Microsoft has revealed plans to release a third service pack for its Windows XP operating system.
Microsoft Confirms Next XP Service Pack
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Doesn’t Microsoft claim Windows XP was secure? If that is true why would we need another service pack and all the hassle that comes along with it?
dont they all say Linux is secure? So why do they keep patching it?
dont they all say Linux is secure? So why do they keep patching it?
Nobody is saying that Linux is secure. What people are saying is that Linux is more secure than Windows. Which is true enough. But no systems are secure, and that’s pretty much the first thing anyone will you if you ask: “Is Linux secure?”
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Not all service packs necessarily address security issues: they may also fix many other bugs (such as hibernation in certain situations that I’ve run into with this laptop, due to the significant amount of RAM, which I’m told is the cause of the problem of it getting caught in a weird error) and add support for new types of devices that didn’t exist before, that have appeared since the original OS was released, or additional subsystems that have been created that aren’t tied to a device. If you read the linked article, it mentions that things that are in a following OS may be backported, though it hasn’t been revealed exactly what (in this article) those things will be. Considering the past statements about several of the Vista features that they claim will be made available for XP, that’s not surprising, really.
I’d suspect a huge one that would be put into XP SP3 will be .NET 2.x since it’s in Microsoft’s best interest to have everyone have that available ASAP.
Let’s not forget: XP was released in 2001, and Windows 2003 is meant as a server OS. There have been several things that have appeared in that timeframe that didn’t exist when it was originally designed in terms of types of devices, and nothing as large as XP is likely to be bug-free, and I hope nobody will try to tell me Linux or their desktop environments are bug-free
did you RTFA? It doesn’t say SP3 will be about security.
The article did not explicitly state that SP3 would be about security. However the person making the announcement is the technical and SECURITY director.
(When has a Microsoft service pack NOT included security updates, anyway?)
So, before you ask if he “RTFA”, you should be more discerning in your perusal of the article.
It doesn’t say SP3 will be about security.
It doesn’t say anything, actually.
Is this going to cause as many problems as SP2 did? I avoided upgrading for nearly 8 months because of all the problems I heard about. I actually had some problems on my desktop and ended up taking it off but my laptop made the upgrade without issue.
Most likely, IE 7.0 will be included in this, thus in some aspects it will be about security. That and other back-ported components of Vista (.NET 2.x, maybe parts of Aero?) and bug fixes, and probably more options for Laptop users (since laptop usage has risen even since SP2) would be my guesses for the SP. Something to keep it relevant even 5 years after its release.
Why would they back-port Aero? That is the Vista UI. They will be backporting Avalon and Indigo, though.
Avalon was what I was trying to say, thus the question mark on Aero, denotating “I might not know what the hell I’m talking about here, and thus could be wrong.” Thanks for pointing that out. Thank god they aren’t back porting Aero.
Ha.
I don’t think it would really be possible to backport Aero, as they would also have to backport shell enhancements, FS enhancements, etc…
as they would also have to backport shell enhancements, FS enhancements, etc…
What shell enhancements? What FS enhancements? There will be none when Vista first arrives. Those are slated to come later. That said, I haven’t heard anywhere that Aero will be backported. The poster meant Avalon and that is going to be backported.
Shell enhancements: Explorer is getting changed quite a bit, and that is part of the shell.
FS enhancements: Metadata, search. Not WinFS stuff, but still enhancements.
How about the ability to handle meta data, and to be able to edit it from the shell.
Or, how about things like the “word wheel”. New search functionality, this all comes with Vista.
The telling sign is that its coming out after Vista. We’ll most likely see IE7, Avalon, and .NET 2.x.
Microsoft realizes that the migration path from XP to Vista is going to be slow (since XP works well), and that might as well give some of the goodies to XP users.
.NET 2.0 will be release on Nov. 7. Same day MS will release VStudio and SQL Server 2005.
No doubt .NET 2.0 will be in next SP3 but, as you suspected, that update will be centered on backporting some Vista technologies to XP. Namely Indigo & Avalon, IE7 with XAML support and a few things more. This is strategic for MS developers to start coding new apps as fast as they can and will ensure that quicker transition to XP as well since elder Windows versions won’t be supported. Reason they’re doing that is because XP user base is relatively small to what they expected, expecially if you consider that this system is out since almost 5 years. The real problem is not XP -> Vista upgrade rather W98/W2000 -> (at least) XP upgrade.
