Microsoft XP SP2 (was Re: Lazy network operators - NOT)

Mon Apr 19 03:40:14 UTC 2004

On Sun, 18 Apr 2004 23:16:36 -0400 (EDT)
  Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:

> Should ISPs start requiring their users to install Windows XP SP2?
> 
IMHO:

Not if they want to stay in business.  Our customer base is probably 
80%Win 9x users.  I can't speak for everybody else, but I would be 
willing to bet that a majority of ISP's have a good chunk of their 
customer base running Win 9x-based operating systems.  If the ISP I 
work for was to make a minimum system requirement like that, we'd go 
out of business overnight.  We don't even use Windows XP on our 
corporate LAN yet -- we're still running Win2K SP4.  

Let's face it -- this shouldn't have to be the ISP's problem. 
 Microsoft needs to quit rushing out new OS releases without properly 
straining them and stress testing to find as many holes as they can. 
 They need to start cracking down on themselves and really start 
worrying about securing their OS and patching it as much as possible 
before throwing it to market.  

I understand that they won't find EVERY possible hole, but the last 
few years, as far as bugs in their software goes, they have an 
extremely poor track record.  Since about the NT4 days, it's been 
horrible.  Service pack after service pack, etc.  We have our machines 
setup to autotmatically tell us when new updates are available.  It's 
pretty disheartening when you install 4 patches one day, and then 2 
days later you have to go through installing another 3 - 4 patches 
just to ensure your machine is keeping updated with patches to fix 
their shoddy software.  

--Brandon