A Microsoft executive has said the company will launch Service Pack 2 for Windows XP in December, months earlier than the company forecast on its Service Pack roadmap.
At the Citrix iForum in Florida on Tuesday, Microsoft's corporate vice president of content, Richard Kaplan, who is in charge of the Microsoft.com and Windows Update Web sites, told delegates that Windows XP SP2 would be available by the end of the year. The service pack was originally planned for this year, but had been put back to 2004.
Kaplan admitted that Microsoft's record on security has "not been good enough", but he claims the company is improving. Security is now the number one priority for Microsoft and that will be demonstrated with SP2, he said, revealing that the update will contain enhanced memory protection in an attempt to reduce the operating system's vulnerability to buffer overflow exploits. "One of the primary way worms get onto the system is by what they call a buffer overflow. There is a new technology that lets us lock out people's ability to install code in Windows using a buffer overflow," he said.
Additionally, SP2 will switch on Windows XP's built-in firewall by default and provide better control over ActiveX scripts: "Automatic downloading of ActiveX controls that you don't know about and don't care about -- we are going to make this much, much easier to control."
Kaplan also said that Microsoft will, except in extreme cases, only release patches once a month: "You should install patches on your schedule rather than our schedule," he said.
Talkback
I believe Microsoft was wise to release SP2 this year, however unwise to have it enable the firewall. Most businesses who know enough to upgrade to SP2 have their own firewall, and the XP built-in firewall could only hinder users from accessing resources. At least they let us know...
I am becoming very disenchanted with Microsoft. My e-mail in in shambles because of a rampant virus that hit. It disabled both my antivirus software and my firewall.
Why can't Microsoft take the time to test it's products thoroughly before releasing a new operating system? Maybe Microsoft should hire some of the hackers that locate the holes in their software to detect these holes BEFORE the software is shipped to the unsuspecting public. We pay big bucks for Microsoft software and all it does is give us grief.
Whatever the answer is...I'm fed up with taking hours and hours to remove viruses or hiring professionals to do so. It has crippled my computer and I've wasted many valuable hours spent in "detection and clean up".
Does Microsoft want to reimburse me for all the business hours lost or the money spent on "fixing" my computers after a virus hits because of a defect in their software?
I've had it! I think I'll consider an Apple system instead. At least it will work.
YOU ARE SO WRONG XP sp2 will not be released in December. The beta may be; but there is NOT way on earth that the real service pack will be released. Rich Kaplan was talking about the beta version of xp sp2 and this should have been clear to anybody: but a complete idiot.
You loose credibility publishing rubbish like this.
If you read the story two days later "Confusion reigns over Windows XP SP2" you will see that they are not releasing XP SP2 this year, but it seems that one half of Microsoft has no idea what the other is doing.