Tuesday, June 22, 2004

WinXP SP2 Security vs. Compatibility -- 11:19 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

TechReport is reporting that service pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP will emphasize security ove compatibility. When you upgrade, you might want to make sure your apps won't break as a result. Here are a couple of changes in SP2 which I would classify as "Great idea! What took you so long?":

• The Internet Connection Firewall is now enabled by default, which should improve security for SOHO users . . . The firewall will also now activate much earlier in the boot cycle, even before the network stack is enabled. On shutdown, it will now remain active until after the stack is disabled.
• The Messenger service is now disabled by default.

I don't know why it took MS this long to figure out that the firewall shouldn't come up well after the network connection is already made. I'm glad they finally figured it out. Unfortunately (and understandably) pirate copies of XP won't be able to be upgraded, which means that the scourge of Trojans, etc., aren't just going to disappear from the 'Net. I can't wait for the conspiracy theories when some major app (like, say, WordPerfect or Mozilla) suddenly won't run with SP2. Thanks Slashdot.

News for 06/22/2004

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