[Figgie]

ROFL. This has to be the quickest SP release from M$ in the 10 years that I have been in computers. ROFL. Hell XP is not even out on retail yet and there are 48 patches already!!!!!


Here is the original story on the Inqwell
www.theinquirer.net/16100102.htm



/me is almost dieing on the floor of laughter!!!!

 

[Electronic Punk]

WindowsXP has been at build 2600 for around two months now, the fact that there have been so many small hotfixes already is a good sign that MS are keeping things as up-to-date as possible! Doesn't mean a service pack is going to be release any time soon!

 

[EAS]

In this case I think hackers have done a great job in providing beta testing for misrosoft. There is a huge distribution of XP running even before the launch. Just think about it....


XP has a reporting feature build it that alows the user to send inforamtion back to microsoft about system problems. MS has made it very easy to get feadback on many more system configurations than they could practically test in their own labs.


I know if I was a normal user going out to purchase XP off the shelf I would want all the fixes that have come up since the code on the disc in the box was released. This is pretty cool...and even cooler is that XP can (I believe) load up all the fixes during installation (connected to the net of course).


I work in quality assurance so I understand bugs.....with a product of this size and the amount of hardware in needs to support I'm still impressed at the stability and features.


Figgie must not work in the industry...if SP1 was released the second after XP went on sale I think it would be a huge accomplishment and not something to condemn.....software is definately an iterative process...it's never ever "done".



sorry for the rant...


EAS



PS: never worked for MS

 

[Electronic Punk]

I am looking foward to the stuff that is gonna be released after XP is officially released! (October 25th)


The stability of XP is amazing and it even looks and runs great.

 

[MKANET]

I can't find a packaged SP1. Just some hotfixes in preparation for an SP1.

 

[Figgie]

Mkanet


That is M$ way of telling you what is going to be in SP1. They do it for all there OS's. If you look at the win2k they have the SP3 categories. I think like 650+ hotfixes (Don't quote me on that)

I bet anything that after a month that it is release the SP1 comes out. Why do you ask? Most business DON'T even consider a new M$ OS until AFTER the first SP comes out. It was that way with W2k and it will be that way with XP.


And as for the security. I wouldn't start yapping yet. Remember win2k workstation are the least probable of getting hacked. Win2k server on the other hand have numerous attempts the minute they are brought live on the internet. ANd since they are for Web serving, FTP serving and all that other good stuff. They have to be available 24/7 for everyone. Including Mr/Ms hacker. That will be XP's saving grace FOR NOW. Until the XP server (which is the dot not products) makes a show.

Lots of collegues of mine in the field agree with me and there been cases where XP has shown no improvement in stability or speed over win2k. I have never had problems with win2k. As a matter a fact as of right now we are @ 99.99% availabitiy for numerous servers. M$ claims the golden ratio of 5 9's uptime. (BTw that is less than 1 full hour down PER year!!!) We done A/B comaprisons and I am not convinced yet. But I prolly end up getting it so when microsoft new and improved licensing schemes comes to fruition I don't get penalized for never having upgraded to win2k or XP or whatever is there latest incarnation at that time.



EAS


Actaully I have been in IT and security part of IT for the last 10 year. Don't assume anything just because of my statement. You know what assuming does.


Oh yes that what I want. The computer connecting for me without MY knowledge to the internet to download some M$ patch. What is to stop so smartey hacker from sending something to my puter and it installing itself. Ask any IT security administrator what they think. And they will tell you straight up that right now M$ fails in the XP side. Win2k is actaully decent if people can patch there boxes WHEN M$ puts out the patches but that is preaching and after code red and all those other good worms Let's hope that doesn't happen (yeah right who am I kidding. It will continue to happen)


You did it again. Assumed. You are not a normal user since you have knowledge of IT. A normal user most likely don't know what a patch is.

If not go to best buy an over listen to conversations. "I am looking for a new CPU with 40gb Ram" Ok....

