After installing SP2 to my workstation last night, I must say that I am very
pleased at this point. The installation went flawlessly - despite a long wait
for my desktop to appear after the initial reboot (had me on the edge of my
seat for a bit, but eventually every thing loaded up).
Upon boot up, AIM loaded and I was notified by the Windows firewall that it was
attempting to bind to a port. I choose to continue blocking the port and AIM
loaded and functioned as expected. Windows, by default left access open to File
and Printer Sharing and Remote Desktop and I was able to connect to my system
remotely. Authentication to Active Directory was also successful. All
applications I have tested seem to work properly though sometimes you are
prompted when they attempt to bind to a port (it's actually nice to know when
certain programs attempt to bind to a port). I am continuing to test different
applications, but so far so good.
Next was to test the IE pop-blocker and other security changes. To do this I
browsed warez sites for about an hour. I'm happy to report that I had no
pop-ups and no spyware/malware installed when I was done. I had to check to
make sure I hadn't opened firefox. Also, I like Microsoft's new Add-in manager
which allows you to see what IE plug-ins are installed and enable/disable them.
It would have been nice for Microsoft to include an option to remove/uninstall
the plugins but perhaps I'm just being nit-picky. I would say testing of IE
needs more time but so far, so good.
Despite all the talk of security improvements with SP2, I was very pleased to
find my system performing better. From what I have read some of this can be
attributed to most of the system being recompiled with VS.Net. Today's early
morning test was to install bluetooth and sync my mobile phone. This went
flawlessly which is great considering I gave up trying to get bluetooth working
correctly on SP1.
At this point I'm prepping to install SP2 on a Toshiba Centrino based laptop.
This will allow me to test the changed Microsoft made to the Windows Wireless
configuration tools. I have my fingers crossed that everything will go well and
in a week or so I can distribute SP2 to all our workstations via SUS.
Forgot to add that I did find a problem with MSBA. When selecting to print a
report, it appears to fail. When looking closer, I found that another window
opened that wasn't viewable - I had to right click on it on the taskbar a
select "Maximize". Then, in the new windows choose to Allow the ActiveX
control. After doing this, the print dialogue box appeared and everything
worked.
Dan Houtz
Manager of Networks & Systems
Advanced Interfaces, Inc.
www.advancedinterfaces.com
-----
NTBugtraq Editor's Note:
Want to reply to the person who sent this message? This list is configured such
that just hitting reply is going to result in the message coming to the list,
not to the individual who sent the message. This was done to help reduce the
number of Out of Office messages posters received. So if you want to send a
reply just to the poster, you'll have to copy their email address out of the
message and place it in your TO: field.
-----
