Why is SP2 so big? It doesn't do much

[Dave C.]

Considering the number of bugs fixed I would hardly call it worthless.

The 200Mb includes all the bugs, not just one, so I'd rather have them
all fixed than wait until I come across one.

If their was a chance the brakes on your car could fail, youd be
pretty keen to have then fixed! ...Or would you not bother, as youve
never had them fail before !?

Have you ever heard anybody say if it ain't broke, don't fix it??? There's
a reason they say that. If I happen to run into one of the bugs that SP2
addresses, it will be a minor inconvenience, at worst. Probably take me all
of a few minutes to figure out a convenient workaround. But to avoid that
possibility, you would have me fix hundreds of problems that don't exist,
and risk creating many new problems in the process??? No, I stand by my
opinion that SP2 is ~200MB of worthless software. -Dave

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Just because you do not recognize something as broken does not mean
all is well.

Perhaps you do not need SP-2.
But you far from represent the masses.

 

[Harry]

Have you ever heard anybody say if it ain't broke, don't fix it??? There's
a reason they say that. If I happen to run into one of the bugs that SP2
addresses, it will be a minor inconvenience, at worst. Probably take me all
of a few minutes to figure out a convenient workaround. But to avoid that
possibility, you would have me fix hundreds of problems that don't exist,
and risk creating many new problems in the process??? No, I stand by my
opinion that SP2 is ~200MB of worthless software. -Dave

But the problems do exist. Albeit not on your PC, but they do exist.

Just browsing the list I can see that their are issues affecting CPU
performance; registry keys being indvertantly deleted; system lockups;
and hard disk corruption.

Lets hope you really dont come across one of these minor
inconveniences.

Dont come whinging to us when your PC starts playing up.

 

[Dave C.]

Just because you do not recognize something as broken does not mean
all is well.

I don't know about that. My computer is rock-solid stable, spyware and
virus free. It's also very productive and does everything I need to do to
telecommute from home. It interfaces perfectly with many peripheral
components, and networks wirelessly with other computers in my home. No
problem at all. If you try to tell me that it's broken, that will just make
you look foolish. -Dave

 

[Dave C.]

But the problems do exist. Albeit not on your PC, but they do exist.

Just browsing the list I can see that their are issues affecting CPU
performance; registry keys being indvertantly deleted; system lockups;
and hard disk corruption.

Lets hope you really dont come across one of these minor
inconveniences.

Dont come whinging to us when your PC starts playing up.

Let me get this straight . . . you would advise someone to fix a perfectly
good computer because you imagine that something bad might happen sometime
in the future? I've got news for you. If your computer is going to be hit
with a minor inconvenience, that's just as likely to happen whether SP2 is
installed or not. Or were you under the mistaken impression that SP2 alone
could magically cure all possible computer ills? To me, this SP2 looks like
a cure that is much worse than the supposed disease. People who've
installed it successfully report numerous new problems. Not as severe as
what I've experienced (and I'm not alone, according to other readers of the
ng and even MICROSOFT), but when you start with a computer system that works
well, any new problem is a PITA. You'll really feel like shit when you
realize that the SP2 problems you encounter were problems you didn't need to
deal with. Note that many people have installed SP2 and report no new
problems with it, and that's great. But when your computer is working great
to begin with, you are going to break even, AT BEST.

Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of SP2. My honest opinion of it is
that it's just not ready for public release yet, though. I'll upgrade my
own machines to SP2, but not right now. I'll wait several months for
Mickeysoft to try to get some more of the bugs worked out of *SP2*,
irst. -Dave

 

[JAD]

<My honest opinion of it >


Is just that,,,,,,,,,

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I never suggested your computer is broken, that is your idea.

I did say "Just because you do not recognize something as broken does
not mean all is well."
Which was a response to your comment "Have you ever heard anybody say
if it ain't broke, don't fix it???"

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

No one even suggested that, again that is your idea.

However just because all seems well, does not mean all is well.
Every computer can be looked at individually.

Also your comment "...you imagine that something bad..." suggests this
is all Harry's idea.
Perhaps you should step back and research a bit and discover these
problems and fixes are not something Harry imagined.
You have a bad way of twisting what was said.

They are real whether you believe it or not.
They may not affect all computers but they are real just the same.

 

[Apollo]

Have you ever heard anybody say if it ain't broke, don't fix it???
There's
a reason they say that. If I happen to run into one of the bugs that SP2
addresses, it will be a minor inconvenience, at worst. Probably take me
all
of a few minutes to figure out a convenient workaround. But to avoid that
possibility, you would have me fix hundreds of problems that don't exist,
and risk creating many new problems in the process??? No, I stand by my
opinion that SP2 is ~200MB of worthless software. -Dave

You really don't have a clue d00d.

