XP SP2 Adoption Lagging Overseas

Vizquel wrote to mention an eWeek article reporting that Microsoft is frustrated with the lack of Service Pack 2 usage overseas. From the article: "During a keynote at the Security Summit East here, McKee said Microsoft has so far distributed more than 250 million copies of XP SP2 to provide a hardened shell around the operating system but the low upgrade levels remains a disappointment."

just SP2?

[theheff]

There are over 40 critical updates that have come out since SP2... SP2 only goes so far in protection. I've used "broadband" in other countries... updating to SP2 plus all critical updates would take AGES. They'd be better off just disabling services in services.msc and using what they have now behind a hardware firewall.

Re:Because Piracy Abound

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we know that China, India, and Africa all have MUCH BETTER broadband than we do.

Its amazing how when a few countries that represent a tiny fraction of the internet population offers better internet services, they all of the sudden become "the entire world".

Re:Because Piracy Abound

[Anonymous Coward]

God, Microsoft just can't be right, can they?

Sorry, but look, it's not Microsoft's job to provide bandwidth and services to pirated copies. Yes, it would be nice if they did (and they used to, I don't know about now.) However, you cannot blame Microsoft for not updating pirated copies. It's like a cable company sending out someone to fix a person's cable when that person pirates their cable.

While that analogy is somewhat flawed since pirated cable doesn't hurt anyone else, the fact of the matter remains that it is not Microsoft's job to patch pirated copies. Just because you don't like Microsoft doesn't make it right to say that they should.

Re:Because Piracy Abound

[Bad Ad]

while on the windows update site tools -> manage addons and disable the genuine advantage tool control. then restart browser and you can update all you like.

Re:just SP2?

[Changa_MC]

Except that you must reboot several times to get all the patches from SP1 all the way to SP2. It's not a one step process that you can walk away from.

Re:Because Piracy Abound

[plantman-the-womb-st]

News flash, Africa is a continent, not a country.

Kenya may have worse internet service than us, but does that mean Egypt and South Africa do also? What about Morocco and Niger?

Re:I'm no expert....

[Jarnis]

It refuses to install with exact same pirate keys that SP1 refuses to install.

If your key allows SP1, it allows SP2.

Yes, world is filled with idiots still spreading the ages-old 'Devils0wn' XP release from the beginning of time, which does not allow SP1 OR SP2 installation without changing the key.

However, changing the key takes all of 30 seconds, and tools (+list of 'valid' keys) can be found online in about 2 minutes of googling.

Re:That's not it at all.

[Alphab.fr]

hum, I'm quited tempted to say it's very much the other way around... Here in france we have 20 Mb/s for 30/month... To get back on topic, I tried to upgrade some Warez Xp to SP2 but couldn't... I'm now a happy mac user :

No kidding.

[Trillan]

I spent six months in a third world country. There are two major reasons why XP SP2 wasn't in use there:

1. The license restrictions were tighter than plain XP,
2. It required over a day to download.

Heck, the guy who came over to install my DSL told me not to install it. Naturally, I didn't listen...

Re:Upgrading SP2

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, once SP2 is installed, you should only have to install the Windows Installer, which requires a reboot, and then the remaining patches, which also requires a reboot. Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but if you had to go through multiple reboots just to get to the point where you could install SP2, then you are probably doing something wrong. I have SP2 slipstreamed into my copy of XP which does make things easier. After I install Windows with SP2, there are usually only 2 reboots (Windows Installer, remaining patches) required to finish updating.

From what I have seen, patching for regular users is easy. All they have to do is make sure Automatic Updates are enabled (which it should be by default, especially from the notifications you get after installing SP2) click on the reminder when patches are available, click next, and then allow for a reboot when it is finished. My dad is not good on computers at all, and complains of being dislexic when it comes to typing, yet he is still able to patch his system when updates become available.

SP2 got bad rep

[Jarnis]

There is a very very simple reason.

I work at PC repairs. I see SP2less computers every day. MOST of them have legal copy of windows(!)

The reason why SP2 uptake is slow, is that when it was released, some people with virus/spyware-ridden computers just went and installed it - and their installation promptly blew up, since Microsoft for some odd reason didn't test their upgrade with every piece of malware out there.

So, the 'common wisdom' made rounds with lots and lots of clueless lusers; "Don't install SP2, it will just mess up your system and make you reinstall everything". Even *I* considered the upgrade hazardous during the first few weeks due to couple of blowups I'd seen.

Only thru trial and error (on customer's computers :) ) I quickly figured out when SP2 blows up and when it doesnt. 99.99% of installations will go just fine as long as the computer is first cleaned of all the spyware and viruses, and you make sure that drivers are at least in the ballpark of being up to date. Skip those steps, and there is a very real risk that you get to reinstall everything (or, at least, get to do a repair install with a CD that has SP2 slipstreamed into it).

