Scot’s Newsletter Blog

The following is an excerpt from an email message sent to me by Dan McCoy, an SNB reader and VAR who configures and sells Windows XP PCs to businesses. The issue McCoy details is apparently localized to OEM Windows XP Pro SP2C CDs. But since Windows XP is due to stop being sold in the retail channel, OEM and possibly some other editions of Windows XP not generally available to the public will be the only ones sold after the end of this month.

Microsoft released a revision of Windows XP Service Pack 2 called Windows XP SP2C recently. The media for SP2C is not interchangeable with previous versions (SP2B, SP2, SP1, and XP original). You used to be able to take a PC that came with any Windows XP PC and use any of the same class (home or pro) media to do a fresh install and still use that code on the COA (certificate of authority) on the side of the case. Not any more. The codes that come with SP2C media only work with SP2C media and vice versa — forcing people to buy new copies of Windows XP in order to get the latest update.

(more…)

There are two main types of Windows users in the world. Which kind are you:

Windows XP or Windows Vista?

The recent news that testers at Devil Mountain Software found Microsoft’s beta of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to be 10% faster than XP SP2 has pushed me over the edge.

I honestly find no advantage to Windows Vista, and there are some downsides. For example, no matter what Vista advocates say, Vista requires Vista-level hardware. Pentium M/Centrino single-core notebook hardware just doesn’t run it well. Pentium 4 desktop hardware runs it better, but usually that class of hardware needs a video upgrade. I’ve personally seen instabilities with the shipping version of the Vista code: applications freezing, Windows services slowing to a crawl, even OS crashes. I’m not saying everyone is having these problems, but I see no real improvement over Windows XP. While the architecture of Vista is a little better, Vista adds a lot of overhead to support quite a bit of new and sometimes questionable functionality. Vista is a lot more complex than Windows XP. It’s probably more secure, but it still needs a raft of third-party security software and hardware. I don’t trust its anti-malware protection or its firewall. And it doesn’t have an onboard antivirus product.

(more…)

It will come as no to surprise to those of you who’ve been at this computer technology thang for a while that — given that Vista sales haven’t been great over the nearly one year since Microsoft released it to manufacturing on November 8, 2006 — Microsoft has to do something. And that something appears to be Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), which the company intends to ship sometime in the first quarter of 2008.

On Friday I interviewed Microsoft Vista SP1 production manager David Zipkin. And while Zipkin insisted that SP1 isn’t just a roll-up of patches, updates, and security fixes that you’re already getting on Windows Update, he was hard pressed to tell just what exactly is new in the forthcoming service pack. The truth is there are new things, but very few that you or I really care about.

In the end, maybe it’s all a moot point anyway, since most people will get SP1 when they buy a new PC or download it as part of Windows Update, where it will be about a 55MB download. Microsoft will be distributing it on DVD, both to enterprises with license agreements and to consumers who are willing to sign up for it on a Web form, pay a modest fee for shipping, and wait several weeks. But my guess is that waiting won’t be a huge hardship.

(more…)

Microsoft’s sad attempt to fight software piracy at the expense of its ordinary end users continues to leave me cold. For the second time since last year, Microsoft released a new update of the WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) Notifications code that attempts to install on your system as part of the Windows Update process. This is the case even if you have previously told Windows Update that you do not want to receive the WGA Notifications update.

Microsoft’s only excuse is: But hey, this is a new and improved version of WGA Notifications. We know this helps no one but Microsoft, but since we’ve spiffed it up, that means we no longer have to pay attention to the fact that you said you didn’t want to get this code in the past — twice! There was a time when Microsoft was a much better company than this. It truly is a shame that Microsoft is treating Windows users this way.

For more information on how WGA Notifications appears in Windows Update, and how you can prevent this version from installing, read this article from a previous Scot’s Newsletter.