So if you happen to come across a security vulnerability (after the event),
it would only be a minor inconvenience to change all passwords, including
any online banking, credit cards, email accounts assuming your accounts
haven't been cleared out already.

I haven't had a single issue with my slipstream of sp2 (apart from the usual
services bloat), my system seems snappier and more responsive too.

 

[Aquila Deus]

What the hell did you expect it do?

to become linux!

 

[relic]

to become linux!

Not buggy enough.

 

[Aquila Deus]

To Aquila Deus
Bobby ask nonobaddog. Has a problem understanding people. If he
does not understand people he claims they are on drugs.

He accused my being on drugs as well. Had to tell him, my grammar
is bad at time due to my disability. A form of dyslexia. I will say
something if he gives incorrect information out. Other than that I
just ignore him.

He still didn?t get the message Symantec Ghost was acquired from
Binary Research Limited group.

He keep saying ghost was a Symantec/Norton product since it inception.
Symantec/Norton?s did not develop ghost. Binary Research did.

http://www.symantec.com/corporate/


Greg R

Thanks for your backing! )

 

[David Maynard]

Have you ever heard anybody say if it ain't broke, don't fix it??? There's
a reason they say that.

Yes, there is. But that presumes it really "ain't broke" and his point of
it being broke, really, is still valid.

 

[David Maynard]

But the problems do exist. Albeit not on your PC, but they do exist.

Just browsing the list I can see that their are issues affecting CPU
performance; registry keys being indvertantly deleted; system lockups;
and hard disk corruption.

Lets hope you really dont come across one of these minor
inconveniences.

Dont come whinging to us when your PC starts playing up.

Well, let's not get carried away here. Someone not installing SP2 is in no
worse shape than they were a month ago.

 

[Don Taylor]

Tell me about it, or, perhaps not

'Technically' there's no difference: the ICS machine does NAT and you point
the client machines to it as the router. From the user's standpoint,
though, with Windows you make a client disk that automatically sets up the
client machines but you have to do it manually with Linux.

That's what I mean about Windows being more tightly integrated.

It sounded like it should have worked, or I wouldn't have tried.

Almost any network aware O.S. will automatically accept DHCP configuration
as default (frankly, I don't know of any that won't but there's probably
SOME exception so I say almost). The trick, of course, is having DHCP set
up somewhere, or you have to do it manually.

Tried DHCP, no joy. So I fell back on static addressing since I would
never need more than 9 ip addresses in 192.168.(0..8) or would ever
need to have them change. Still no joy.

Since he could ping the ICS box, but not get internet access, I'd guess
that he had a valid IP but didn't have the ICS machine's IP set as the
default gateway on the Linux box. Second problem is that the Linux
hosts.allow and hosts.deny configuration files default to blocking all
hosts/IPs.

I thought I had the gateway address set correctly.
I thought I had checked hosts.* to allow this,
but then I tend to not swear I'm positive about
most things just so I don't ignore the right answer.

But it could never reach a name server, and when I
fell back on using numeric ip addresses, and forcing
it to not first try name resolution on them, it would
not reach the outside destination either.

To do windows file and printer sharing he'd then have to set up Samba,
which is a whole 'nother matter.

I guaranteed that I would never need either of those, once I figured out
the advice that I had to make Samba work was only necessary in those two
cases.

And it still didn't work.

But I had volunteers to come over and urinate on the competitors products


However, at this point it really doesn't matter, I swore off the whole
mess and now say "I'm net-not-working" if anyone asks. Floppies will
do and I'll just leave it at that. The math is getting done now and
that is good enough, I get paid for the work.

But it would be an interesting challenge to see if anyone could make
either product friendly enough that the "average user" could accomplish
something like this in, say 5 minutes, and not leave any gaping security
holes open. It doesn't really seem like this should be rocket science.

 

[Jon Danniken]

To borrow a line from a recent movie I saw on Showtime . . .

Sometimes you have to tear something down to rebuild it.

Which is my way of saying the easiest way to fix something as broken as IE
is to replace it with something decent. -Dave

I've tried a few of the other browsers, but I have found them to be buggy as hell, and
with "features" that I consider absolute rubbish (like tabbed browsing). While there
are a couple of things that I find annoying with IE, as far as I am concerned it's
still far and away the best product out there.

Jon

 

[Jon Danniken]

Anonymous logging of downloads from Microsofts site. Its the same as a
website cookie. It does not log key strokes. It does not popup ads.

And its not compulsory. Updates can be downloaded without using this
service.

Actually, from my experience I had to set "Automatic Updates" to "Automatic" to even
be able to do manual downloads of updates. I turn it off after I'm done looking for
any available updates.

Jon

 

[mc]

Serious question - why is SP2 so big?

It's about (80 to 100 MB for users fully up to date with XP patches and is
200 plus MB for those who haven't been applying patches.

Let's say it is a average minimum of 90 MB. That is very big. Why is it so
large?

Top 10 reasons why SP2 is sooooo Big.

10. 80 MB of future backdoors.
9. Big Brother friendly.
8. 100 MB of encryption.
7. Append Append Append.
6. "This CD has so much free space", microsoft developers.
5. Bill Gates about to buy Hard-drive company.
4. Linux software in hidden easter-egg.
3. Backstreet Boy's video used as test mpg.
2. OJ's selling steroids.
1. Viagra.

 

[David Maynard]

Tell me about it, or, perhaps not




It sounded like it should have worked, or I wouldn't have tried.

Yes, well, normally it does. (Don't you just hate people who say that? hehe)

I'd have to set up a machine specifically for the 'built in ICS'
configuration because I'm using Win2K server with Routing and Remote Access
NAT (and, of course, DHCP, WINS, and DNS) but Linux seamlessly comes up
under that configuration, well, except for Samba, which takes a bit of work
to sort out. And I've been playing with DSL Linux, plus a couple of others,
which are Knoppix remasters and those all simply boot and, poof, internet,
so I was a bit surprised to hear your problems with it.

ICS *should* have worked pretty much the same as my 'manually' configured
'full blown' setup, but apparently not.

Tried DHCP, no joy. So I fell back on static addressing since I would
never need more than 9 ip addresses in 192.168.(0..8) or would ever
need to have them change. Still no joy.

Well, you can't use 0 (nor 255) and 1 is the ICS router IP.

Plus, your subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 (for the simple, non
segmented, net you were doing)

I thought I had the gateway address set correctly.
I thought I had checked hosts.* to allow this,
but then I tend to not swear I'm positive about
most things just so I don't ignore the right answer.

But it could never reach a name server, and when I
fell back on using numeric ip addresses, and forcing
it to not first try name resolution on them, it would
not reach the outside destination either.

DNS should be set to the ICS host, e.g. 192.168.0.1. It then makes the
external DNS request and hands the response back to the client.

Here's the MS article on static configuring an ICS client. It's the same
regardless of what O.S. it is.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309642

Here's an A to Z tutorial on ICS.

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/

I guaranteed that I would never need either of those, once I figured out
the advice that I had to make Samba work was only necessary in those two
cases.

And it still didn't work.

But I had volunteers to come over and urinate on the competitors products

Hehe. Yeah, I noticed the 'helpful' urinators.

However, at this point it really doesn't matter, I swore off the whole
mess and now say "I'm net-not-working" if anyone asks. Floppies will
do and I'll just leave it at that. The math is getting done now and
that is good enough, I get paid for the work.

But it would be an interesting challenge to see if anyone could make
either product friendly enough that the "average user" could accomplish
something like this in, say 5 minutes, and not leave any gaping security
holes open. It doesn't really seem like this should be rocket science.

Well, 'windows to windows' should pretty much come out that way because of
the wizards and client setup disks; gaping security holes being another matter.

 

[Don Taylor]

Yes, well, normally it does. (Don't you just hate people who say that? hehe)

Naaa, I have other buttons to push

I'd have to set up a machine specifically for the 'built in ICS'
configuration because I'm using Win2K server with Routing and Remote Access
NAT (and, of course, DHCP, WINS, and DNS) but Linux seamlessly comes up
under that configuration, well, except for Samba, which takes a bit of work
to sort out. And I've been playing with DSL Linux, plus a couple of others,
which are Knoppix remasters and those all simply boot and, poof, internet,
so I was a bit surprised to hear your problems with it.

I tend to guess now that either Windows or Linux would be pretty seamless
BUT ONLY as long as they don't have to play well with anyone else.

ICS *should* have worked pretty much the same as my 'manually' configured
'full blown' setup, but apparently not.

Well, you can't use 0 (nor 255) and 1 is the ICS router IP.

Oops, my typo, it was 1..9, not 0..8

Plus, your subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 (for the simple, non
segmented, net you were doing)

Did that

DNS should be set to the ICS host, e.g. 192.168.0.1. It then makes the
external DNS request and hands the response back to the client.

Did that

Here's the MS article on static configuring an ICS client. It's the same
regardless of what O.S. it is.

Here's an A to Z tutorial on ICS.
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/

I read a lot of web pages, a lot of books, who knows.

Hehe. Yeah, I noticed the 'helpful' urinators.
Yup

Well, 'windows to windows' should pretty much come out that way because of
the wizards and client setup disks; gaping security holes being another matter.

As I said above, as long as they don't have to "play well with others..."
But that is just my guess.

And the reason I went out of my way to ask various folks for help was
because I didn't want to leave holes for some net vandal to exploit.

But, as I said, doesn't matter any more, let the zealots kill each other.