SP2 drove me to open source

You mentioned 9 months to setup a test environment, well, if you were
serious it would take about a month and then schedule a change over during
the next month, at least that's our experience with under 500 users.


Because this is the speed the administration here moves at. i have no
control over that. And there are serious budgetary issues as well. I will
consifer myself luck if I have a definitive answer within a year.

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:55:03 -0800, velozoom30 wrote:
Thanks to Microsoft's WindowsXP SP2, I have finally made the move to
open source applications.

"Testy" wrote in message
AMEN! Brother. I made the switch a couple of months ago. I will NEVER
look back.

"Usingthis" wrote in message
Then why are either of you in this Microsoft newsgroup?

"Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)" writes:
You have to wonder..

Marketing and particularly sales folks can easily tell you the
answer to your question, if you **** off a customer sufficiently
they will carry a grudge against you, and tell other customers,
for a long long time.

Me, I still use Windows, I just wish they would fix the problems.

Leythos writes:
On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:03:03 -0800, velozoom30 wrote:
ANd what better place for an anti-MS rant than on an MS sponsored board?
If I go to a Linux board I would be preaching to the choir, would I
not? What sense is there in ranting to peeps that already agree with
you? lol.....silly MS peeps.

No one really minds a rant about anything MS as long as you back it up
with details so that people can understand the problem - to just state the
SP2 screwed up everything so you went to Linux just looks like a trolling,
even if it isn't.

That certainly seems fair.

Ok, hundreds of people reported in this newsgroup the problem with
Windows Explorer locking up or crashing starting immediately after
SP2 was installed. (Likely a far larger number saw this and have
no idea that this newsgroup even exists, or want to post here)
Almost none of those folks ever reported finding a solution to
this problem. The modest number who did report a solution seem
like some of them might not have had the same problem that all the
rest had. Nobody has a clue how to fix this problem.

The fact that you had problems is well worth discussing, as other will
learn from your solutions, but it's all in the details. If you had posted
the products that you were having problems with we might have been able to
assist before you went to production.

MVP have no idea how to fix this. Microsoft support folks have no
idea how to fix this. They finally stopped answering email after
I had done everything they had asked for months, often doing the
same thing repeatedly, because apparently they had lost track that
they had already asked me to do something more than once.

SP2 broke something in Windows Explorer and nobody knows what it
was, or they aren't telling. Search the group for the hundreds
of summary postings I made in response to people posting this
particular problem, you can then see the very similar descriptions
of all these folks, and that pretty much none of the claimed
causes fixed this for almost anyone.

Maybe as you suggest you can assist or people will learn from this.

Thank you

Don Taylor wrote:
|| SP2 broke something in Windows Explorer and nobody knows what it
|| was,

But that's ONLY for those who posted the problem - it's like going to the
doctor, you only see the few who are ill, not the millions who are NOT
ill.....
SP2 has been successfully installed on MILLIONS of computers!

--
Interim Systems and Management Accounting
Gordon Burgess-Parker
Director
www.gbpcomputing.co.uk

LOL.. love the way that you gave one impression in your first post, then
added all of the stuff about your company using Macs and Linux already in
your second post..

I have been into Linux newsgroups and have not seen Windows users taking
shots at the people in there.. so why do Linux users/lovers feel the need to
do it in here?

Just use whatever your preference is and let it go at that..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm





"velozoom30" wrote in message
...
"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:


"If I am browsing and come across some content that will only work in
your
non-W3c standards compliant browser, I refuse to view it."

His loss..

Not really. If I choose not to view it then I don't see it as a loss.
This
is of course in my personal use, not at my workplace.


Lets hope that the learning curve that he is about to negotiate won't put
his TV Station off the air.. the bosses may not appreciate that.. I am
not
suggesting that an X86 ported UNIX OS doesn't have a place in computing..

While I am sure you aren't truly worried if we went off the air the
learning
curve, steep as it surely will be for myself and others, will be
negotiated
properly. This is a project only in the seminal stages. It's been tossed
around by my predecessors in the past but the administration never got
behind
it. After the recent SP2 debacle, they are talking to me about it. I
don't
expect to have anything more than a test environment running within 9mo to
a
year and actual migrations may take a lot longer. Ever try to train
Windows
peeps to use something different? That is what scares me the most. This
is
the problem and it was a problem with me- we get so used to something that
change becomes painful. Change, however, is inevitable and I think it's
time
for a change, even a paradigm shift if you will.


