Service Pack 2

I've just finished a fresh format and installation of Service Pack 2 for XP and I have to say it's the first time I saw stuff from a Windows change that made me think "Wow, they actually paid attention!" there are so many greater things now to help those who are not in the know for computers. The built-in firewall now has actual options and I'd consider using it if it weren't for my hardware firewall. As well, the new security defaults are great too. IE is a hell of a lot better with its auto-magic pop-up and active-x blocking/scripting dialogues. You can now have it give a small task-bar type message when something attempts to pop up and or install and you can override that a la crtl+click. Yes, I know that Mozilla and its variants had this for the longest time, but now with those options I've found it much safer if not more-so than using Mozilla now that I have all the access abilities of IE as well as the smarter download/resume/scripting functions that were possessed by Mozilla etc. It's nice that they took their time and really worked out stuff seeing as this OS is so attacked. It's nice to know that since the 2000 era Microsoft is now working back towards the NT and security mindset while still making it a user-friendly operating system.

How do you get Service Pack 2? I own Windows XP Professional with SP1, so is SP2 a free download or do you need to buy it? It doesnt seem to come up using windows update.

It won't be available on Windows update until the end of August I think... I don't know, I don't use s**tty Win XP

I think you need to add another poll option for "My crappy Windows
Update won't let me update with SP2, so as far as my computer is
concerned, SP2 doesn't exist."

Reno, as far as I'm aware it's available to download via torrent. Watch for bogus files though.

Ix-nay on the al-illegay le-fisay

xD

Ahh... Just what I need- more hand-holding from Microsoft.

NOT.

Ix-nay on the al-illegay le-fisay

xD

No harm in mentioning its whereabouts bud. :smile:

Campaignjunkie said:
I think you need to add another poll option for "My crappy Windows Update won't let me update with SP2, so as far as my computer is concerned, SP2 doesn't exist."

It's true that the Windows Update version doesn't exist yet. That'll be an optimized version. You can get it off TechNet if you want though, which is what I did. Torrents are usually checked, but why bother when you can get it easily off microsoft? (I got it at a good 350kb/s.)

So it's not a mistake or anything according your Windows Update, it's just that the smaller version will be available to the average joe shortly. (The TechNet version is the full one and is about 266Mb. Took me about 4 minutes to download.)

And as always, updates are free.

"I don't use s**tty Win XP"

Please keep that somewhere else unless you want to give a full reason. Especially if you're one of the people who thinks '98 is better for gaming.

[edit] Here's the link for anyone interested: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=049c9dbe-3b8e-4f30-8245-9e368d3cdb5a&DisplayLang=en

Alien_Sniper said:

Ix-nay on the al-illegay le-fisay

xD

No harm in mentioning its whereabouts bud. :smile:

The torrents are not illegal AFAIK. You can't install them on an unlicensed version anyway.

Bah, I'll wait. What's the worst that could hap-

Campaignjunkie said:
Bah, I'll wait. What's the worst that could hap-

lol, but I think the thing is that if youve been downloading all the updates as you go you wont need the sp2 and if your not sure if youve got it then ask microsoft to send you their free CD with sp2 on it, although it will probably install a bunch of adds along with it. Ohh and if you all arent sure if your updated then go here: http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp this download piece by piece, better than the big exe.

Ps what is a fire wall hardware, im tired of spyware

Look into using a different browser than IE, it's notoriously
vunerable. Firefox seems to be the most popular alternative at the
moment. I highly recommend it.

A software firewall should be sufficient for most users. Try the free
version of 'Kerio personal firewall' if you don't already have one.

Service Packs are evil. They don't re-test their old code with the new additions to see if their previous design document still works. In fact most companies do this (bad).

I got SP1 on a CD from Microsoft, so I'll probably order it again the same way.

I'm going to wait a few months.

They already released a list with known problems ... it's quite huge.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2

Apps like Knights of the Old Republic (!), CuteFTP and even Microsoft Office (hahaha) won't work properly.

That list is just some random crap. Why don't they list EVERY app which needs open ports?

And besides, that's the whole point of a firewall, isn't it?

Er, it doesn't seem SP2 is out yet (for me at least), unless it's not listed because I update fairly regularly...

Alien_Sniper said:
Look into using a different browser than IE, it's notoriously vunerable. Firefox seems to be the most popular alternative at the moment. I highly recommend it.

A software firewall should be sufficient for most users. Try the free version of 'Kerio personal firewall' if you don't already have one.

