SP2: 4/12/05 vs. Tax Professionals Deadline of 4/15/05. WHAAAAAT!!

[Guest]

I'm a sole proprietor CPA with p-t tax season staff in San Francisco with a
lot of work staring me in the face and due before April 15th. When a friend
of mine first heard about the forced deployment of SP2 onto the masses back
on March 1st, due to occur on April 12th by good ole Bill, he quickly
forwarded me the Tech Republic article with Subject Header: "Ready or not,
Windows XP update is coming". Luckily, last December I had decided to hire a
local IT support group, Proactive Network Consulting, who have successfully
installed a Dell server with SBS software, Veritas b/u s/w and Symantic
AntiVirus Groupware s/w. It's been a big relief to have them just a phone
call away for help when it's needed. Lawrence (the Big Cheese at Proactive)
has assured me he will see that no such automatic download and installation
of SP2 will occur into my main machine at any time before 4/16/05. I just
wonder ... didn't ANYONE working on the SP2 forced distribution consider us
poor number-crunching tax preparers when they decided upon April 12th as
their chosen date???

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Contrary to the bad journalism reports you have read, SP-2 is NOT going to
be forced on any computer.
If the people you hired convinced you extreme measures are necessary to
prevent SP-2, you should hire someone with integrity willing to tell you the
simple truth instead of a complex lie.
The facts are here:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/forcesp2.htm




"A Numbers-Type of Guy in San Francisco!"

 

[Guest]

No, no, no!! And pls don't assume I have or have not read about any of the
bad journalism of which you refer! It was a close personal friend of mine who
forwarded the Tech Republic article to me. And it was I that then fwd'd the
article to my IT consulting firm, an extremely knowledgeable and
well-respected firm I might add, and expressed my own concern about having
ANY changes made to my system 3 days before deadline day. Of course SP2 shall
be installed on my desktop unit! Truth is, I actually have on hand the CD of
SP2 I requested from MS.

The salient point of my post had only to do with the (in my mind at least)
rather BAD timing of this action! Why couldn't they have chosen Saturday,
April 16th? That would have provided a weekend window of opportunity for
people to see how well the upgrade went! Do you not agree?

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I have no reason why that date was chosen other than it is 240 days from the
release date.
However IIRC, it was originally 120 days and because of comments of many
large users, the date was extended.
It is really a non issue since it is easy to prevent installation of SP-2.

This issue only applies to the few users that installed that specific tool
in the first place.
Did you install the tool?




"A Numbers-Type of Guy in San Francisco!"

 

[Rock]

No, no, no!! And pls don't assume I have or have not read about any of the
bad journalism of which you refer! It was a close personal friend of mine who
forwarded the Tech Republic article to me. And it was I that then fwd'd the
article to my IT consulting firm, an extremely knowledgeable and
well-respected firm I might add, and expressed my own concern about having
ANY changes made to my system 3 days before deadline day. Of course SP2 shall
be installed on my desktop unit! Truth is, I actually have on hand the CD of
SP2 I requested from MS.

The salient point of my post had only to do with the (in my mind at least)
rather BAD timing of this action! Why couldn't they have chosen Saturday,
April 16th? That would have provided a weekend window of opportunity for
people to see how well the upgrade went! Do you not agree?

The date is essentially irrelevant. Just turn off automatic updates.

 

[Robert Moir]

The salient point of my post had only to do with the (in my mind at
least) rather BAD timing of this action! Why couldn't they have
chosen Saturday, April 16th? That would have provided a weekend
window of opportunity for people to see how well the upgrade went!
Do you not agree?

If any article tells you that SP2 is being *forced* on you then it *is* bad
journalism, but leaving aside the inaccurate nonsense surrounding this
"forced" update for now...

The world is a very big place, and Microsoft sell and support software in
most of it. I'm sure any date you and I contrived to pick because it wasn't
a problem for you to have updates on that day in the US, and it wasn't a
problem for me in the UK, would raise the hackles of someone somewhere else
because it interfered with their plans.


--

 

[OzieBill]

"A Numbers-Type of Guy in San Francisco!"

