop and I got a new one with a corporate Windows 7 image last week.
However, I'm happy to finally be running a modern 64bit OS with 12GB of RAM. My only complaints are that there were no SSD options and that it took me about 4 hours to get patches, fixes, and drivers loaded to fix some issues with the corporate image.
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What business sense is there in fixing soon-to-be-obsolete products
Because other products using the same update mechanism aren't quite as soon-to-be-obsolete [slashdot.org].
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Yeah, but anybody using Vista has much larger problems.
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One was a theoretically-exploitable, but extremely difficult to do so, obscure security bug that was almost invisible,
The other brought even top-of-the-line machines to a grinding halt constantly without reason.
Despite my own priorities, one of those is obviously going to get a LOT more attention.
Re:Thanks (Score:4, Funny)
To be fair they usually don't do this kind of stuff.
Right. Normally, if it's broken, it stays broken until a new product release really fucks it up...