Microsoft lets companies block SP2 upgrade

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Wrong: "According to the article last week here on ZDNet, this is only currently supported by certain newer AMD processors, and Intel has it in the works, but not on currently available CPU models. That doesn't make it too helpful for most of the world. Maybe the "morons" are up on their stuff after all?"

No, those are two seperate things. DEP is the feature that needs to be supported by the CPU to work properly. The OS can mark data memory as "No Execute" and you will get an exception thrown if the CPU is directed to execute actual code in such blocks.

Stack protection is roughly the software equivalent to that and it is a new way to compile software so that it can be determined when a buffer overflow has occurred. You don't need a certain CPU feature to support this, all x86 processors (AMD/Intel) will work for this since it's all done in software. BTW, that's why the patch is so big, since almost the whole XP core code has been recompiled with this software security feature.

There are so many security improvements in SP2 that DEP is just one of many. Even if you don't have a CPU that enables it, you will gain a LOT of security in all the other improvements this gives you. Personally I think it's irresponsible of ZDNet to not make this clearer. From some of their articles it almost seems as if you don't gain much if your CPU doesn't support DEP, when in reality that is just one of many improvements.

Notwithstanding the minor incompatibility issues some people have seen with some software after installing SP2, ZDNet should encourage Windows users to install it. A recent statistic I read a week or so ago said only about 10% of all XP users have a firewall on their system. That's scary. Even the firewall in XP is infinitely better than having no firewall at all. The 10% that do have a firewall can simply turn off the XP firewall if they so choose, since they will probably feel it's better than the XP one anyway, but for those 90% PCs with no firewall, it's a huge improvement.

And before anyone starts going on about how the firewall in SP2 sucks, remember that if it was any better, the headlines would instead read "Firewall companies sue MS for monopoly practices". Damned if they do, damned if they don't. I think this is a good middle ground.

Love,
Peter; Posted by: Qbt Posted on: 08/13/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use