It like the old "Don't click on exe or attachments from peeps you don't know blah blah blah" I lost count how many times that has been said and repeated but yet it STILL happens.


I am not condoning there SP1. As i stated above. That is a marketing ploy on M$ part especially for Corp america. But with how everything is for most business it won't work. Why. Win2k is stable as can be. I don't need user switch on the fly.

 

[deepcover]

I too work in IT, and I think You're statement re: "I have never had problems with win2k" is bogus. If you make a living working with this software, You have seen problems. If You are going to try and sound educated in the matters, Correct your spelling and grammar. It dilutes your point, and it would help to stop the overwhelming generalizations as well.

 

[Figgie]

Deepcover

Why? Because society demands that I speel corectly. That mihgt be good for ya biut I don't play that game. Don't like my spelling. I could care less. I don't get paid for this or it is not going to get graded for my University or advance my career either so it doesn't matter to me. Apparently you also understand what I saying. As the saying geos. That's the bottom line. And the statement I haven't had problems.. well hate to braek it to j00 but their is a reason why we are up 99.99% and it is not becuase of hocus pocus.

 

[deepcover]

I am just saying You are taking a lecturing tone, which some of the intent of what You are driving at is lost when I have to reread things several times to interpret what You are saying. Unless You want people to make there own interpretations of what You mean. I have seen many problems with Win2K, and XP has fixed some of them.

The compatibility mode settings work much better on an XP box, and having DOS emulation with 256 colors is important to some of my clients. Maybe I have seen the problems, due to the nature of My job.

I am a Senior Systems Consultant for the only Microsoft and Citrix Certified Consultant firms in the country. My latest project involved designing an Terminal Server environment for 9 of the Pacific Northwest VA Health depts. In that project, which started last January, there were numerous calls to Microsoft made for several things that wouldn’t work. Just the introduction of Win2K in a WinNT environment had numerous browse master problems.

I really don’t see SP1 for XP being a marketing ploy. There are issues that will creep up in a software package as big as this. I don’t think there is any reasonable way to avoid that. A start would be to take a unified hardware approach, but that is not very viable. If Microsoft had total control over what hardware they supported, as well as the software, we probably wouldn’t see co many issues. And when I say total control, I mean design for the hardware in a strict fashion. IE: hardware configurations. Compaq has incredible uptime on their servers, and they are one of the few that still submit servers to Microsoft for software compatibility certification. This means they can’t change the server, and retain certification without recertifying it, which is expensive. Dell and others make changes to there servers quite often in the lifespan of the product line. I have even had instabilities result in placing a ghost image on a server that the image was designed for, but had a different BIOS or firmware level. Now we all know Microsoft would never get away with supporting ONLY the hardware packages pre-certified for them.

One of the side effects of supporting so many components is making the system more complex. And that results in a need for patches when incompatibilities are found. Either that or never release new software.

 

[Figgie]

Unfortunatly everything is for interpretation. No matter if I dot all my I's and cross my T's =/ IF M$ had that much power we would ALL be in trouble There would be no Nvidia or ATI Believe me. The last thing I want to do is be serious on here. I do enough of that at work. Don't need to do it off work If that was the tone that you gathered. My bad. Was not my intent. I am not here to lecture anyone or tell em what to buy or not to buy. Only oneself can decide that. As for M$. Only time will tell. But how does it go (Win2k > XP) from being a 400 MB install to well over 1.5 GB. Yes the Hard drive are bigger and all that good stuff but is it right?? Dunno Most won't care since they have 40 GB to install there OS into. I for one still run win98 This is my gaming machine. Does it crash. Oh hell yes. I always try to squeek out all the performance I can from this bad boy. So here come beta this and beta that and even alpha's if i can get my paws on em. But at work I don't do testing. That what the developers do

 

[deepcover]

