Much ado about patching

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All OSes are flawed

It's because they're written by humans. The problems with Microsoft's OSes is that they're not nearly as modular as UNIX or Linux, and when a patch is applied, 9 times out of 10 critical system services are using the files that must be replaced. Ergo, you must reboot to finish applying most patches.

Then, if the patch somehow causes the critical services to fail, the computer may not boot at all. Then you have to spend hours trying to restore the computer to a usable state before you can even thing about rolling back or reapplying the patch. Conversely, in Linux (in my experience anyway) most patches that aren't new kernels do not require reboots and are thus easier to roll back if they fail. Just swap some files back into place and restart the patched service.

MS is trying to sell Windows' Automatic Update feature as a way for users to keep their computers up-to-date, "secure", and "stable". Until they can prove that they will never again issue a patch that breaks someone's system, however, most users (especially network admins) will not use it for any critical systems.

Posted by: doctormoriarty   Posted on: 02/25/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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