The following changes were published today as version 0.1.8.471

New Features

• on homepage now you can download the regulation status list

Defect Fixes

• added some more missing regulations

Maintenance

• added new action type ‘written procedure’
• deleted inactive spud type and categories

There is hardly a day that goes by that we don’t use some kind of software. We use software to work, to catch up with friends, take cash out of the bank and see a movie. Software is everywhere and it’s used to perform simple tasks and very complicated tasks, but more importantly we intrust our security and welfare to software. Think about this, software runs equipment in an operating room of a hospital, software is used to guide airplanes, trains and ships to their destination and software is used to store your money, process transactions and so many other things. In some cases we trust software with our lives. So why do we put up with buggy software?

I am writing this at a time when Apple and Microsoft are about to release the latest versions of their operating systems, OSX 10.6 and Windows 7. New versions that will allow us to use our computers more effectively and efficiently, but as most of us know that is rarely the case, when new software arrives it is usually rife with bugs and features that simply don’t work. We expect to see patches and service packs to make that new software reliable and useful. In fact in today’s world software version 1.0’s are still considered beta’s why do we accept this? Why do software companies release software before it has has all it’s errors worked out? Well competition is partly to blame. Many software companies feel that if they don’t get their new product to market before the competition does they will stand to loose large amounts of money. In many cases companies intentionally release poor written software with this mindset. However there is a serious risk to that. If your a software company and you publish new software that is full of issues, bugs and errors you certainly run the risk of being ridiculed by the media and customers. Reviews from blogs and major tech sites will chew you up and spit you out. You may be doomed before you can get the first patch released, not to mention the additional costs in trying to patch your software. It is a business model that makes no financial sense. Then there are cases such as Microsoft which spent 5 years, using over 10,000 employees and incurred costs of $10 billion dollars to release Vista. Vista was in some circles considered a complete failure, due to hardware limitations, software incompatibility and a poor user interface design. Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying “Microsoft tried to innovate too much and had to toss a fair amount of this development in the toilet and re-launch the project in the middle of 2004.” While that may or may not be true it has become standard practice to release software that is fully known to contain issues. The software industry is the only industry I know of that has no responsibility for it’s products. Take some time and read any terms of agreement with most major software and somewhere in there you will find that the user understands and accepts full liability in using said software. The manufacturer makes no claim to the reliability of said software. So it basically says if you use are software and things go bad oh well we warned you. That’s insane, but we accept it because we live in the modern world and we need our software to get the job done right? It’s one thing if the software is for personal use at the very least we maybe scrubbed off a year of our life from the frustration, but what if you are a business, how much profits was potentially lost due to software glitches and system down times. You think we would learn from these experiences, but it seems the only thing we’ve learned was to pray the very common prayer of “God please make them release a fix soon”.

Apple’s App Store seems to be a great example of how poorly written software is profitable. As you know I have discussed previously on this blog the return policy for the App Store, and because of it’s weak policy software developers can produce some of the worst software ever and earn a pretty big profit. Let’s think of the issue in this sense, if you bought a new car and drove off the lot only to find out the car does not turn left, or it only runs in reverse, would you be willing to wait for a service pack or a patch? I think most people would run back to the dealership and demand a complete working automobile or their money back only with the App Store you are not entitled to a refund. With software products we do just the opposite we accept the faults and hope for a fix. As I was doing research for this article, I came across a quote that I think really sums things up. “Far too long, there hasn’t been a mentality of responsibility  at all with people writing software.” This is very true and it needs to change, we need to demand software that works to the level we expect from most other things in our lives, to work without patches and fixes. Software companies need to understand that the better business model is to perfect your product into something that is reliable and extremely stable before releasing it to the public. This would save much more money in the long run and would be more likely to incur repeat business based on an excellent reputation. But for now I just hope I can post this blog with no issues. Let me know what you think or share an experience in the comments.

Do you want to get a Windows XP machine up to Service Pack 3?

