Are MS upgrades supposed to break something

[Dirty Harry 0]

Great, just great. Here I hold off upgrading IE 5.5 with SP2 for a few weeks because something is so often wrong with MS upgrades. Anyhow I just did it tonight as I hadn't heard about any probs and half an hour later I look at NT comp main page and find that the stupid SP2 shuts off Quick Time. Not that its such a big loss for me, but still. Apple is supposedly fixing it. I still recall well enough how SR-1 to W2K stopped ZoneAlarm and some of the other bugs in the bug "fixes" from Microsoft.

 

Are we starting to see a pattern here? This one turned off Quick Time, XP turns off Java, tinkers with MP3:s and upsets the Kodak guys. At least it seems that MS is not testing their bug fixes with third party apps which, perhaps unintentionally serves the purpose of getting the consumers believe that there is always problems with 3rd party apps. Whats next, a SR3 for Win 2000 that kills Quickens file format, or a little security update that renders Forte Agent malfunctioning? Or maybe a deal with Intel on a patch that slows down Athlons?

 

H

[Greggy 0]

hahaha I hear you Dirty Harry!

[FadedTimes 0]

Well you can try writing/upgrading an OS, and try and not to break a few of the thousands of apps/plug ins that run on it. I think Microsoft has chnaged so much in American and other countries lives for the better. They have opened so many jobs up for business, programming, and even personal life duties. I shudder at the thought is Microsoft didn't evolve. We might all be running Apple's *~cringes~* or even worse IBM's OS/2. Maybe even get stuck in Open VMS or a lovely bastardised UNIX clone. I love what Microsoft has driven in to our lives and in to our economy, yet we act like they are evil. Our Gov't is trying to punish true Success, and Bill Gates filling out a dream life. Why don't they go after AOL? I never have received a hundred CD's from Microsoft shoving their lowsy product down my throat. So their latest stuff breaks some one elses product? They wouldn't have a product if it wasn't for Microsft, deal with it... in a nice way

[Kirben 0]

Microsoft didn't just cut off Quicktime, IE 5.5 SP2 and IE 6 just no longer support netscape plugins. Companies should have moved to ActiveX plugins for Internet Explorer by now and most of the major ones have already.

I think removing the Java VM from Windows XP was a good idea, better to let users download the current Java VM from Sun ( http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/jre/download-windows.html ) then continue to bundle that old out dated version.

I'm not sure what you mean by Windows XP tinking with mp3s, there is nothing stopping you from installing a program to encode mp3s.

And the Kodak issue with Windows XP has already been resolved, check out any of the recent reports like http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010812/tc/microsoft_kodak_3.html

[Dirty Harry 0]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kirben
Microsoft didn't just cut off Quicktime, IE 5.5 SP2 and IE 6 just no longer support ...

Yes, we have no bananas. Microsoft deliberately (?) disabled quicktime with a "service pack" without telling anybody.

Quote:

Originally posted by Kirben
I think removing the Java VM from Windows XP was a good idea, better to let users download the current Java VM from Sun

And why is this better than upgrading the old version? You don't seriously believe this was done to do you a favour ?

Quote:

Originally posted by Kirben
I'm not sure what you mean by Windows XP tinkering with mp3s,

Windows XP is not handling MP3 rips at higher sampling rates, stearing the consumers to use the Win Media Player and its proprietary file format instead of MP3.
More info here: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6567844.html

I fully agree that building an OS and guaranteeing compatibility is no small feat and that, at large, windows is a fairly good product. But I see plenty of reason to be concerned by the monopolistic activities and frequent actions to kill competition. Without competition Microsoft would be selling you a much worse product.

H.

[Kirben 0]

As I said before it was not aimed at Quicktime! all Netscape plugins will fail to work in Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 and 6. Companies have had years now to provide proper ActiveX plugins instead of relying on backwards compatbility with Netscape plugins, instead many decided to take a short cut and only provide one type. Microsoft suggested long ago to Apple to create a proper ActiveX plugin when they were having problems creating a Netscape style plugin that worked in Internet Explorer but Apple just ignored them and could not be bothered to do it. Another company produced a Quicktime ActiveX plugin many years ago ( http://www.skylark.ie/skylight/ ) so there is no reason Apple could not have by now.

Due to the Sun vs Microsouft court case Microsoft are no longer allowed to upgrade their own Java VM beyond 1.1.4!

That mp3 issue just sounds like it is just licensing releated, Microsoft is no longer willing to pay for the higher bitrate codec. As I said before there is nothing stopping anyone using an alternative mp3 encoding program.

[Intlharvester 0]

Microsoft supposedly removed Netscape plug-in support because of a patent issue -- someone (not Netscape) supposedly patented the loading of browser plugins. Of course, why this affects NS plugs and not ActiveX is unknown.

 

Still, dropping a compatibility feature is OK, but dropping it in a service release, without any warning, stinks to high heaven. Apple should adapt quickly, but many smaller shops that provide specialized features and obviously don't want to maintain two codebases if they don't have to. It's also a support nightmare to try to figure out which version of IE 5.5 people are on, especially with windows upgrade prompting them to get the SP.

 

(They had a Q article up that listed 'patent office' as a keyword, along with a list of products affected, but it looks like it's been pulled.)