XP Service pack2--Watch out

[Rick Hale]

Check this out guys..



May be wise to wait till all the "fixes" are out,



HaleDamage----------------------------------------Rick Hale
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/19/tech/main630456.shtml?cmp=EM8706

 

[Jim B]

I dont think its going to be as bad as that article says. I have been testing the release canditates of this service pack for the last two months and from what i am seeing its going to be pretty painless. I have tested about 75 apps on this including some really funky engineering stuff and everything has been fine. The enhanced security and a better firewall are worth is in my opinion. And the new more granular system policies that will let admins like me have better control over the desktop is long overdue. there have always been policies i can tinker with but never like this. Any time you do a major system upgrade and sometimes even small security patches you will run into some systems that fail, its a part of the game. The last service pack i sent out to 5000 users and had less then 1% failure rate. I dont forsee really any major issues with it.

 

[Greg Meyer]

Jim B..



Is that the sound of a bullet just whizzing past...



We have had conflicts with some "still in use" older apps..

Word 97 (from the Office 97 group...but not a standalone install...go figure). We are still testing some apps from our client's lists... And, Norton's Internet Security goes down like a ton of bricks or becomes a runaway (on some older systems, only). So, I'm still in "the jury is out" list... But, maybe the release won't be the same as the beta...

 

[Jim B]

Greg,

Im in a little different situation. All my xp machines the oldest version of office is xp, and most have 2003. We dont run anything like norton internet security on anything, it really dosent belong on an enterprise type machine. Anything with the name norton on it is really geared for the home user/small biz anyway. We do use symentec corporate managed anri virus and v8.1 isnt having any issues with it. Neither is our black ice firewall on laptops. All of out other apps like unigraphics, sdrc ideas and matlab all work fine. The only thing we run that i thought may be an issue is our contivity vpn and its working fine. When we do roll this out to our XP based pc's i dont think its going to be an issue at all. I have worked very hard to make sure i dont get in a position of having extremely outdated software out there that will bite me in the butt someday.



Can i ask why on earth are you running an office 97 app on an XP platform??

 

[Greg Meyer]

I am the Senior MS/Novell Consultant for a group of affiliated consulting firms... We service dozens of small and medium sized businesses. We don't control what our customers have... Many times we "inherit" situations... So, it is a lot different out here in the "real world"...LOL



And the Office 97 apps on an XP platform... Well it is a law firm that is too cheap (I hope they don't ever read this board...LOL) to upgrade... They argue they have too many "standard forms, etc." that would have to be changed.... B.S.... THey are CHEAP! 200+ users @ $200 ea... No way... we can barely get them to buy new workstations when the old ones die... They still had some NT desktops last fall...

 

[Jim B]

It makes me glad i work for a tech company thats not afraid to spend a little cash to stay up to date. We have over 5000 users here and thankfully we have enforced standards and can support these machines in a reasonable manner and automation is easy because we know whats out there.



What inherited when i started here years ago was a company that had 3 platforms, unix, mac and windows. No standards and the users could just do whatever they wanted. Imagine 3000+ users in a free for all with thier pc's. It was a total nightmare that has thankfully has turned around to a much more suportable situation. We now have mainly windows machines for everyone that are locked down and very supportable. The graphiocs people still use macs and there are very few unix machines still out there for engineers that need them. The biggest hurdle was getting people to stop thinking of thier pc as "my" pc and start thinking of it as "the company's" pc.

 

[Greg Meyer]

Hey at least they were thinking of them as PCs... STill find a few who think that the monitor is for a sticky note display and the CD is a great cup holder!



Eeven have some who use white out on the screen!

 

[William H. (Bill) Barham]

I tried reading all of that.. It made my head hurt.



BIll