They will have hard times in trying to kill W98 and W2000 but they will slowly succeede.
wishful thinking
Why would microsoft backport the major hooks it has with Vista.
Being a corporation, Microsoft’s primary aim is to generate profit, so they need people to upgrade to Vista as quickly as possible.
They will not delay their own profits by making it easier for people to stay with XP and 2000.
You want the latest, expect to pay.
Because they said that they were going to backport it.
………and you believe everything Microsoft says ?
> You want the latest, expect to pay.
The key thing is, people are mostly comfortable with Win2000 technology. They’ve pretty much settled on IE6 features. They’ve settled on the MS Word 2000 file format. XP is basically Win2000 with a bit of window dressing so few people upgrade. Since hardware prices are falling and people have stopped blindly spending money on tech (since Y2K and the dot-com bust). They’re basically a sitting target.
Being a sitting target is bad. It gives your competition time to catch up or even surpass you (e.g. OpenOffice, Firefox, SAMBA, Google, MacOSX, Linux, WINE, ReactOS, ….).
Microsoft needs to get people upgrading and it needs to prevent people from switching to the competition. When Vista comes out, it’s new technologies will mostly be ignored because they’re incompatible with their current technology. Without these new technologies, it’s still a sitting duck.
So Microsoft has decided to backport some of their technologies to WinXP. If all goes according to plan, this move will lock people into the Windows platform (in the same way Active Directory did until SAMBA caught up). They should give them some time to find ways of getting people to move to Vista. If things don’t go according to plan and people still choose to be stuck with Win2000-type technology, Microsoft is in deep trouble.
Well, let’s not make too harsh predictions.
The fact that people still can use W98 and W2000 is not a mistery. But keep in mind that people can use such systems because Microsoft carefully took care about backporting all major MS technologies to such systems.
Let’s not forget that Microsoft is the best player when you talk about compatibility about different systems and that was a great part of their success. A W98 or W2000 system *with all updates and enhacements installed* is still a good system for old HW and those mostly still allow to run almost ALL Windows software. That was not by chance but Microsoft carefully took care about people being able to do that.
The problem about people not upgrading their OS is mostly related to same people not upgrading their HW. There wasn’t any *MAJOR* HW revolution in last 5 years. Most of technologies we used back in 2000 are still here. So maybe you then had a 20GB HD and now you own a 160GB one but the basic functionalities are there.
So there was no reason to switch HW and, the same way,there was no reason to switch OS. But only because Microsoft believes that compatibility is a key point. Otherwise, they could have introduced incompatibilities forcing people to upgrade anytime.
In a way, they’re doing that now by ending W2000 life cycle and not backporting all newer technologies to that system.
However,I have no doubts that if XP had double of marketshare it has now (say, 60% or more) they wouldn’t have backported Avalon and Indigo to XP. BUt they surely need to make sure that most people will run XP SP2 at least. They introduced too many changes (exp. for security) to allow that in 2006.
I wonder if SP 3 can be added, as other service packs without previous service packs….like if you are SP1 would SP 3 be installed and that would incorporate SP2 stuff? If so, this is going to be one honking big service pack….Like in the 400MB range!
We’ll see…since I have absolutely NO planes to get Vista, I’ll have to string my few remaning XP installs along. This could be a good thing!
Yes. There is no good reason for Microsoft to break with successful practice. You will also be able to slipstream (integrate with the XP install disc) the service pack so that fresh installs will automatically get the service pack. None of this is in the article, but this is how Mcrosoft service packs have worked since Windows 2000.
So…
0. wait 3 months in case of severe incompatibilities needing to be resolved
1. Gigantic one-time download
2. Test everything on spare machine, partition, or virtualisation environment if you can.
3. Burn new slipstreamed XP SP3 install disc.
4. go on about your business
–JM
Unless you order a free disc or download a special version, you only need to download a “small” installer (about 20 MB, I think) and it then downloads the files you need to upgrade.
So you won’t need to re-download SP1 and SP2.
Unless SP3 will provide me with gcc I don’t care.
of downloading it when their new os is going to be out already? it should be realsed today
because their new OS is going to be horrible and such.
Because the service pack will be free, and Vista will have to be bought?
I am thinking that one of the prime purposes of putting this out would be to break the systems that have a cracked version of XP.
Office XP SP3 breaks cracks. Good guess.