I'm a sole proprietor CPA with p-t tax season staff in San Francisco with
a
lot of work staring me in the face and due before April 15th. When a
friend
of mine first heard about the forced deployment of SP2 onto the masses
back
on March 1st, due to occur on April 12th by good ole Bill, he quickly
forwarded me the Tech Republic article with Subject Header: "Ready or not,
Windows XP update is coming". Luckily, last December I had decided to hire
a
local IT support group, Proactive Network Consulting, who have
successfully
installed a Dell server with SBS software, Veritas b/u s/w and Symantic
AntiVirus Groupware s/w. It's been a big relief to have them just a phone
call away for help when it's needed. Lawrence (the Big Cheese at
Proactive)
has assured me he will see that no such automatic download and
installation
of SP2 will occur into my main machine at any time before 4/16/05. I just
wonder ... didn't ANYONE working on the SP2 forced distribution consider
us
poor number-crunching tax preparers when they decided upon April 12th as
their chosen date???

May I ask a simple question?

SP-2 was released August 25 last year - why wasn't it installed months ago?
Maybe you should have a serious talk to your Big Cheese buddy.

 

[Richard Urban]

Because it doesn't matter. If you don't want it - don't accept
it..............PERIOD!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew half as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


"A Numbers-Type of Guy in San Francisco!"

 

[Guest]

Well, my dear OzieBill, the answer to your question is a very simple one.
Ever since opening up my own office over ten years ago, I’ve always thought I
knew enough about computer matters to take care of those things myself. After
all, I knew my experience with computers dated back to 1967 back east in
college when I’d received a 4.0 score for writing an entire depreciation
program starting with an accelerated method and switching to straight-line
using the Fortran language, about 300 punch cards (I had punched myself), and
submitting same to the special group on campus who had the necessary
knowledge about running the modern IBM 1132 computer system!

If that background experience was not enough, I certainly thought that
having bought a used computer without a hard drive but with two 5-1/2†floppy
drives from the Used Computer Store in Berkeley in 1985 or so was a big notch
up in my knowledge-base about computers. Well, that acquisition, along with
buying a thick Microsoft book covering all the details of DOS, which I read
cover-to-cover!

I have, believe it or not, pretty much succeeded in serving as my own IT
support since opening my office in 1994. It was only late this past December
that I realized I was spending far too much time on various computer issues
and not nearly enough time on client accounting and tax matters. Yes, last
September or October I has requested and received from Bill a CD of SP2, but
it had just hung around collecting dust while I viewed its installation as a
low-priority item.

It wasn’t until the very end of December that I finally decided to
“outsource†my IT needs. Surprisingly, I was lucky enough not to have to look
overseas for this support, but knew of an excellent local IT firm who came
highly recommended by one of my existing clients; and located only about six
blocks away from my office in Union Square! After several meetings which
covered my needs and wants and their ideas on how they could help me, I
decided upon moving to a server environment using a Dell server, Microsoft’s
SBS 2003 basic edition, Symantec’s AntiVirus 9.0 Groupware software and
Veritas backup software including two peripheral s/w items. Unfortunately,
there was a delay in delivery of the server which had become “lost†in
transit (which, luckily for me, one of Dell’s sales support team in India was
able to locate within a few days), and then further delay in receipt of the
Veritas s/w. So, by the time this wonderful new system was pretty much in
place, I was in the middle of my “high-season†and not at all interested in
dealing with installing SP2 until after April 15th. That was solely my
decision.

As a final comment, the main point I wished to raise in my post was the
timing issue which was included in the Subject Header of my original post.
Based upon some rather quick and snappy replies, it’s now obvious to me that
certain words I included in the body of the post, specifically “the forced
deployment of SP2 upon the masses…â€, created far more irritation to some
readers than I had ever imagined. I apologize to all who were offended over
my selection of words.

And, finally, to Jupiter Jones, I did follow the link you provided and read
the information found in that link. Thank you for that information. I must
say, however, that all I had indicated was that my consultant assured me no
automatic download of SP2 would occur to my desktop unit until after 4/15. I
feel you were far too sensitive and definitely overreacted when you wrote
back “If the people you hired convinced you extreme measures are necessary to
prevent SP-2, you should hire someone with integrity willing to tell you the
simple truth instead of a complex lie.†Huh??

