Windows XP Service Pack 2 Beta - Ouch!
Leonardo
Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
Installed XP SP2 Beta on both of my home systems (see signature). Problems on both machines. (Yes, I did back everything up before installation, thank goodness.
System 1: During sessions when P2P, Internet, and Internet Explorer were being used simultaneously, the computer would hard lock, with no navigation at all available. Control-Alt-Delete wouldn't even open up the applications/programs window. Only way out of the lock was to hard-reset the machine. I checked out security settings, turned off the MS (SP2) firewall, all to no avail. I eventually gave up after several hard locks and restored the computer to the XP SP1 configuration I had backed up. All problems disappeared.
System 2: XP SP2 Beta is still running on it. No hard locks yet - perhaps because it hasn't been stressed yet (at least, networking features) as much as System 1 was. Problem: Windows Update will not work. There are available updates that support/patch SP2; and Windows Update finds them for System 2, but I can't install them. It gets to the point where the individual fixes are all identified, and I select install. At that point, the computer starts to engage to download the selected files/fixes, but then stops with a message, "..... failed to install". I can't figure this out. I cleaned out temp files, cookies, and even removed Microsoft the "$Uninst~" files in the Windows folder, but still no solution. If I can't get Update working correctly, I'll restore System 2 back to SP1.
(This post is not knocking Microsoft at all. In the SP2 Beta installation process, window text clearly stated that the software was beta and that the user should make a backup first, which I did.)
System 1: During sessions when P2P, Internet, and Internet Explorer were being used simultaneously, the computer would hard lock, with no navigation at all available. Control-Alt-Delete wouldn't even open up the applications/programs window. Only way out of the lock was to hard-reset the machine. I checked out security settings, turned off the MS (SP2) firewall, all to no avail. I eventually gave up after several hard locks and restored the computer to the XP SP1 configuration I had backed up. All problems disappeared.
System 2: XP SP2 Beta is still running on it. No hard locks yet - perhaps because it hasn't been stressed yet (at least, networking features) as much as System 1 was. Problem: Windows Update will not work. There are available updates that support/patch SP2; and Windows Update finds them for System 2, but I can't install them. It gets to the point where the individual fixes are all identified, and I select install. At that point, the computer starts to engage to download the selected files/fixes, but then stops with a message, "..... failed to install". I can't figure this out. I cleaned out temp files, cookies, and even removed Microsoft the "$Uninst~" files in the Windows folder, but still no solution. If I can't get Update working correctly, I'll restore System 2 back to SP1.
(This post is not knocking Microsoft at all. In the SP2 Beta installation process, window text clearly stated that the software was beta and that the user should make a backup first, which I did.)
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Comments
Beware the Beta !
I have learned my lesson with those beta service packs long ago.
That sux tho. Good thing you backuped up huh.
Yes, good thing. Looks like I'll be restoring System 2 today before problems crop up.
Trev
Well once that was done I kept getting randon reboots every 5-10 mins, after days of fault finding it turns out that it was my Qtec 550w psu p.o.s.
Now I know that it was just conincedance and that software cant screw up a psu but I still blame Billy Gates anyway!
Hmm, that's why there's the HUGE disclaimer at the beginning of the installation wizard warning the user to back up everything first.
Yeah, but who pays attention to those insesent ramblings of laywers on acid anyway?
If you mean the Corp versions of XP, update 5 is still working fine for me anyway. I slipstreamed sp2 and after I install I immediatley run windows update to pick up the 5 or 6 post sp2 hotfixs in December.
Tex
Comon Tex, I'm a bloke, therefore I dont need to read the manual to do or install anything. I'm born with the required knowledge or its instinctual. Or so I like to believe.
Because of the problems I've had with SP2 I'm not willing to try it again so I'll just wait for the real thing to arrive.
Nope.
Or I'll send you killer dvd.... (grin)
Tex
If you want a stateful firewall, sans any hangs at all, increase RAM a minimum of 20-30% over stable amount you had before, as firewalls are being triggered a LOT by viruses these days. There are also DDOS worms that spread through messengers (MSN and Windows Messenger ports and RPC ports),though thankfully the first worm attempted for MSN Messenger has a low number of infections right now but those affected (and infected) boxes and does not have a local machine destructive payload except for genning bunches of traffic outward (which the stateful SP2 firewall will be busy blocking if it even blocks messenger ports by default). Firewalls HAVE to be multithreading realtime processes to fully protect, and lock or hang when swapped to HD too much-- then all interent access is locked, and the way they have to work is to trigger either a reboot or a lock if overwhelmed. That is why I run a firewalled router now, and frequency of router reset needed tells me router is busy blocking things, aslogs show ports that are used by DDOS and other viruses not of email kind. typically, when comcast is under load,this is mroe frequent than when not,and it is before virus defs bacome available for th Symantec appliances they use that router has to be reset most often.
Allow for the fact that your AV and antispam and Adware and spy blockers are increasing need for more RAM and processor time on any box that surfs or does IRQ or IRC or P2P or VPN or email pickup and you might have fewer problems. My surfing boxes, even behind a firewalled router, are end point secure and also have 1.5-2X the RAM I needed for comparable unconnected-to-net use to run real stable.
John.
Tex
IPV6 needs to be used with IPV6 aware hardware as well as software, and mixing hardware like Novell compatible cards (NICs) that are Novell 2000 compatible with IPV6 software will result in NIC locks and that will lock XP's networking and XP more often by a factor of 4-5 than whn you use IPV6 compatible hardware. Many 3COM NICs are IPV6 capable, and a lot of Intel NICs also are. The SP2 firewall WILL be fully IPV6 aware as it needs to block inward IPV6 probing and DDOS and DOS syle hack attacks. Linux now is fully IPV6 aware, FreeBSD 5.1 and 5.2 also, and they do NOT support NE2000 cards and will not as those cards cannot handle IPV6. To block at router, the router needs to be at least somewhat IPV6 aware or Stateful, best is BOTH. Most Gigabit router have one or boht, and can handle IPV6 for teh most part. Most cheap routers cannot. I live-recycle my router, Linux and XP Pro can both surf when I do after it locks, when it does, without any rebooting. 98 SE cannot do this, it has to be restarted. ME ditto. Expect ISPs to offer IPV6 network wide within two years, and both IPV6 end point protection in hardware and software need to be able to handle that. Expect if you deal with US government that you will need to have IPV6 comm gear and protective software within 3 years. IPV6 is being deployed in limited ways now, on US government nets. IPV6, to be fully implemented, requires a security support suite now, as part of standard. this will be hardware and software supported, and fully stateful, and this is why Microsoft is doing the IPV6 thing in large part other than VPN will also be IPV6 capable and lots of folks want VPN and stateful firewalls becuase of this trend. Fully deployed IPV6 is more DDOS resistant, and can be so at router and security appliances.
John--who surfs from Linux in large part for security reasons, other than things like trainable antispam and firewalls and a kernel that stays up when GUI desktops fail in toto.
Fully deployed IPV6 will allow for the MAC equivalent to to be encoded in the IPV6 address, and allow for autotraceback and autoblocking of things IDS boxes detect as spoofed and illegal use and hack attempts to specific machines, from anywhere in the route used to surf or P2P. DDOS suits, in five years, will be much more common.
This is the tip of the iceberg of DMCA showing more of itself, as ISPs can use this to trace violators of AUPs (Acceptable User Policies) directly to violating machines. IPV6 aware security boxes are being deployed, and end node ISP gateways will within a decade on the outside be IPV6 aware. Period.
John.