LOL, I used to run Win98, actually I only dumped it 3-4 months ago. The reasoning was due to me being tired of fiddling with it. I was spending 5 days a week in the Pacific Northwest, or Redwood city ( I live in Fresno, Ca) and one weekend I had just picked up a game I wanted to play. I installed a new video card, and my system wouldn’t boot. My current Win98 install was a mess. I had kept half heartedly doing things to make it work, rather than doing the right things. For example, It had been installed on an Abit BP6 motherboard, and then migrated to an Intel i820 board. All hardware had changed. The machine refused to run Scandisk or defrag. It would only reboot if You powered off the system. So I bit the bullet and went Win2K. With 512 megs Ram, on a SCSI based system, with a GeForce2 Ultra Card, Win2k may have been slower playing games, but I didnt notice it. I then ran into a DVD issue, and decided to install XP. Solved my Video issue, and all was well. I have a 50" Sony LCD projection Monitor, and with XPs Clear type font smoothing, my system has never looked so good. I like the stability of being able to come home from traveling, and pop in a game. No worry of rebooting or not, and so far no lockups while I am out of town, as Win98 did numerous times.

 

[deepcover]

BTW I like the signature. Sometimes things just feel like that.

 

[Figgie]

Wow you where up late last night. Heheh actually I seen this "quote" somewhere over 7 years ago Weird how it now is kind of true. :/ Like I said I myself am a gamer so I will take the higher FPS over the crashes. I play lots of UT and Q3a. HanD_Of_DetH is my handle. Crashes are a minor inconvinience as long as it doesn't DIE while I am in a middle of a game hehe

 

[EAS]

Quote:

Originally posted by Figgie Oh yes that what I want. The computer connecting for me without MY knowledge to the internet to download some M$ patch.

This is voluntary.

Quote:

What is to stop so smartey hacker from sending something to my puter and it installing itself. Ask any IT security administrator what they think. And they will tell you straight up that right now M$ fails in the XP side. Win2k is actaully decent if people can patch there boxes WHEN M$ puts out the patches but that is preaching and after code red and all those other good worms Let's hope that doesn't happen (yeah right who am I kidding. It will continue to happen)

This is not only a MS problem. Security effects all OS's. You do sound a little preachy and a little bitter. If you worked on code or around code I think you would understand a little better. Security is NEVER 100%. If you make it you can break it. I understand about patches after the exploits have happened problem...this is a hard one. THere has been quite a bit of debate lately about non MS companies publishing the weaknesses of OS's. While I think it's good to help tighten the OS this way it also allows hacks a few weeks of happy hacking. What can you do? Sort of the nature of the business. You can't find all the weaknesses is new code when you build it...and it's also good to get outside help in identifying the weaknesses....I think MS would like to see the publishing of weaknesses stopped, but I think it helps others learn what the next weakness is...who knows...it's an itterative process.


Quote:

You did it again. Assumed. You are not a normal user since you have knowledge of IT. A normal user most likely don't know what a patch is. If not go to best buy an over listen to conversations. "I am looking for a new CPU with 40gb Ram" Ok.... It like the old "Don't click on exe or attachments from peeps you don't know blah blah blah" I lost count how many times that has been said and repeated but yet it STILL happens.

I'm sorry you lost me were I assumed. I think that my point about patches is that with XP it can happen seemlessly for the users that aren't as technical. It IS more user friendly with fixes than 9x is.

Quote:

I am not condoning there SP1. As i stated above. That is a marketing ploy on M$ part especially for Corp america. But with how everything is for most business it won't work. Why. Win2k is stable as can be. I don't need user switch on the fly.

Well..it looks too me like you have an axe to grind with MS. THe reason I responded to your original post is because it was a little arrogant, short sighted and niave about software development. You go to the trouble of posting that you are rolling on the floor laughing that MS has put together fixes for it's OS....but it seems to me like you don't like them because you think they don't release patches...just a little confusing.


If your company doesn't need to switch to XP....don't. Xp will evolve like win2k.


