Coming soon to XPSP2

By tomwarren
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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Grand Master

tomwarren Veteran

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Yea, Btw when is XP Reloaded? ;)

and thanks creamhackered.

It's not a certain thing, it's just a term internally referred to as a collection of updates for XP and MCE/Tablet PC. It's shaping out to be a marketing campaign and definitely not a new workstation OS.

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Renfrew-guy

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There's no such thing as XP reloaded. XPSP2 is not a dot release, it is purely a Service Pack. XPSP2 contains a number of security enhancements. For example, the firewall is now on by default, and centrally configurable via AD Group Policy to allow administrators to configure which apps they want to be able to traverse it seamlessly. It's now called Windows Firewall and not Internet Connection Firewall. Had this been turned on, none of the bad exploits that have plagued MS in recent times would have hit the client at all ..... NIMDA, SLAMMER, BLASTER, SASSER would not have gotten onto the box by default. The UI for wireless networking has changed and is cool, it remembers any wireless network you have connected to and switches between them as you move around seamlessly to the user. The /gs switch has been added to the compiler (as with Server 2003) to assist with preventing buffer overruns. IE has a huge number of security changes ranging from a pop-up blocker to lock-down on common exploits around MIME handling, zone elevation, cross-site scripting etc .......

From what I can see from the RC1 tech preview which I have installed on my XP laptop (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2predl.mspx) , it seems pretty rock solid. Too many pop-ups around IE and the firewall at the moment though. The user experience needs some refinement. But at last MS seems to be going in the right direction :-) ....... it's taken long enough after all.

For more information go look here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...n/sp2chngs.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...n/winxpsp2.mspx

Cheers

Scott

Grand Master

tomwarren Veteran

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There's no such thing as XP reloaded. XPSP2 is not a dot release, it is purely a Service Pack.

Firstly to address your 1st point about there being no XP reloaded. XP reloaded is an internal term for what Microsoft refer to as their new marketing campaign to market things like XPSP2/MCE 2005/Tablet 2005 and so on. So there is such a thing called XP Reloaded it's just not what the media originally reported it to be.

Secondly to address your 2nd point about XPSP2 just being a service pack. Although you're correct in one sense this is not a standard service pack and nor is it a service pack that will be marketed soley as a service pack. Service packs from Microsoft never usually include new features or updated components (WMP9/DX9 etc) and XPSP2 includes a whole lot of updated features and new ones (security center, popup blocking etc). So to call it just a service pack is off mark. Microsoft certainly won't be marking this release as just a "dot release".

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Xeron

Posted
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Microsoft has always been against updating DirectX with Service Packs. Are you sure about this cream?

I guess it's because DirectX has had a few critical security updates, same goes for WMP. I think Microsoft want to ensure that when SP2 is installed, that all possible security patches are there (apart from new post-SP2 patches).

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Renfrew-guy

Posted
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XP SP2 is the priority of the moment. LH is way out there.

As for reloaded ...... let's agree to disagree. We could go on for a while on this one. XP SP2 is the base for Tablet and MCE 2005 as you point out. If you install XP SP2 you get Tablet 2005. MCE 2005 is due for release later in the summer though as a separate SKU, based on the XP SP2 codebase of course.

As for feature packs v's service packs I agree with you ...... this is more than the average SP from MS. When I said that it was purey an SP .... I meant that is what it will be marketted as. MS did as you point out commit not to deliver new features in an SP. However, the amount of change doesn't warrant a new release I don't think. This will more than likely cost more to implement than a normal client SP - app compat will be hit to a certain extent by the changes in IE, DCOM/RPC and the firewall - to what extent who can say. However, I would think that the cost of implementation of this SP would be less than the cost of containing the next major exploit which hits the web for most enterprise companies. This will be marketed as an SP which contains "Active Security Technologies" (according to Gates latest statement), it will not be marketed as a client OS release .... that would hurt XP adoption in the corporate space ..... something I would think that MS would be keen to avoid.

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