I have Firefox as well, but IE now has all the same abilities and many MORE warnings than firefox has about scripts and other such attempting to start by default. There are just a lot of sites that aren't Mozilla/Firefox compatible and it's a nuisance to have everything so segregated for a bunch of sites.

I have Office, it works fine. I have Knights of the Old Republic, it works fine. I don't have Cute FTP (I use Smart). I've had to update a few programs, (Nero, Winamp, Norton, Style XP etc.) but it's all been smoother than any other install I've had. It's also good if you do it off a fresh reformat. You install SP2 and that's all you need, every previous update is done.

Lep, read my post in the middle, I stated the page and reason that your windows update wouldn't list it yet. The single user (technicially) version would be available around the end of this month.

And for many programs it's GOOD that they're broken because they are broken after SP2 because they were using methods that were unsafe. Just don't bitch about your applications or games not working and there being an update for them and you just don't take it. Taking the time to update does yourself and others a world of good (that's why old worms are still out there is because people don't update, what good is it if you don't?)

"That list is just some random crap. Why don't they list EVERY app which needs open ports?

And besides, that's the whole point of a firewall, isn't it?"

Pretty much, That's a really stupid argument that you think those are bugs...it's the same deal with having any other firewall. That's not a bug, it's security. You can open the ports for the games and applications you want. The new Firewall has those options, it works like it should have in the first place. Alternately you can turn it off and get a different software one, or a hardware firewall. Don't be a fool and leave your computer open, if you do, just do us all a favour and shut your computer off or pull the network plug...

I have Firefox as well, but IE now has all the same abilities and many MORE warnings than firefox has about scripts and other such attempting to start by default.

And it needs it too, since the huge majority of attacks are designed to hit IE.

"I don't use s**tty Win XP"

Please keep that somewhere else unless you want to give a full reason. Especially if you're one of the people who thinks '98 is better for gaming.

No, I think its more stable and doesn't bog down system performance like XP does (And I've used XP at my school a lot and it crashes more than cars at nascar)

fizscy46 said:

"I don't use s**tty Win XP"

Please keep that somewhere else unless you want to give a full reason. Especially if you're one of the people who thinks '98 is better for gaming.

No, I think its more stable and doesn't bog down system performance like XP does (And I've used XP at my school a lot and it crashes more than cars at nascar)

Thats because the computers at ur school suck :razz:

yeah, man.

Operating systems don't crash computers.
Computers crash computers.

I don't know, they were pentium 4 computer, brand new and built by our schools cisco engineer (Who is also the head of the technology department in Ontario)

Yeah ... but they're school computers. School computers take so much damage its rediculous. That's why most schools get pieces of s**t, so they don't flip out when people ransack them.

Also, they probably have weird protection programs on them. There are probably many programs running on the computers that bog them down. Secondly, someone from Cisco would never use Win '98, only an NT base.

He actually wanted to run Linux on them

I know, Thats what all techs want to put on school computers, but no one at the schools would be able to use them (Well the majority anyway). So, if they have to choose a Windows OS, they choose an NT base.

I work at a library on campus at my school, on the IT side of things, and we have several public Linux stations set up that are quite user friendly. Since the bulk of the patrons who use those are only checking e-mail and looking up porn, they tend to work out well.

We also have a full service Linux computer lab on campus. I say full-service because the ones at the library are locked down rather tightly in terms of policies and what-not.

Most people can't even tell the difference on the Library workstations- they really think they're working with windows.

I thought he was talking about non-universities.

At PSU we've got like ten kagillion Linux/Sun/Windows labs.
They're pretty nice, since they can't be publicly used. You have to have an account, to get one you have to be a student (to get a 'CS' account you have to be in a certain level of either: Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Engineering to get access to them.)

You're basically tripping over computers at that university.

Linux is very user friendly, and defenitely the most stable and effecient platform due to its dynamic kernal. The problem is that its very powerful in terms of hacking power, and its unable to read software designed for windows (Its files however are readable by windows)

Er, it doesn't seem SP2 is out yet (for me at least), unless it's not listed because I update fairly regularly...

You can get it from Technet, but it will be released on Windows Update somewhere in August.

Myself, I'm waiting until a few bugs get squashed ... I've spent months
tweaking this system, I don't want another service pack ruining it.

Linux is very user friendly, and defenitely the most stable and effecient platform due to its dynamic kernal. The problem is that its very powerful in terms of hacking power, and its unable to read software designed for windows (Its files however are readable by windows)

That's what Wine is for.