 

[xfiler]

To throw my $.02, if i read JJ's post correctly, he was
upset that you may have been "forced" to
purchase "extreme" measures for a non-existent event by
people who, with a few easy quesions could have reassured
you that this was not the case.

Not that your IT decisions (or theirs) were wrong - just
that somebody with less knowledge could have been
hoodwinked into believing that all this was necessary to
keep you from getting SP2 - Unfortunatly, there are
plenty of people out there with no knowledge, and twice
as many who will take advantage of them. Jupiter, if I
am wrong on this - please let me (us) know.

Good day, xfiler.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

You pretty much got it.
This issue of forcing SP-2 is getting more press from bad journalist
interested in selling their story with half truths.
The possibility that anyone pays for extreme measures when a simple solution
is available can be irritating.
This statement the OP made "assured me he will see that no such automatic
download and installation
of SP-2 will occur into my main machine at any time before 4/16/05." is part
of what I saw as a possibility.
I am sure there are still those possibly spending thousands of dollars to
protect their computers from SP-2 when the solution is easily within their
grasp.
Especially in newsgroups it is difficult to know exactly what is meant when
not all is in the post.
I am still curious if the OP has the tool installed.




To throw my $.02, if i read JJ's post correctly, he was
upset that you may have been "forced" to
purchase "extreme" measures for a non-existent event by
people who, with a few easy quesions could have reassured
you that this was not the case.

Not that your IT decisions (or theirs) were wrong - just
that somebody with less knowledge could have been
hoodwinked into believing that all this was necessary to
keep you from getting SP2 - Unfortunatly, there are
plenty of people out there with no knowledge, and twice
as many who will take advantage of them. Jupiter, if I
am wrong on this - please let me (us) know.

Good day, xfiler.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I'm a sole proprietor CPA with p-t tax season staff in San Francisco with a
lot of work staring me in the face and due before April 15th. When a friend
of mine first heard about the forced deployment of SP2 onto the masses back
on March 1st, due to occur on April 12th by good ole Bill, he quickly
forwarded me the Tech Republic article with Subject Header: "Ready or not,
Windows XP update is coming". Luckily, last December I had decided to hire a
local IT support group, Proactive Network Consulting, who have successfully
installed a Dell server with SBS software, Veritas b/u s/w and Symantic
AntiVirus Groupware s/w. It's been a big relief to have them just a phone
call away for help when it's needed. Lawrence (the Big Cheese at Proactive)
has assured me he will see that no such automatic download and installation
of SP2 will occur into my main machine at any time before 4/16/05. I just
wonder ... didn't ANYONE working on the SP2 forced distribution consider us
poor number-crunching tax preparers when they decided upon April 12th as
their chosen date???

So, rather than using a few mouse clicks to turn off Automatic Updates,
you elected to unnecessarily spend (probably) thousands of dollars on
equipment, software, and a dishonest IT consultant?


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

No, no, no!! And pls don't assume I have or have not read about any of the
bad journalism of which you refer! It was a close personal friend of mine who
forwarded the Tech Republic article to me. And it was I that then fwd'd the
article to my IT consulting firm, an extremely knowledgeable

Your first post puts lie to this claim>

and well-respected firm

I don't see why, if they've conned you into wasting money and worry
over something that is a complete non-issue.

I might add, and expressed my own concern about having
ANY changes made to my system 3 days before deadline day.

Reasonable, but why didn't you simply have the service pack installed 6
months ago? You're in a non-dilemma of your own making, abetted by a
dishonest (or grossly incompetent) IT consulting firm.

Of course SP2 shall
be installed on my desktop unit! Truth is, I actually have on hand the CD of
SP2 I requested from MS.

The salient point of my post had only to do with the (in my mind at least)
rather BAD timing of this action! Why couldn't they have chosen Saturday,
April 16th? That would have provided a weekend window of opportunity for
people to see how well the upgrade went! Do you not agree?

How is it Microsoft's fault that you waiting till the last minute to panic?




--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH