XP SP2 has been released.

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

It will allow pirated copies
its only supposed to block certain legacy pirate cd keys, the majority of pirates have moved to new keys by now

just to clear up

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

UPDATE: XP SP2 will be available through Automatic Update on August 16th.

 

Right I will pencil that into my diary...

 

Actually, I'm planning to *not* automatically download it. Not just because the download will be huge but because I'm a coward and am afraid of what it will do to my production machines. I'll create a couple of XP machines in VMWare and try it out there first. I plan to make myself scarce at the Automatic Updates site on August 16th and afterwards.

 

Well Im gonna do the auto update but not before I have totally made sure system restore is prepared for any weird stuff...

 

ive been running SP2 since Infosec Europe 2004, which was like, March or April, no problems even from a beta, ill be updating to full release and slipstreaming my XP cds on Aug the 16th

 

The general consensus I'm finding on other boards is that SP2 is working out quite (surprisingly) well. You could have knocked me over with a feather (that part wore off, so don't try it now).

 

*puts feather away*

 

Just downloaded the final version of SP2 from MSDN.

I'm not ready to install it on my own XP box but I have installed it on my work machine without incident. Only had a quick look before locking myself out by playing with the firewall remotely

One of the things that it did break (but was easily fixed) was my RecordNow Max. (Just re-installed the latest PXupdate) but it seems to work okay within a domain enviroment with default settings. I'm sure I'll find other issues over the next few days but I hope to be in a position to fix any upcoming issues before 1 or 2 users at our other site try to install it for themselves.

If I come across anything to report I'll try to post again before It becomes available through Windows Update.

 

Broke down and installed a beta version last night on an XP machine I created in VMWare. The machine was already part of a virtual domain so I immediately noticed that my domain user permissions didn't let me do jack. When I opened Add/Remove Programs, nothing appeared. It was late at night by the time I did this so I hit suspend and I'll pick it up again when I have more time.

 

What is this vmware i keep hearing about? and how do i get a copy?

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3557952.stm

 

It's all a big secret fergal, and I can't tell you without havin to kill you afterwards.

Alternativley, follow this link

http://www.vmware.com/


HTH

Andy

 

Specifically, we're talking about VMWare Workstation 4.5. Basically, you buy the biggest, baddest PC you can afford with the most RAM you can get. Then you rob a bank since you've probably tapped out your savings and you buy VMWare and load it on your big, bad lab machine (name it something macho).

VMWare is used to create virtual computers, servers, and networks. Instead of buying 3 or 4 PCs to use as a test network, you buy one PC, VMWare, and various OS software. VMWare supports all forms of Windows, many Linux distros, Novell and others.

You can use either a Windows or Linux box as the host machine for your virtual machines. You can even bridge your virtual network to your physical one. It's really a blast. I've only got about 1.25 GB of RAM on board and if I open up more than three virtual machines, the host starts to page a bit.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the only way to fly. Heck, I can even add virtual hardware after I've created the machine. I've added several HDD drives to simulate a software RAID 5 array and added a second NIC to dual home a virtual server. It's great for writing and taking screen shots. If you completely hose a virtual machine and you can't recover it, blow away the files it sits in and start over. No impact on your host OS.

More than you wanted to know...huh?

 

im still confused tbh, but i think its ok, as it'll be quite a while before i can afford a machine capable of running it! lol

 

Sometimes a picture or two helps. VMWare is a type of software that lets you load pretty much any operating system into a virtual environment. Instead of the OS loading onto your hard drive in the traditional fashion, they are contained in a set of folders located in your personal folder under my documents (in windows). After you create a virtual machine, you start VMWare and start the virtual machine. It then runs in a separate windows and when you click inside that window, your keyboard and mouse can be used to operate the virtual machine just like your host machine. Pressing CNTL + ALT releases the mouse and keyboard again.

Found a site here to give you an idea of what it looks like. Literally a network in a box.

 

cool, that makes more sense, so how do you install it onto the vmware machine? do you have to download modules from vmware? or do you need the installation disks? and can you run/install programs on the vm Oses?

Fergal

 

a vm machine is identical to a real machine with a few handy features

you need the install disks
and yes you can install apps to the vms

i wrote an article on it if you want to go read it in the articles section




and whats this about macho? my vm machine is my main rig and its called Enterprise

spose if i called it Enterprise-E it would be more macho lol

 

Fergal I am in the same boat as you mate...bout time someone explained to us no hopers...

 

Relax. No one's born knowing this stuff. It's all learnable. Read the Phoenix article and then come back with the questions it doesn't answer.