Can you tell me why they would only now decide to take serious steps to block people from getting updates and service packs. I’ve never used a cracked copy of Windows so I really don’t know whether they have or not, but I’ve never heard of any solid attempts to stop people from getting updates on cracked copies of Windows before. Why assume they would now on a service pack which people so far only seem to be making assumptions on.
They have. Even SP1 made an attempt. SP2 went further, and now Windows Update is trying to do it.
They’re not particularily succeeding either. Mostly people will share a single XP copy amongst a few computers, and when they call windows to activate they just say “I got a new computer” or “I upgraded” or the likes.
I do not know either, but one thing I do know, is that they will not let you download an update to Messenger unless you have an up to date IE installed.
As I had IE totally removed from these systems, I could not upgrade.
This is illegal vendor lock-in.
Thank the lord for OSS as I was able to us GAIM instead.
No, it isn’t “illegal vendor lock-in”.
You seem to expect to be able to install (say) a game after uninstalling OpenGL from a Linux system.
IE is integrated into the system and you aren’t meant to remove it. Because of this, the Messenger developers use some IE/MSHTML functionality.
Nobody is forcing you to use IE when it’s installed. Just set a different default browser and almost every application will launch links using that.
“Nobody is forcing you to use IE when it’s installed. Just set a different default browser and almost every application will launch links using that.”
Thats why they tie apps into IE, thats forcing you to use IE, real arcade and a number of other apps need IE.You would need IE for Windows update, but they got around that by automatic updates. Another bad trick is to make things default again, not so much forcing but proding.
I’m really pissed off that I have to use COM. Why are they forcing me to use it when I don’t want to?
Why do a lot of linux apps force me to use GTK? It’s ridiculous.
>As I had IE totally removed from these systems, I could not upgrade. This is illegal vendor lock-in.
If it were illegal OS vendor lock-in, you would not be able to use anything else except for software provided by the vendor who locked you in. By definition.
>Thank the lord for OSS as I was able to us GAIM instead.
I can probably name a few more Messengers, some of them as proprietary as you can get, which you can use on Windows without need to have IE.
You thank overlords of OSS for nothing.
I tested what the guy was saying….. results as follows….
Using XP; Messenger installed
Using XP lite; Messenger would not install without IE, result: vendor-lock-in
using 2000; Messenger installed
using 2klite; Messenger would not install without IE, result: vendor-lock-in
Using winME and win98 – messenger would not install. said I needed win2000 or winXP
VENDOW lock-in
I looked at what you are saying….. results as follows….
Using XP; Messenger installed
Using Fedora; Messenger would not install without Windows, result: vendor-lock-in
using 2000; Messenger installed
using OS360/370; Messenger would not install without Windows, result: vendor-lock-in
Asking friend using RSX-11 – messenger would not install. said I needed win2000 or winXP
VENDOR lock-in
… to be known as Vista.
lol
“A”
Good one
As this service pack is a) 12-18 months away and b) is coming out after Vista, not even Microsoft probably knows what it will fully contain. However, as Microsoft is led by sales and marketing, it is rather hard to imagine that they will issue a service pack for XP that enables you to enjoy the goodies of Vista without having to pay for it. More likely is that a post-Vista service pack will be carefully designed to cause enough niggling inconvenience and retarded functionality to present WinXP diehards with an offer they’ll have a great deal of trouble refusing.
this is probably just a pack, to make updating easier on administrators. and easier on their download site. its just easier when you can carry around a cd with all the latest patches on it.
Subject says enough.
JT
I have experienced no performance hits with either SP1 or SP2.
I haven’t found it to be any slower either. Although I think bloat can mean more unused features too. I don’t frequently use everything Windows has to offer so I could call that bloat, but I don’t 🙂 .
Who cares for SP3? It will never fix security holes of a badly designed and developed OS. It might even introduce more bugs. I stopped caring about MS after Apple produced OSX.
WinFS in it?
MS has said that they will backport those two thing to Windows XP…
For the OS released 5 years ago, sold for $45 retail when bought with new computer- it is really good service.
For a mere $10/year you can get bug fixes and kernel patches and new functionality and more supported devices.
Yes, you have to pay in advance (one time payment of $45 upfront) for service, but that is not uncommon practice.
Sure, someone may point that there are completely FREE (as in FREE of CHARGE) desktop OS solutions that cost you nothing in OS software and support- but unless you are living in a country where movie ticket costs less than $5 there is not much difference between $1/month and FREE (as in FREE of CHARGE).