MS Patches Go For Quality Over Quantity?

greengrass writes "eWeek.com is running a story about another Microsoft 'study'. This one discusses how good Microsoft is at providing patches for their OS. This is Part 2 of 3 in a series of articles, the first of which compared Linux and Windows on legacy systems." From the article: "Bill Hilf, who is director of Platform Technology Strategy at Microsoft and heads its Linux and open-source lab, told eWEEK in a recent interview that 'the differentiator for customers is not the number comparison, but which vendor makes the patching and updating experience the least complex, most efficient and easiest to manage.'"

Re:Focus Magazine Interview Haunts Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

users aren't interested in bug fixes.

The thing is, he's right, he just didn't know it. Look at all the unpatched windows boxes that were spreading Slammer (or any of the other worms that spread like wildfire while using exploits that had been fixed months before). Users aren't interested in doing bug fixes.

Automatic Windows Update's gone a long way towards fixing this for them, but they'll need to ditch updates to windows carrying their own EULAs (which breaks automatic update, since it will sit around and backlog all the patches until someone logs into an administrative account (which users aren't supposed to do for everyday use, right?) in order to click the agree button) in order to truly automate everything.

Re:The patches just rarely add functionality

[HardCase]

XP still doesn't have support for Bluetooth...

You mean the Bluetooth connection between my notebook and my cellphone that I use to connect to the Internet on the road doesn't really work? Uh oh...

-h-

Re:Focus Magazine Interview Haunts Gates

[repruhsent]

...because Windows and Linux consume many, many megabytes (even gigabytes) of space, which is not feasible to manufacture into EPROM. Hard disks are slow, but for a reason; they're a cheaper storage device per gigabyte of data compared to EPROM.

Sure, you could put the kernel into EPROM, but that's a pain in the ass. Suppose you have a kernel vulnerability (be it in your Windows EPROM or your Linux EPROM). Now, suppose you're patching it from inside the OS and the power goes out. What now? With an EPROM containing your OS kernel, you're out of luck - you're going to have a boat load of fun getting your machine back up. If your kernel is on storage (like a hard disk) like everything else is, in the worst possible case scenario you have to reinstall your OS (which I bet a lot of people here do routinely anyway).

So, all in all, storing your OS in EPROM is a very, very bad idea. At least, right now.

Flamebait?

[Anti-Trend]

...maybe. Wrong? Not really. The only thing more rediculous than rebooting a workstation several times after a small batch of updates though is doing the same with a server. I'm going to get a tad bit off topic, but in the same thread of throught, so bear with me. Every time someone posts on Slashdot that Unices have better uptimes than Windows boxen, you invariably get a half-dozen disgruntled Windows admins spouting off numbers of how long their servers have been up. What they don't take into account is that if those systems have been up as long as they claim, the necessary updates have not been applied. Most Windows updates still require that a system is rebooted before the patch actually takes effect. Unix-like systems, on the other hand, are routinely patched hot, and typically only require a reboot in the case of a kernel update or invasive hardware maintenance. If Microsoft does finally fix the design flaw that requires one to reboot after nearly every patch, it will not be innovative so much as becoming more Unix-like in design.

Re:Flamebait?

[metallic]

Often when Windows Update says you need to reboot, you really don't need to. We've kept one of our production Exchange servers up for a month with a "You need to restart your system" notices in the taskbar. It's still suboptimal and nowhere near approaching anything as elegant as Unix but I've always believed that if you are to criticize something then you should at least be fair about it.