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Re: WIndows XP SP2 "breaks" things


From: Mark Shirley <mshirley () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:04:46 -0400

I have to agree here.  I think microsoft has done an excellent job
about trying to educate the public about what xpsp2 really does. 
There are countless documents that I personally have printed out that
tell me almost anything you need to know about xpsp2 and they have
been a life saver.  For once turn your browser to microsoft.com and
read what they have to say.  In particular the following documents
have been a great deal of help to us and our org (and no i won't give
you urls because i'm too lazy).

"Deploying windows firewall settings"
"Using the windows firewall INF file"
and my favorite so far has been the CIF "Changes In Functionality"
which goes into brief but detailed information about xpsp2 and what
has changed, why, and what it effects.

There really is no doubt that SP2 "breaks" things but so does every
hotfix ms releases.  If you test it in your enviroment instead of
throwing it down on your sus server and just letting things go you
won't have issues.  This is more then just a package of a few hotfixes
wrapped in one.  This is a SIGNIFICANT change in the way XP operates.

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 03:40:36 -0700 (PDT), Harlan Carvey
<keydet89 () yahoo com> wrote:
All I can say about this, Greg, is...well...duh!

Just FYI, my company is experiencing a high volume
of calls from customers
claiming that they have installed Windows SP2.
Customers claim that SP2 is
"breaking" previously working network behavior.
Initial testing indicates
that the cause is the "Internet Firewall" settings
on SP2 which have been set to default closed!

I guess MS is just responding to the public's
requests.  Sure, they could've done a much better job
of detecting during installation whether the system
was part of a domain or not, but you know, there has
been a great deal of documentation of the "on by
default" firewall settings in SP2.

Maybe someone should talk to your customers about what
happens when you install...well...pretty much anything
(patches or anything else) without some sort of plan.



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