Not nice.. this is almost wishing that we all have problems with Windows,
and that Windows is a bad thing.. he has much to learn, and it's going to
hit him in one big heap if and when his company changes to Linux..


Love your pedantic tone, it makes me giggle. I don't think you can assume
anything about how much I do or don't know about Linux and operating
system
migration cost-analysis from the few, limited comments I have made here.
Even if you could, my post was not so much about the technical problems I
had
it was about the tecnical problems finally winning me over to the open
source
side. Do I expect that even if my station went completely to Linux in one
fell swoop that I would be able to sit back in my chair and relax all day?
Of course not. But I do read the literature and I see some big companies
making moves to open source, I see MS responding with advertising
campaigns
because they are scared and are starting to feel a small hit in the
pocketboook, and I see that MS is not responsive to my needs. I also see
the
attitude of MS as it is presented through its products.

There is no clearer example of that attitude than Internet Explorer.
Billy
and his gang have thumbed their noses at the rest of the WWW by refusing
to
bring IE into compliance with the W3C standards. When I build a website I
build it to W3C standards then I have to backtrack and make it usuable for
IE. It's the arrogance I hate. It's understandable given the market
share
that MS/IE have, but it is no less offensive just because mose people use
MS
products. Human history has shown that people, in general, aren't all
that
bright so the fact that most people do something is in no way an
indication
that that is in any way the right, best, or appropriate thing to do.

It's the same with SP2, especially with the Security Center if you want to
talk about end-user complications. Who the hell thought it was a good
idea
to have Windows firewall turned on by default? For a home user who has no
common sense, perhaps it's ok to assume that this is a good idea but WinXP
has huge saturation in the business world and there it is NOT a good idea.
That bloody firewall has to be turned off with Admin priveleges and
FUBARed
so many of my applications I probably couldn't list them all off the top
of
my head. Did MS not take that this thing might affect business
applications
into account? Yes, it's a small example and easily fixed, if not quickly
when you are talking 300 workstations and group policy through AD won't
even
shut the bloody thing down, but it's a great example of MS not knowing who
their end user is. Isn't it better to let people choose? Isn't it better
to
give them the power to turn it on or not? Give them the information but
leave
the final choice to the user.

In the end, it's about choice. I see MS limiting my choices and so I will
move myself, and my company if I can, to a different way of doing things.
We
will, and have, consulted with experts, gotten second opinions and are
searching for more, and hoepfully the suits will find it an advantageous
way
to go.


This is not a hot line directly to Bill Gates..

NO WAY!!! REALLY?!?!?!?

And here I thought my sarcasm was so blatant that a child would read it in
my post......

The only direct line to Billie Bob Gates anymore is the bottom line of the
quarterly financial statement. Maybe, possibly, perhaps at one time
Billie
was about the software and the bringing about the revolution he most
certainly had a big hand in but for many years it's become about MS and
making MS bigger better and badder than anyone and at the expense of
anyone
and anything that gets in the way of that goal. There is a reason why US
and
European courts are finding MS guilty of monopolistic practices. Anyone
who
stifles opposing viewpoints is evil.

I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend with my life
your right to say it. Famous words that have been all but forgotten by
some
people.


Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user


MVP- and you aren't biased? Your whole career is probably based on Bill
Gates' stuff so of course you defend him.

This is so much fun, lol

"Don Taylor" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:55:03 -0800, velozoom30 wrote:
Thanks to Microsoft's WindowsXP SP2, I have finally made the move to
open source applications.

"Testy" wrote in message
AMEN! Brother. I made the switch a couple of months ago. I will NEVER
look back.

"Usingthis" wrote in message
Then why are either of you in this Microsoft newsgroup?

"Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)" writes:
You have to wonder..

Marketing and particularly sales folks can easily tell you the
answer to your question, if you **** off a customer sufficiently
they will carry a grudge against you, and tell other customers,
for a long long time.

Me, I still use Windows, I just wish they would fix the problems.

I suppose we will eventually see him on a Linux group complaining and going
back to Windows.

"velozoom30" wrote in message
...
Thanks to Microsoft's WindowsXP SP2, I have finally made the move to open
source applications. I've wanted to make the move for some time but some
laziness on my part has delayed me. Thanks, Billy, for pushing out the
SP2
and specifically the security center because that horrid piece of
programming
(I call SP2 the new WinME) finally made me so angry and frustrated with
you
and your company that I built up a Linux box at home and will soon be
migrating all of my personal equipment over to the Penguin. If I am
browsing
and come across some content that will only work in your non-W3c standards
compliant browser, I refuse to view it. DId you notice that FireFox 1.0
was
downloaded over a million times the first DAY it was available?
Hallelujiah!