Windows 98 is never more stable than XP in its own right. Maybe if you had wonky hardware, but not because of the OS. The NT core in itself is loads more stable than the 9x/ME garbage. School computers are a write-off and hardly count for any arguement for the above stated reasons. Seriously though, I've had XP on this machine for 2 1/2 years and the only blue-screen I ever had was when my HDD actually physically died. The only times its frozen ever was because of a program being stupid and was not the fault of the OS. 98 on the other hand...especially that brutal task manager, what help is that?

fizscy46 said:
Ix-nay on the al-illegay le-fisay

xD

Someone should teach you real pig latin so you don't embarass yourself again. What you do is take the front of the word and put it at the end, followed by the ay - not the other way around. Apostrophes are used (though none is also acceptable).

Nix -> Ix'nay

Files -> Iles'fay

There are many schools of though for how to handle words starting with a vowel, the primary one works like this:

Illegal -> Illegal'way

It stuns me that anyone could come up with le-fisay.

i never did understand how you did pig latin or whate ever.

very technical stuff, that

I don't see why you're taking Pig Latin so seriously anyway, CCS. They did it the same way in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

"We-ay... I-ay... need to get the... uff-stay... out of the... unk-tray."

Not with dashes, mind you, but you don't really pronounce those anyway.

I don't see how you're contradicting me; that seems to be done the same way I described. OK, so the punctuation's different, but the consonant extraction works the same way. Use any method and try to come up with le-fisay for files.

He came up with le-fisay because he made a typo, I'd surmise.

pig-latin typo? impossible. once there is a typo, it is no longer pig-latin.

...it becomes "g'piay-tin'laay", which is clearly not the same as "ig'pay atin'lay".

There is already a post-SP2 hotfix out. So much for 'SP2 is dealyed so we can properly test it'. Vulnerabilities were found within 24 hours of the first release, which isn't on windows update because it is the 'network install', at 250 megs-ish. The windows update version will be much smaller.

I don't use XP because it offers me nothing over 2Kpro other than wizards and 'helping hands' that i don't need even if they all worked. In addition, 2000 uses the same drivers as XP, uses less resources than XP, and gets all the security fixes of XP. 2K doesn't have that awful newer version of media player, which you can't uninstall.

I have to admit one thing XP does that I have needed, which is network bridging. This wasn't a problem though, I found a 40k program that runs as a service and does this. Probably does it more efficiently than XP as well :razz:

I prefer Media Player 9...but then it tried to delete my music when I told it not to and got a big ol' "f**k no you don't!" Which motivated me to figure out what my problem with WinAmp was. (Sound kept cutting out at varied amounts of time with no real trigger.) Turns out the default device for DirectSound and WaveSound was some other hardware that I didn't have and yet still worked...just changed it to my actual soundcard and it's all good now. I just leave media player around for the few files that it can play that others can't. I have 2000 on my other machine but it does lack a lot of help/abilities in the Networking field. While it isn't bad, it's just not as easy.

The main thing I don't like about WMP9 besides its sluggish assets, is the fact that it makes a list of everything you watch through it and sends it to MS every month.

The thing I don't like about 2000 workstations is that it does the same thing, but with your browser history.

Other problem with win XP is the crappy version of msn imbedded in it that logs you in all the time.

Of course, both the media player and msn messenger can be deleted by using a dos boot-disk and deleting it through it

Well, Windows Update just popped up and ordered me to download SP2. Let's see what happens. :smile:

Microsoft are bullies. I'm telling on them.

fizscy46 said:
Microsoft are bullies. I'm telling on them.

LMAO Funniest thing I have read all day!

but with your browser history

Not if you use mozilla :razz:

I don't really see how win2k lacks a lot of abilities in the netorking field. All it lacks are wizards that anybody who knows what they are doing never use...

? quote:but with your browser history

Not if you use mozilla :razz:

Well I wasn't even aware of it when I was using 2000, It came up in a conversation I had with my Software Engineering instructor a couple months ago. He's got some 'homies' in MS, they get him legit. copies of Windows for employee price ($20).

fizscy46 said:
Other problem with win XP is the crappy version of msn imbedded in it that logs you in all the time.

Of course, both the media player and msn messenger can be deleted by using a dos boot-disk and deleting it through it

After SP1 it's been available in the windows components to be removed. As well, there is a run command to remove at least windows messenger. Haven't had a need to remove the media player. But windows messenger got the boot as it's so incredibly buggy vs. MSN Messenger (yes, they are different.)