Microsoft's Windows fix rolling out in stages

Microsoft yesterday completed its long-awaited update kit for Windows XP, but it won't be available to consumers for perhaps another week.

Computer makers get first crack at the security-oriented Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) so that they can start putting it onto new machines. Next in line are business customers that license bulk quantities of Microsoft software.

Subscribers to Microsoft's "automatic update" service will start getting SP2 in about a week, and it will be available to everyone in a few weeks.

"Service Pack 2 is a significant step in delivering on our goal to help customers make their PCs better isolated and more resilient in the face of increasingly sophisticated attacks," Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said in a news release.

Microsoft has long used patches and service packs to update products, but SP2 is receiving broad attention because it addresses security problems that have plagued XP users. The software is running more than 210 million PCs, or about a third of all Windows PCs worldwide.

Microsoft was expected to ship the pack by the end of June, but some key components weren't done until late July.

Some businesses may still wait to install the software, to see if there are any glitches in the service pack. The Gartner consulting company is advising businesses to download the pack, test it and wait eight or nine months to deploy it.

"There's pretty significant risk that they're going to have a patch to Service Pack 2 in a few weeks and you don't want to go through that over and over again," said Richard Stiennon, Gartner vice president.

It's a different story for consumers, he said. For them, SP2 should result in less spyware and fewer virus and worm attacks, while preventing their machines from harboring Trojan horses.

SP2 includes all the fixes issued since XP was released in 2001, and it reconfigures XP to improve its resistance to viruses and attacks. It also has the Internet Explorer security patch released July 30.

New features in SP2 include an improved firewall that's turned on by default, the latest version of the Windows Media Player and new controls for connecting to wireless networks. The software also enables PCs to quarantine e-mail with suspicious attachments.

Microsoft will mail discs containing the pack free to customers, said Greg Sullivan, Windows client lead product manager.

"We realize that this release was important enough to make available broadly, and we wanted to make sure that there were no barriers to anybody," he said.

At the end of next week, or perhaps the start of the following week, consumers who registered for Microsoft's free Automatic Update service can start downloading the software.

Within a few weeks, SP2 will then be generally available for download. Users may then order the software on discs from Microsoft's Web site.

For people with slow Internet connections, discs may be the best option. The complete service pack is 270 megabytes but that includes features tailored for several variants of Windows XP; Microsoft expects the average user will install about 80 megabytes worth of SP2.

Directly downloading 80 megabytes will take 10 minutes to a half-hour on a fast, broadband connection. It will take about 10 hours via dial-up connections.

Details are available at (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2).

Meanwhile, computer-security threats will continue even for customers with the service pack installed. Stiennon said biggest improvements will come in the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, and it's not expected to be available for several years.

"I'm not super positive about this changing the way we deal with Microsoft," he said. "We're going to continue to have security vulnerabilities at least until a significant portion of the population is using Longhorn, which is 2007."

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com