I am the systems administrator at a television station and so am used to
dealing with new technology. I have never had as many problems with a
single
piece of software (and let me tell you, video-editing, TV production, and
graphics software can be extremely touchy and hard to work with) as I have
with SP2. It has bolluxed up so many systems at my station, rendering
some
applications totally unusable, that I have removed it from every machine
I
have. I've talked to the administration and we are looking into moving
away
from all MS products and following the growing trend of dismantling our
Windows infrastructure.

I truly hope that the recent trend in computing to move away from the
monopolistic domination of MS is but the first scratchings of the
proverbial
writing on the wall that will soon say that MS is on its way out. Maybe
it
won't come soon, certainly not soon enough for any thinking and rational
IT
person, but I think it is coming and on that day I will rejoice.

Thanks, again, Billy. SP2 did it's job well enough for me.

Well, you have all the right to make a change, but if you're an
administrator in the business type you claim, you wouldn't have come here
and made it a point to a public MS newsgroup; you would have simply made the
change and went on with your corporate life. Other than any real technical
reasons why you changed, it sounds more like hate than anything, regarding
your rant.

"velozoom30" wrote in message
...
Thanks to Microsoft's WindowsXP SP2, I have finally made the move to open
source applications. I've wanted to make the move for some time but some
laziness on my part has delayed me. Thanks, Billy, for pushing out the
SP2
and specifically the security center because that horrid piece of
programming
(I call SP2 the new WinME) finally made me so angry and frustrated with
you
and your company that I built up a Linux box at home and will soon be
migrating all of my personal equipment over to the Penguin. If I am
browsing
and come across some content that will only work in your non-W3c standards
compliant browser, I refuse to view it. DId you notice that FireFox 1.0
was
downloaded over a million times the first DAY it was available?
Hallelujiah!


I am the systems administrator at a television station and so am used to
dealing with new technology. I have never had as many problems with a
single
piece of software (and let me tell you, video-editing, TV production, and
graphics software can be extremely touchy and hard to work with) as I have
with SP2. It has bolluxed up so many systems at my station, rendering
some
applications totally unusable, that I have removed it from every machine
I
have. I've talked to the administration and we are looking into moving
away
from all MS products and following the growing trend of dismantling our
Windows infrastructure.

I truly hope that the recent trend in computing to move away from the
monopolistic domination of MS is but the first scratchings of the
proverbial
writing on the wall that will soon say that MS is on its way out. Maybe
it
won't come soon, certainly not soon enough for any thinking and rational
IT
person, but I think it is coming and on that day I will rejoice.

Thanks, again, Billy. SP2 did it's job well enough for me.

I feel sorry for the TV station. If you cannot handle something simple as a
Service Pack, you don't deserve the title. Goodbye, good luck, and good
riddance. You won't be missed. One less clueless end user.
SP2 does not cause any problems for over 95% of those who install it. For
those that do have problems, it is *ALWAYS* due to a flakey installation of
windows, or a system that has *NOT* been properly maintained. In addition,
some choose not to follow the installation instructions, and this can result
in system instability.

Enjoy your foray into open source. If you think you had problems with a
Windows environment, just wait until you deploy your new open source
environment...you have no idea what headaches you are getting yourself into.
We won't even touch upon the subject of having to re-educate your users on
the changes that the move to open source will bring, and the fact that they
will not be able to do the things they could in the Windows environment in
the same fashion.

I give you 6 months and you'll find yourself coming back to a MS
environment, simply for ease of troubleshooting and integration.

Bobby.

"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:

LOL.. love the way that you gave one impression in your first post, then
added all of the stuff about your company using Macs and Linux already in
your second post..

Hmm...I think the only number I actally used was that there are about 300
workstations here. 4 of them are Macs and 3 of them are Linux. Everything
else, and 99.999999% of my job, is on Windows boxes.

"Gordon" writes:
Don Taylor wrote:
|| SP2 broke something in Windows Explorer and nobody knows what it
|| was,

But that's ONLY for those who posted the problem - it's like going to the
doctor, you only see the few who are ill, not the millions who are NOT
ill.....
SP2 has been successfully installed on MILLIONS of computers!

Absolutely, and that tells me I'm not sick how?

Velo

There was no mention of numbers in your original post, and absolutely no
mention of Linux and MacOS used at your workplace.. that's ZERO %..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm





"velozoom30" wrote in message
...