I don't want to turn this into the MS vs. ??. Bottom line is I question your motivation for your original post. Xp may be a very good HTPC OS after a few months. Give it a chance..try being open minded.


EAS

 

[Figgie]

EAS


No stone to grind. Just stating what I know. As for being "arrogant and naive" Welcome to the internet. I can be as stupid or as smart as I wish to be that day.


Developer. Hell nah I am not a developer. I don't like looking at code for more than 15 minutes much less hours upon hours. And about laughing on the floor. Nope I WAS laughing that here they are ready to release there new and improved OS and there is already talk of SP1. THAT is what I am laughing about. Well fortunatly for me that my company is many companies. They all feel the same way. They just got WIn2k. Why I am going to upgrade 10K computers AGAIN???


My motivation. I don't have one. I use Win98 @ home. Win2k for business. And linux for web serving.


Listen I agree with OS "supposed" to be better. BUt not when it almost TRIPLED in size from Win2k? Hell even Win2k server with all the whistles is still LESS than HALF the size of the XP PRO Install.


Like em.. HAHA. I love them. They keep me in business

 

[deepcover]

"Upgrade 10K computers AGAIN"?

I would have had problems doing it once, much less a second time. I have never been able to understand companies that think having that number of machines is a viable option. I work mainly with Citrix and Terminal server, and we like to build terminal servers capable of serving applications to80-120 users per machine. Add in the fact that it is a standardized build across all servers, of identical hardware, and the support that needs to be done is much focused. Our company concentrates on the elimination of expense of maintaining PCs.

 

[Troyd]

Quote:

Originally posted by Electronic Punk WindowsXP has been at build 2600 for around two months now, the fact that there have been so many small hotfixes already is a good sign that MS are keeping things as up-to-date as possible! Doesn't mean a service pack is going to be release any time soon!

So is build 2600 going to be the final shipping build?


-Troy

 

[Figgie]

Actually Target does that. Metaframe with seamless intergration. I admin them it was pretty good when it worked. Though there setup was messed up from the start. And they are still on NT 4.0 on decktop, win2k ADS domain. =/

 

[PGPFan]

Troy-Windows XP shipping build (both pro and home) is bld. 2600.


Figgie, it amazes me that you make such wild, uninformed statements as "Listen I agree with OS "supposed" to be better. BUt not when it almost TRIPLED in size from Win2k? Hell even Win2k server with all the whistles is still LESS than HALF the size of the XP PRO Install".


Since when is it possible to base 'quality of improvements to an OS' on the size??? Both Win2K wks and server are older and have FAR LESS features than XP, not to mention driver support for far fewer hardware devices. I guess I missed the 'Software Developer's Bible' where it said you can add features, but only if you don't add any lines of code.


You other statement make me wonder also. "Nope I WAS laughing that here they are ready to release there new and improved OS and there is already talk of SP1." Obviously you don't understand the sad fact of 'bugs in ANY and ALL software' and exactly what this means. This can be anything from "..xxx causes a "blue screen when the device is removed while copying a file", to something that has absolutely NO CUSTOMER IMPACT like "...xx dialog box says USSR instead of Russia".


What people don't realize is that there are also many drivers that are added to the OS when a customer does a "patch", upgrade, or whatever it's called.


As for your collegues testing the performance of the OS, at least wait until it's released, or compare it's performance and feature set to the original build of win2k (2195) since win2k has had over a year to mature.


Okay, enough of my rant.


-PGPfan

 

[deepcover]

We do seamless integration, but tend to prefer Windows based terminals. No moving parts, if they die, just plug in a new on. Metaframe integrations are very hard to get right, which is why our company is the ONLY Microsoft and Citrix certified consultants. I know the number of companies that are Microsoft Certified Consultants are low, and there are only 7 Citrix certified consultants. We have actually published a book on Thin client implementation. One thing we have realized. A server serving a total of 1800 sessions without rebooting, tends to expose all the weakness in an OS, as well as in the applications.