Captain's Log, stardate Wed, 1 Dec 2004 11:51:33 +0000, from the fingers of John Madden came the words:
> While I agree that users _should_ make a concerted effort to stay
> up-to-date, this doesn't, or sometimes _can't_ happen. For example,
> I received a "broken" Windows XP machine recently to fix and
> update. To start with IE was completely borked, and wouldn't run
> javascript at all. This meant that windowsupdate wouldn't work. By
> the time I received it and updated Norton AV, it found 3 different
> worms on the machine (2 copies of 2 of them). I manually installed
> IE6 to get it functioning again so I could update. (Aside: while I
> was doing this I checked windowsupdate.com with w3.org's html
> validator -- 11 errors, then checked microsoft.com -- 25 errors!).
I had a similar problem with a brand newly installed win2k server which i was glad to have a problem with so i didn't have to use it. Hmm Javascript... Maybe that's what the problem was.
>> Anyway, cutting a long story short, after updating IE and adding
> patches from windowsupdate, any attempt to install SP2 failed. The
> machine _still_ doesn't have SP2, mainly because I didn't want to
> spend a day and a half re-installing the OS, apps and patching it.
Windows sucks for installation time.. it usually takes ages... That's probably why they sell it pre-installed (that or the fact that most people who use it are too dumb to install it themselves).
>> Lastly, a lot of Windows users in Ireland still use dial-up, where
> a download of a 200mb+ service pack, if thought about, usually
> isn't done simply because it takes ages to do.
Agreed... Initially the thought of downloading such a big file can intimidate some people, however windows update (automatic or manual) has a new thing called BITS (i think) which allows you to download bits of the service pack at a time and resume it later on. So you could technically do it in the background over a few connections without even knowing it... but still it would make everything even slower which you don't want on a dialup
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