Not sure what service packs need to be installed first? Then look no further…

First, type “winver” into the run command to find out the current level of Windows XP Service Pack that you’re running. If it doesn’t say anything about SP1/SP2/SP3, then it’s currently not got a service pack installed. Also, it does NOT matter if you’re running XP Home or Pro, the process is the same.

Windows XP | No Service Pack

1) Install Windows XP SP2

2) Install Windows XP SP3

Windows XP | SP1/SP1a

1) Install Windows XP SP3 (Note: You CAN install SP2 first if you wish)

Windows XP | SP2

1) Install Windows XP SP3

Windows XP | SP3

1) This is the latest Service Pack. No action is required, although other updates may be available via Windows/Microsoft Update.

That’s it! Nice and easy? You bet….

Hang on a second. What about Vista? Does Vista SP2 require SP1 to be installed first? The answer is yes. You must install SP1 then SP2.

- James | August 2009

Today I finally ditched the old Windows XP and moved to the fresh new Windows Vista. But, for my horror, two Service Packs were released for Vista. And as I quickly realized, there is no  way (Technically and recommended by Microsoft) of slipstreaming Any of the Service Packs. I saw a way of slipstreaming SP1, however I haven’t seen one for SP2.

The annoying fact that Service Pack 2 (for Windows Vista) requires Service Pack 1 to be present on the machine, made me upset a little bit about Vista: None of the Previous Windows OSs, including Windows XP, needed any Service Pack to be present. Maybe it’s something about Vista’s improved NT-Kernel, but that’s a matter for another post.

So, here comes the user tips for installing Service Packs on Windows Vista:

1. Don’t install both SPs one after another, because of tip No’2.
2. After SP1 installation, you should restart your computer several times to see if SP1 installation went fine, and it does not slow down Vista, or anything else that you are not satisfied with. If everything’s good, you will probably want to clean the old files that were replaced by the SP1 installation, to save some Disk Space*. To do so, open the Command Prompt, and type “vsp1cln”. Press ‘y’ when prompted.
3. Install SP2
4. After SP2 installation, do the same thing that we did for SP1: restart the computer a few, check everything’s OK. After that, you can once again clean old files an gain some Disk Space**, by typing “compcln” at the Command Prompt, and pressing ‘y’ when prompted to.

    

So, i’m done. If you have anything to say or some more tips to offer, make sure to comment down the post.

* By doing so, you are “Sticking” SP1 to the Vista Installation, meaning, you cannot remove SP1 in the future.
** So does in here, you are once again “Sticiking” SP2, so removing it in the future will not be an option.

On July 17th Stoneware, Inc. released SP2 for webNetwork 5.4

This service pack includes fixes and enhancements for webNetwork 5.4 and should be applied to all Stoneware webNetwork servers.

The service pack can be downloaded from the Stoneware download page located here.

A list of bug fixes included in this service pack can be found here.

A couple of weeks ago a colleague of mine was having trouble installing language packs on one of our clients SharePoint 2007 farm. Today I received an email from a colleague requesting some advice for another client who was having problems adding an additional Web Front End to their SharePoint 2007 Farm.

Since both issues share the same root cause I thought a quick post was in order.

What happened?

In both cases the engineers tried to use RTM installation sources on an updated SharePoint 2007 farm, in this case with SP1 and one of the recent cumulative updates installed.

Logically this doesn’t work as expected.

Whenever you make a change to your SharePoint 2007 farm you should do so with installation sources that are the same version as the farm you are trying to update or reconfigure. The easiest way to do so is by adding the update(s) in question into the updates directory of the installation sources using the /extract switch from the setup program.

