March 06, 2004

Windows XP SP2 to break some existing apps

Courtesy of PC WORLD...

Changes to Windows XP made by SP2 fall into four main areas: network protection, memory protection, e-mail security, and browsing security. The most affected parts of Windows are RPCs (Remote Procedure Calls), DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model), Windows Firewall, and memory execution protection, according to Microsoft.

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Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net is one of the applications affected by Windows XP SP2. The developer tool's remote debugging feature won't work because of the improved Windows Firewall, previously called Internet Connection Firewall, which will be turned on by default and will close all ports, Goodhew says.

Another product that Microsoft needs to update is the .Net Framework. The new memory protection features in SP2 require developers of certain applications to mark their code with memory execution permissions. If they don't, the protection features could interfere with the application, according to Microsoft.

Also, on a kinda sorta related note, I have my Mother's Windows XP machine configured to automatically download patches from Windows Update and my Mom has noted that during this past week, she's had something to install from Windows Update almost every day. Has anyone else seen this?

Posted by joy at March 6, 2004 11:06 AM | TrackBack
Comments

That's odd...I've got two XP boxes and have gotten no updates for at least a week.

Posted by: ucblockhead at March 6, 2004 06:05 PM

Jeez, that sucks. Of course, pretty much nobody uses the MS supplied firewall and any programming tools together anyway. Those smart enough to write programs know that the MS firewall sucks. I'm trying out Sygate now, which seems to be faster than ZoneAlarm but still has the same features.

As far as Windows Update goes, I haven't had any for a while. Perhaps your mom's PC hasn't finished downloading any, and when you reboot it asks to start it back up.

Posted by: Shawn at March 6, 2004 06:20 PM