Just three days after a Microsoft vice president–who is in charge of Microsoft.com and Windows Update–told thousands of delegates at a conference in Florida that Service Pack 2 for Windows XP would be available by the end of 2003, the company has effectively retracted the comments and said that customers will see only a beta version of SP2 this year. In the meantime, Microsoft debuts first Windows XP Security Pack.
Microsoft Clears its Own XP SP2 Confusion
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Eugenia Loli
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Ok, so what does this tell us?
1) There are so many bugs in XP that they need all that time to come up with a service pack to fix them all.
2) No one is working very hard at Microsoft on SP2 for XP, because ???
Hmmm…???
I do believe there’s a lot more than bug fixes going into SP2. Didn’t I read somewhere that some of the security enhancements in Longhorn are going to be backported?
Some of the file versions in the Service Rollup One package have file versions of 6.0.0 instead of 5.1, and Build Version 2800 instead of 2600
I assume they are parts of Windows NT 6.0 – Longhorn ?
BTW I posted that SR1 was available, on this site, over 24 hours ago :-p
Y’all have probably seen this, but here’s a thread on /. about Billy Gates claiming that Windows is patched faster than Linux:
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/10/16/2256206.shtml?tid=126&tid=128…
Between this mixup and that interview… One has to wonder what the hell they’re smoking over in Redmond.
Big companies do breed confusion and misinformation by nature (the bigger the company, the more red tape and mixups!), but this is getting ridiculous.
Ok, so what does this tell us?
1) There are so many bugs in XP that they need all that time to come up with a service pack to fix them all.
Any significantly large codebase will be riddled with thousands upon thousands of bugs, be it open source or developed by Microsoft.
The “many eyes make all bugs shallow” aspect of open source development only goes so far. For proper debugging regression testing is required. Further regression testing is necessary on a software product as a whole as part of the debugging and maintenance cycle to ensure that patches do not impair the existing functionality.
2) No one is working very hard at Microsoft on SP2 for XP, because ???
Unlike open source development, the cycle operates in a “test first, then ship” mode as opposed to a “release early, release often, and let users do your testing for you”. The latter is a viable means of software testing, however it can be somewhat frustrating to the userbase to use such a product. Furthermore, without proper unit testing bugs may linger in the codebase undiscovered until the codebase is altered in such a way to expose them.
Microsoft’s approach means that customers will have to wait for service packs, because they must do all development in-house and can’t rely on others to fix bugs for them.
Considering the size of the codebases and the development practices being employed at Microsoft, namely that no one is familiar with their codebases and there’s a large amount of turnover, Microsoft’s products work remarkably well.
(of course my comments will probably be disregarded by the open source fanatics here as those of a “Microsoft apologist.” For the record I am a Solaris administrator by profession…)
“Microsoft’s approach means that customers will have to wait for service packs, because they must do all development in-house and can’t rely on others to fix bugs for them. ”
What are you smokin’ bub?
Ever hear about Microsoft’s *paid-for* beta releases? This is not only them gettin their customers to beta test, but also making their customer pay for that priveledge. How on earth can you suggest that this is better?
Ever hear about Microsoft’s *paid-for* beta releases? This is not only them gettin their customers to beta test, but also making their customer pay for that priveledge. How on earth can you suggest that this is better?
Are you saying that Microsoft provides early access to untested security patches for a fee? URL please… that’s ridiculous.
Old, but I assume it’s an example of what he meant:
“Customers can order Windows 2000 beta 3 via the Corporate Preview Program (CPP) from an MCSP or through the Microsoft Web site for an estimated price of $59.95 (U.S.).”
from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/apr99/2kb3pr.asp
So you pay them $60 to _test_ their OS.
Reading back it appears I misinterpreted his comment. I assumed he was talking about the topic at hand, security patches, instead of beta product releases.
http://v4beta.windowsupdate.com
Of course, you have to be a tester.
Non-fee, though … didn’t notice that part of your post at first.
That appears to be a beta test of the new version of Windows Update. Are you claiming they also provide pre-releases of security patches there as well?
But it’s a fully functional version of the OS, only thing is the licensce runs out in 180 days.
Not to mention shipping costs, CD pressing costs, PLUS the fact that the CPP users got new versions shipped to them each time a major new beta came out (RC1, RC2, etc…).
Yes, they do. That is actually where the latest XP rollup patch was tested.
There are many packages that are tested on the WU beta site.
Well, regardless, it appears to be a free service.
Yeah, as I said, I hadn’t noticed that ‘for a fee’ you had in your post.
[quote]Well, regardless, it appears to be a free service.[/quote]
I agree, some of you should stop bitchin about free patches.
Did you know if you own any of these high end cad packages, you have to PAY for the patches. and guess for how much………… $2500/yearly bling bling.
lets hope Microsoft never charges for their patches. phew