I really don't know what these guys think while they're developing their software...
No, I'm not talking about their latest buffer overflow (cache), but about the piece of crap that's called Windows XP ServicePack 2.
Again, Microsoft has managed to make work harder for admins while not helping everyone else too much. For example, after installation of SP2, the "trusted sites" pane of Internet Explorer has a new checkbox called something like "sites in this zone need a secure connection (https)" (translated back from the german version), which is activated by default.
If the user now tried to do the right thing, namely deactivating Active X and JScript for untrusted sites and adding *.windowsupdate.com and the like to the trusted sites list, where active content is then allowed, he won't be able to use windows update anymore, because that site for shure doesn't use https. The error messages say nothing about the changed behaviour.
Other example is the v5 windows update itself, which now needs the automatic update service and the BITS service active - but it isn't enough to start both before running windows update, it actually checks if those services are switched to automatic activation, and fails if not (another detail no error message mentions).
And I don't know whom they expect to keep the new nagging service (security center) activated for more than five minutes - there's no possibility for the user to tell the stupid thing that there is already a personal firewall active on the system (and a better one than the windows firewall, too) - it needs to be told by the installed firewall itself.
I pity everyone who needs to work with such a system.
No, I'm not talking about their latest buffer overflow (cache), but about the piece of crap that's called Windows XP ServicePack 2.
Again, Microsoft has managed to make work harder for admins while not helping everyone else too much. For example, after installation of SP2, the "trusted sites" pane of Internet Explorer has a new checkbox called something like "sites in this zone need a secure connection (https)" (translated back from the german version), which is activated by default.
If the user now tried to do the right thing, namely deactivating Active X and JScript for untrusted sites and adding *.windowsupdate.com and the like to the trusted sites list, where active content is then allowed, he won't be able to use windows update anymore, because that site for shure doesn't use https. The error messages say nothing about the changed behaviour.
Other example is the v5 windows update itself, which now needs the automatic update service and the BITS service active - but it isn't enough to start both before running windows update, it actually checks if those services are switched to automatic activation, and fails if not (another detail no error message mentions).
And I don't know whom they expect to keep the new nagging service (security center) activated for more than five minutes - there's no possibility for the user to tell the stupid thing that there is already a personal firewall active on the system (and a better one than the windows firewall, too) - it needs to be told by the installed firewall itself.
I pity everyone who needs to work with such a system.