Re: WinXP SP2 Release Candidate

From: Dirk-Thomas Brown (youhadtoask_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/23/04 

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 08:49:18 -0800

I am running it on a XP Pro Workstation in an SBS 2003 Premium environment
with no real issues except...

1. I don't see any location or means of looking at the Firewall software...
is it even installed when in my environment?
2. Did all the updates via the new windows update but one will NOT install
"March Security Patch Beta 7" It simply says failed and was not installed.

Dirk-Thomas

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@NOSPAM.frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:OZeDFKPEEHA.3748@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> My comments after running it for one day:
>
> Like most SP's, the installation takes a good long time. Now that it's
> installed, everything seems to be working fine (XP workstation, SBS 2K).
>
> There are a couple of small things that may be documented in the release
> notes, which I haven't read yet. It's my impression that the computer
> starts up a little more slowly than it did before. It creates a Start
> Menu item for Set Program Access and Defaults that can not be deleted with
> a right-click, but you can get rid of it in the Taskbar and Start Menu
> Properties. OE started logging me into Windows Messenger at startup,
> which I'm almost positive was not the case before (you can just kill that
> in the OE Options).
>
> The IE pop-up blocker is GREAT. By default it plays a sound when blocking
> a pop-up, and you can click an icon on the status bar to view the pop-up,
> change the settings, etc. You can select sites to allow pop-ups if you
> want to see them.
>
> As expected (and widely reported), there are some new security settings.
> At a quick glance, the firewall seems to have at least three times as many
> options and settings as the old one. Being on the LAN and behind ISA, I
> didn't change any of the firewall settings from their defaults, and
> everything seems to be working normally as it always did. I noticed that
> the firewall is set to ignore ping requests, but it does respond to a ping
> from another workstation, so I'm guessing that most of the firewall
> settings don't apply to the local network - if depending on this firewall
> as a primary defense, I'd obviously want to read all the documentation.
>
> It seems that the graphical appearance of security warnings encountered on
> the Internet has changed. Hopefully this will allow inexperienced users
> to differentiate between security warnings and less important messages,
> lessening the tendency to "ok" through a warning without reading it.
>
> I normally would not install RC software on my production machine, but I
> thought it was unusually important to give this particular SP a trial due
> to the major security changes. So far, no problems - I'll post back if
> any develop.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx
>

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