Now if just one person tells 10 friends how his computer got all messed up due to SP2 (when it reality it was already mucked up by ten cubic miles of spyware), those ten will tell horror stories to 10 of their friends how they heard that SP2 is bad.

Boom, SP2 adoption rate takes a huge broadside hit.

I *still* need to reassure people who bring their computer in for repairs that installing SP2 is not only a good idea, but almost downright required if you plan on keeping your system connected to the internet. Standard operating procedure is to install all windows updates when fixing any problem, be it spyware, viruses or plain old hardware problem - yet I still sometimes get calls after the fact to the tune of 'how did you get SP2 installed? I thought it'd just mess up my computer so I was too afraid to try', while in fact there was zero reason why the user should've not installed it.

Now pirate copies are another story; Yes, I see those very commonly as well.

They fall into a couple of categories;

- Clueful people who know what they are doing (99% of these are computers with real hardware faults). They have SP2 and all updates installed, and windows update is working fine, with WGA circumvented. They are aware that MS 'pirate blocks' are not stopping anyone who knows how to use Google and can read.

In these cases there is no problem. Never was.

- Clueless idiots who "got my copy from a friend". Some have The Old Version with no SPs, and then whine how it never works right and always get viruses. Most have SP1, but havent' installed SP2 because they've "heard that it can't be installed" - when in reality it would work just fine. Most of these turn around and buy a genuine copy in case their system needs a full reinstall due to malware infestation so bad it can't be completely cleaned up within sane number of expensive techie hours.

For those I can't really go and install the SP2, as company policy says that any OS issues related to pirate copies are customers problem. Sure, I can clean up malware assuming it doesn't require a reinstall, and I can drop in any stuff the automatic update gives, but generally I don't even bother trying SP2.

Now, Microsoft's 'anti piracy measures' have definitely caused them to sell more legal copies to the clueless idiots who 'trusted their friend to install a free copy', and then got burned by the Windows Update and/or SP2 install key blacklists. However, as long as their system worked, they really don't care if its updated or not. I've seen systems where the damn computer contained all the financial stuff of a small company, NO BACKUPS, with system full of viruses and other crap to the point when it no longer boots - and the owner didn't care it hadn't been updated. He was just pissed that the computer stopped working, and was

Re:Upgrading SP2

[Anonymous Coward]

MS needs to change their update process so that it can be done all at once.

They did. Just upgrade to SP2 to get the better process.

Re:Possible reason

[Hal_Porter]

You can make a slipstream CD with XP and SP2 applied.

That way when you install it on other machines, they are SP2'd from the start.

http://www.petri.co.il/windows_2000_xp_sp_slipstre aming.htm [petri.co.il]

Re:Because Piracy Abound

[Hal_Porter]

Microsoft wrote a page describing how to change to a valid serial number

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=328874 [microsoft.com]

You still have to Google for a keygen to get that valid serial number though.

parent may be modded flamebait...

[Phil Urich]

...but it's why I'm still on SP1 myself. Everything I have on my machine (including some graphics-intensive Win95/98 era stuff) runs beautifully. Many, many of the things I use often (like the old UnrealEd for Unreal1, UT99, and Deus Ex) refuse to work on any of the computers my friends have. On the other hand, Freespace always seems to work, but admittedly, that's due to a weird thing with the way-too-damn-many fonts installed on my machine. Also, doesn't SP2 refuse to allow more than 10 outgoing connection attempts at a time? I know Azureus mentions such in the settings.

Also, more seriously, XP SP2 broke the ability of my parents' virus scanner to keep an active monitor running. Which in turn quickly led to the near-total destruction of the computer before I came home for the holidays last year and fixed it (it arose again like a Phoenix, though key things in Windows are still missing . . . nothing important, actually, mainly stuff that was annoying and unable to be removed with any ease before, so in a way that's kindof a plus!)

Alot more stuff is broken, I just don't recall quite what. Hmm, maybe a quick google search will clarify:

Microsoft's own list of broken apps [microsoft.com]
Also,
SP2 removes the ability of users to send raw TCP segments [oreillynet.com]
It also breaks Captive-NTFS [oreillynet.com]
It can break the Group Policy Object Editor [windowsnetworking.com]
And as mentioned above, it limits TCP to 10 outgoing attempts [speedguide.net] (link also includes methods of disabling this; more detailed information on the issue can be found here [davidkaspar.com].
Here's a forum in which people describe a few of the more technical problems and their solutions for SP2 [davidkaspar.com]

I could go on, but you get the idea. There are some serious drawbacks to SP2. I could go on about how the supposed security features don't exactly impress me (and honestly, all the third-party security programs on my computer have never had to do much, since I run it very securely anyways, and they could handle it even if I didn't), but again, you can probably elaborate on your own.

My point, really, is just that parent is being truthful! Hell, it doesn't even matter if you argue that SP2 doesn't break anything worth fretting about, the perception, with enough evidence to hold sway, still exists, so it's still a huge reason for lack of adoption. Maybe parent is flamebait as well, but sometimes truth == flamebait!