"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:

LOL.. love the way that you gave one impression in your first post, then
added all of the stuff about your company using Macs and Linux already in
your second post..

Hmm...I think the only number I actally used was that there are about 300
workstations here. 4 of them are Macs and 3 of them are Linux.
Everything
else, and 99.999999% of my job, is on Windows boxes.

Leythos writes:

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:18:56 -0600, Don Taylor wrote:

I hope something in this helps someone. But it appears that the
large majority of people never get a fix for the "Windows Explorer"
problem. If someone tells you to try something and it doesn't help
then please make a posting so we can start accumulating what
suggestions don't do any good. And if someone tells you something
that does work then please report it.

Based on the description of your problem and that you got a simple
macro-virus from your friend, I would suggest that you at least were
partially compromised, yea, you've herd it before, but all modern
antivirus scanners do Macro-Viruses with ease. That also seems to indicate
you were not running any AV software, were you?

It is true, that was a simple macro virus. If it really matters, the
macro actually never got to run on my machine, someone else realized
it was infected before I opened the sheet on my computer, but the file
had been on my box so I counted that as an infection. And I made sure
that never ever happened to me again.

That virus was ancient history, long before XP or even the current
computer or any of the current problems, I was just trying to satisfy
those who immediately begin chanting "it is all viruses and spyware"
when any problem is described. We had a wall around the outside.
We never did track down where he got it from. The guess was that
he got it from someone outside and carried it in on a floppy somehow.

As for Explorer issues - you talked about 2000, then Sp2, is this problem
computer a dual boot? Is it a upgraded 2000 machine that is now XP?

My apologies that I wasn't clear, that was the YEAR 2000, not the OS 2000.
And, nope, brand new bare bare hardware with XP installed on fresh drives.
We made the jump from 98SE, put the old machines on the shelf, and were
going to go to ME but before that was installed we went to XP.

As for your problem, I suspect that it's Microsoft Scripting that's the
problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

the link may not work if it wraps, but that's the download for XP's
scripting engine, reinstall it and see if that helps.

Ok, I'm up for anything, nobody else has a clue how to fix this, I've
been told the silliest things are definitely absolutely positiviely
the cause of all this, just today we still see someone chanting "the
only people who have problems with SP2 are the ones who don't know what
they are doing and did it to themselves." But I'll go along with
your idea. Let's settle this one.

If I might ask, strictly for plausibility reasons, WHY would several
hundred people all who had no problems with windows explorer before
SP2 and immediately see these problems when they upgraded to SP2 have
scripting be the problem? Maybe if you can explain your reasoning
and evidence I can recognize more clues and we can track this down
and fix this for hundreds of people.

For example, what scripting is it that would be causing the failure?
The problem is almost always evident in at least two things that are
based on Windows Explorer, and often everything using Windows Explorer.

How can I get some definite diagnostic evidence that your analysis
is the cause? (Something better than "well, we blew away a bunch of
crap and we installed a bunch of crap and now we don't see it now so
that must have been it"?) I'm not saying you are wrong, I just want
to prove what the cause was. I'm really trying to avoid the random
changes until bug hides for a while methodology. That is what got
every one of us into this mess of Windows in the first place.

Believe it or not, I'm really actually honestly trying to expose the
root cause of this problem with conclusive evidence, something that
has not been able to be done by anybody in the last six months.

If it matters any, I've actually started writing and running small
scripts, months after SP2 was installed and the problem began. They
seem to be working, at least as well as the documentation for scripting
allows.

Thank you

Leythos writes:
On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 23:24:18 -0600, Don Taylor wrote:

As for your problem, I suspect that it's Microsoft Scripting that's the
problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

the link may not work if it wraps, but that's the download for XP's
scripting engine, reinstall it and see if that helps.

Ok, I'm up for anything, nobody else has a clue how to fix this, I've
been told the silliest things are definitely absolutely positiviely the
cause of all this, just today we still see someone chanting "the only
people who have problems with SP2 are the ones who don't know what they
are doing and did it to themselves." But I'll go along with your idea.
Let's settle this one.

Service Packs have always been a gamble, and in most cases if you tested
it on a non-production computer before installing it, you would see what
the problems were. For those without a second computer, you backup all
your data (as instructed) and then apply the SP and test until you
determine if it works. I didn't install SP2 on any clients computers for
months, as I was testing it against several similar systems to determine
if there would be a problem.