A short step by step procedure:

• copy / extract the installation sources into a directory, for this step by step I’ll use C:\Temp. Make sure the Setup program is in the root and you have a directory structure with an updates folder
• download the update(s) from the Microsoft site
• open a command prompt en CD into the directory where you downloaded the update packages
• for each update you want to slipstream type the command:

setup /extract:C:\Temp\Updates

A few notes:

• “setup” in the above command refers to the setup program you downloaded from the internet but sometimes it has a more descriptive name to identify the package e.g. SharePoint.exe
• you can also type setup /? to view all the switches for the command
• for each update you need to download the WSS and SharePoint Server versions so you will need to extract two packages / update to the updates folder
• As of the december cumulative update Microsoft uses “über” update packages that contain the infrastructure update, language packs updates etc… so there’s no need to download these seperately: just extract the latest cumulative update to the updates folder

Once you executed the steps above you can execute the installation as you would normally, the setup program will check the updates folder and apply them at the end of the installation progress.

Additional Resources:

A Marvellous Point: How to ‘Slipstream’ installation for MOSS with SP1

Agora é oficial! A Microsoft liberou o service pack 2 para o Windows Vista e Windows Server 2008, em todos os idiomas, incluindo o português do Brasil.

Download: Windows Vista SP2 em PT-BR [32 bits] [64 bits]

Tamanho: [475,5 MB] [745.2 MB]

Via: InfoWS

Startingv with hotfix 968118, any hotfix, service pack or compliance update, must be followed with a modified forms and reports upgrade. To complete this successfully, first note down the locatin of all reports and forms dictionaries. If you don’t use a centralised .set file, you may have to check each workstation / terminal server seperately. Back up every forms and reports.dic you find. When you apply the update and it has run its course, the Additional Tasks window will appear. From this select to Update Modified Forms and Reports. You will be prompted for the location of the dynamics.set file. Click the tick box beside all the products listed (or at least all those you want to update)…and click ‘Update’. When it is finished, click the next button and select to launch Dynamics GP. Print all your modified reports to ensure the update completd succesfully.

Από χθες έγινε διαθέσιμο το Service Pack 2 των Windows Vista και Windows Server 2008. Προς το παρόν μόνο στις γλώσσες: αγγλικά, γερμανικά, ισπανικά, γαλλικά και ιαπωνέζικα. Μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε το sp2 από τα ακόλουθα links:

Windows Vista SP2 32bit

Windows Vista SP2 64bit

Για μια ολοκληρωμένη ενημέρωση σχετικά με το SP2 των Windows Vista επισκευθείτε τη σελίδα Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista

On May 26th Stoneware, Inc. released SP1 for webNetwork 5.4

This service pack includes fixes and enhancements for webNetwork 5.4 and should be applied to all Stoneware webNetwork servers.

The service pack can be downloaded from the Stoneware download page located here.

A list of bug fixes included in this service pack can be found here.

If you watch the blogs and such much, you’ve probably heard about this bug, but I figured I’d echo it as well.  I’ll let the official announcement speak for itself: 

Attention: Important Information on Service Pack 2

We take product quality seriously and make every effort to avoid and resolve issues that adversely impact our customers.  Unfortunately, we have recently discovered a bug with Service Pack 2 (SP2) that affects all customers that have deployed it for SharePoint Server 2007. 

During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.

We are working to release a hotfix to automatically fix this issue. A manual work-around is currently available and involves customers re-entering their Product ID number (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration.  For more information and detailed steps please read this KB article.

We want to assure our customers that this issue does not impact data integrity or their SharePoint deployment in any other way.

For your convenience, below are some answers to questions that you may have and we will update this blog post with a link to the hotfix as soon as it’s available.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may cause you.

Jeff Teper
Corporate Vice President
SharePoint.

Windows Vista SP2 ha sido liberado a través de los servidores de Redmond [probablemente en un mes estaría disponible a través de Windows Update], la instalación se realiza tanto en versiones 32 y 64 bits, así también en una imagen ISO para DVD.

Los idiomas de instalación están en inglés, alemán, francés, español y japonés. Como requisito previo deberás tener instalado Service Pack 1.

Windows Vista SP2 en Español [32 bits]

Windows Vista SP2 en Español [64 bits]

Windows Vista SP2 en Español [Imagen ISO para DVD]

During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Read Full Article

Here is the site if you are looking fora Service Packs or Hot Fix for Business Objects.
SAP Software Download

El Service Pack 2 proporciona las últimas actualizaciones para 2007 Microsoft Office Suite. Peso estimado 292.4 MB.

