Re: RANT ! SP2 !

"Help and Support" feature is missing after you install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2 on a computer that is running Windows Small Business Server 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937231


Susan Bradley, CPA aka Ebitz - SBS Rocks [MVP] wrote:
Not protecting them from what? What is your concern here? You getting security patches? If so don't beat yourself up here.

There is a help and support hotfix that is out but you have to call for it. Yeah I know... stupid.

I personally would like to rant that these are not documented in the release notes of SP2. But I hear ya... this is not an easy service pack for us and Microsoft's attitude towards service packs (they are more tested! yeah right) and my personal past history means that I don't trust them.


Teneo wrote:
I refer mainly to:-
"This issue is currently under investigation, however if you are currently experiencing this issue you can run the following commands to resolve the issue" (see below)

This was posted in MARCH !

I have just updated a server with SP2 after seeing issues and waiting but cant wait any longer, am I not protecting my clients by delaying ?

Before I applied the patch below I then proceeded to update completely with all latest patches, maybe there is an automatic fix in a future download. No, issue is still there.

Surely this could have been added into the service pack, tag it on the end of the install and run on reboot?

Reviewing http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/default.aspx we have nearly 20 point checklist to see if SP2 has affected the server, why are we doing Microsoft work.

Whilst I do appreciate every system is not the same and there can be issues, when a simple small fix cannot be resolved by Microsoft some 4 MONTHS later, where is their CARE to their customers.

Usually apply patches and away we go, now we see we are spending 2 -3 hours testing the system, RDP, RWW, VPN, PC Connectivity, logs etc.

Oh well, Ill check back for comments after finishing this server and maybe in a months time we will have finished all our clients servers.



Windows cannot open Help and Support because a system service is not running.
To fix this problem, start the service named 'Help and Support'.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
This issue is currently under investigation, however if you are currently experiencing this issue you can run the following commands to resolve the issue:

1. Open a command prompt.
2. Navigate to %windir%\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries
3. Run "start /w helpsvc /svchost netsvcs /regserver /install"
4. Once this command completes the Help and Support service should now appear in services.msc
5. Start the Help and Support service

Regards,

The SBS Bloggers team


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