What do you do when you’ve been promising a product for 4 years, and now your inability to deliver is becoming a joke? What do you do when you need to push back your release date yet again, but you can’t bear more rants from your cherished customers?

Well, if you’re Microsoft and you’ve promised a summer release date, why not just change the definition of “Summer”?

Please read: Microsoft Clarifies SQL Server Ship Date.

I always thought it was commonly understood in the United States that “Summer” indicated anytime in the months of June through August. However, Microsoft has indicated that they are not altering SQL Server’s release date–they are merely clarifying what they meant by indicating “Summer 2005″–by rewording it to “the second half of 2005″, which I understand as anytime in the months of July through December.

Don’t rest on the crutch of petty word games; if you can’t release your product by your latest promised release date, accept the truth and report it as such. I’m sure SQL Server will barely make a 2005 release date, if at all.

I can’t count how many times I’ve reinstalled Windows on my workstation at home. Sometimes it’s because of my obsessive need to keep a clean system; other times it’s because I’ve hosed my system with my multiple-system boot setup. Regardless, I’ve been wasting my time. I could have been imaging my computer this whole time.

So now I’ve wised up. Just today I made a “perfect” Windows install, with SP2, my anti-virus software, my preferred settings, and a couple of my most commonly used programs. Now that that’s done, I use a Linux Live CD–which for the uninitiated, is a Linux bootable CD–and now I’m imaging my Windows partition with Linux.

How, you might ask? It’s simple!

Once Linux boots up, I first login to my fileserver, which is coincidentally a Linux system as well, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, I’m actually connecting to it using Samba. Then, I simply use the DD command:

dd if=[The partition you want to image] of=[The location of the file to save]

So, in my exact case, I mounted the fileshare at /ramdisk/bkup, and my partition was /dev/hda1, so:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/ramdisk/bkup/WinXPSP2.img

I think this is the greatest thing ever! It is obviously undisputed that Windows machines are by far the most vulnerable machines in the world, but it is much more satisfying when a branch of Microsoft openly acknowledges this as well!

Check out the Top 10 Questions About Virtual PC from Microsoft, then scroll down to Question #10, “Does Virtual PC make my Mac more vulnerable to computer viruses?”

Indeed, in the answer, Microsoft openly acknowledges that Mac users are obviously exposed to the same vulnerabilities of a PC while they are running Virtual PC. Obviously–thankfully–these viruses will not be able to operate while any virtual machines running Windows are deactivated, and even if viruses do propagate to a Mac volume (by means of shared folders, for instance), they will not be able to run under the Mac environment. Nevertheless, the door is open for Mac volumes to be littered with virus files if a virtual machine running Windows is infected on Virtual PC. Indeed, this happened to me a few years ago, and it was a pain, because the virtual machine running Windows littered my Mac with virus files.

Microsoft is certainly forced to make such acknowledgments, and it is oh so sweet!

As the Windows XP Service Pack 2 upgrade rapidly approaches–unlike it’s upgrade cousin, Longhorn–companies are forced to evaluate whether they are ready to undergo the compatibility headaches that Microsoft is knowingly and willingly imposing on them. IBM, on the other hand, is not interested in playing that game.

Check out this InfoWorld article:
IBM tells employees not to install Windows XP update.

Unlike most OS service packs, XP SP2 is being treated like a major OS rev. It almost is, since it is the only OS revision Windows will see until Longhorn finally grows up. However, that very interim-like nature of the service pack begs the question, “Should companies upgrade to XP SP2, or should they save themselves the headache until Longhorn arrives?” This is a good question.

For software developers, the question is irrelevant. You must upgrade your testing and development boxes and make your software compatible with XP SP2 so that all who do upgrade will continue to use your software. Many probably are already in the process of doing this with beta or release candidate versions of XP SP2.

Where the question is really pertinent is regarding non-IT personnel and their computers. How soon do you deploy XP SP2 on all of their computers? As a programmer, I know that I will want to run compatibility tests on all of my applications in XP SP2 before I will be comfortable with our personnel upgrading. This will involve hours of testing and bug fixing. Thanks, Microsoft.

Then a realization sends a sinking feeling into your stomach: Doing nothing could potentially be more disastrous than recklessly deciding to upgrade without compatibility testing your software! Eventually Microsoft will release XP SP2 via Windows Update, where employees will be free to download and upgrade themselves. If you have mission-critical software that will break in XP SP2, this easy accessibility will result in catastrophe.

Fortunately, as the InfoWorld article points out, Microsoft will help companies in such a situation by providing them instructions to disable Windows Update from installing XP SP2. Nevertheless, it is a regrettable dilemma that Microsoft forces action to be taken to avoid catastrophe. And applying registry settings to all company computers to disable Windows Update from installing XP SP2 (which is the solution Microsoft is providing) may not be as easy as it sounds for some companies. If your company has hundreds or thousands of computers and you have no automated method in place for applying these settings across all of those computers, you could have a serious problem. These are precisely the scenarios that nurture disdain for Microsoft.

So when XP SP2 arrives, will your company nix it? Or will you upgrade? I am a strong believer in staying current, even if it means added expense. Especially in this case, the deplorable condition of XP’s security makes upgrading necessary. But I promise you we will be applying those registry settings to delay the installation of XP SP2, just like IBM. Sorry Microsoft, we just don’t have time for disaster today.