Microsoft Office Service Pack 2

<UPDATE date=”2009-04-15”> Seems I was a day early, as Microsoft announced today that the public release date for SP2 will be April 28.  From Gregg Keizer at Computerworld’s article Microsoft sets Office 2007 SP2 release for April 28:

Microsoft Corp. has set April 28 as the release date for Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2), the first update to the company’s popular application suite since December 2007.

Office 2007 SP2 adds support for Open Document Format (ODF) version 1.1 to Word, Excel and PowerPoint; boosts the performance of the Outlook 2007 e-mail client; debuts the ability to uninstall service packs using a separately utility and the Windows command line; and integrates the "Save As PDF/XPS" command into the suite’s applications.

</UPDATE>

Sure, this is from the WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) blog, but if SP2 will be available from WSUS, it won’t be far behind on plain old Microsoft Update (nee Windows Update).

Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Office System will be made available to Windows Server Update Services in April, classified as a service pack.  Service Pack 2 includes some significant work, including: built-in ability to save as ODF & PDF formats, improvements to Outlook’s performance and calendar reliability, significant bug fixes for charts in core Office applications, the ability for client service packs to be removed using an uninstall tool, and a host of customer-requested improvements to the Office Server products.  It is also a rollup of all fixes that have previously been released for Office 2007 products.  Additional information will be posted to the Office Sustaining Engineering blog later this month.

Thank you.

-Cecilia Cole
WSUS Program Manager

If you (like I) just can’t wait for that great new software smell, keep an eye on the Office Sustaining Engineering blog.  Synthesizing some of the expected features lists out there on the ‘Net, Office 2007 SP2 should bring to the table:

For Office Desktop Programs

• Improved Outlook Calendaring Reliability
• Improved Outlook Performance (thank goodness!)
• Enabling Object Model support for Charts in PowerPoint and Word
• Improved cryptographic functionality by supporting all cryptographic algorithms offered by the operating system
• Improved functionality in Excel’s charting mechanism
• Ability to ungroup SmartArt graphics (and as a result, the ability to add animations to them in PowerPoint)
• Ability for Visio to export UML models to an XML file compliant with the XMI standard
  Tool that enables the uninstall of Office client Service Packs

For Servers

• Performance and manageability improvements to variations in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) including STSADM commands for repairing links between source and target pages
• Improvements around processing status approvals from Office Project Web Access into Office Project Professional 2007
• Improvements to read-only content databases and index rebuild timer jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Note the mentions of WSS, ECM, STSADM, etc.  We should expect to see some stability improvements and fixes for MOSS as well.

Patch Management & MBSA

Patch Management is a process to ensure that the appropriate patches are installed on a system

It involves the following process,

• Choosing, Verifying, testing and applying patches.
• Updating previously applied patches with latest patch.
• Listing patches applied previously to the current software.
• Recording repositories or depots, of patches for easy selection.
• Assigning & deploying applied patches.

Types of patches

1. Hot fixes

A code that fixes a bug in a product

Also referred as security fixes

1. Roll-ups

Merges updates of several hot fixes into a single update file

1. Service Packs

An update to a software version that fixes a bug

Includes fixes not previously released and introduces new functionality

Some Patch management tools

• IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager
• LANDesk Patch Manager
• Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM)
• Microsoft Baseline Security analyzer (MBSA)
• BigFix Enterprise Suite (BFS)
• Microsoft Software Update Service (MSUS)

Microsoft Baseline security Analyzer determines critical updates and the required updates on the target computer

It scans for common security mis-configuration errors on target computer

It supports two interfaces for scanning:

• GUI Scan (Mbsa.exe)
• Command Line Interface (Mbsacli.exe)

regards

Arun Tiwari

aruntw@gmail.com

… and available for download from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=66ab3dbb-bf3e-4f46-9559-ccc6a4f9dc19