I AM the guinea pig here, we are STILL waiting before we risk tring it
on the other computers, thinking a miracle might happen and this might
find a fix. But the machines here are not all identical, so fixing it
on mine probably says little or nothing about the others.

If I might ask, strictly for plausibility reasons, WHY would several
hundred people all who had no problems with windows explorer before SP2
and immediately see these problems when they upgraded to SP2 have
scripting be the problem? Maybe if you can explain your reasoning and
evidence I can recognize more clues and we can track this down and fix
this for hundreds of people.

It all goes back to one simple thing - Windows XP runs on a mass of
different system, most of them are not something that can be tested
against as there are soooooo many variations of even the Dell system, just
imagine the rest of the computers in the world. Windows XP SP2 was not
forced on anyone, there were clear instructions from MS on how to install
it and to make your (anyone's) machine ready for it, and even the
parts/systems vendors have specific notes/updates for people installing
SP2.

If you have several hundred people with very similar problems, it would
stand to reason that you should have been able to determine what was
common between all of those systems and then determine a corrective path,
but I've not seen the analysis of those hundreds of systems.

I keep saying this and I just must not be clear, this is several hundred
different people spread across the world, look at some of this to see
their descriptions of mostly the same problem:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups...gora.rdrop.com

There are a few other things mixed in there but that is mostly people
all describing pretty much what appears to be the same root problem
followed by my list of the things this had all claimed to be caused
by and which almost all appeared to not be the cause or fix it.

For example, what scripting is it that would be causing the failure? The
problem is almost always evident in at least two things that are based
on Windows Explorer, and often everything using Windows Explorer.

In my case, we installed SP2 on a clients set of computers, all of them
were Dell computers that were purchased with XP (no-SP1) at the same time,
about 1 year ago. All computers have the SAME parts/hardware/applications.
One of the systems, after installing SP2, would not allow searches, didn't
show the proper IE Help/About information (it was missing lots), and there
seemed to be no answer from anyone, even MS, about what caused it. I
searched for a week and started putting reports/fixes together from people
that had pieces of the problem and their fixes (and I've been doing this
since the 70's) and determined (through t/e) that scripting was the
problem - I installed the scripting package and everything started working
again.

We aren't that lucky to have identical machines. And IE doesn't seem
to be involved in this. But I can understand your method.

How can I get some definite diagnostic evidence that your analysis is
the cause? (Something better than "well, we blew away a bunch of crap
and we installed a bunch of crap and now we don't see it now so that
must have been it"?) I'm not saying you are wrong, I just want to prove
what the cause was. I'm really trying to avoid the random changes until
bug hides for a while methodology. That is what got every one of us
into this mess of Windows in the first place.

I can't explain it or even tell you how/why it worked for me. I've had two
serious SP2 problems on a just over 1000 machines that we manage for a
diverse group of clients. Of those, one needed a BIOS update, and the
other needed the scripting reinstalled. Since you say that you are having
problems with Explorer and searching (which was also a symptom that we
experienced, not just IE) I suggested the fix that worked for me. I
suspected that you had already done the basics, and this can't hurt.

Control panel,
Folder shortcuts,
Recycle bin,
Searching,
Windows Explorer
Not IE

Most folks report the same problem with at least a couple of these,
and some report it with every one of these

Believe it or not, I'm really actually honestly trying to expose the
root cause of this problem with conclusive evidence, something that has
not been able to be done by anybody in the last six months.

If it matters any, I've actually started writing and running small
scripts, months after SP2 was installed and the problem began. They
seem to be working, at least as well as the documentation for scripting
allows.

If you've lived with it for 6 months, then it's time to either try the
scripting or just do a wipe/reinstall to give you a fully working machine.

well thats great boohoo. I'm 100% behind bill and his team and am very
pleased with sp2. if you have had problems it probly cause your not taking
care of your systems and if you think you are your probly doing a half assed
job at it. thats all i got to say about that forest

"velozoom30" wrote:

Thanks to Microsoft's WindowsXP SP2, I have finally made the move to open
source applications. I've wanted to make the move for some time but some
laziness on my part has delayed me. Thanks, Billy, for pushing out the SP2
and specifically the security center because that horrid piece of programming
(I call SP2 the new WinME) finally made me so angry and frustrated with you
and your company that I built up a Linux box at home and will soon be
migrating all of my personal equipment over to the Penguin. If I am browsing
and come across some content that will only work in your non-W3c standards
compliant browser, I refuse to view it. DId you notice that FireFox 1.0 was
downloaded over a million times the first DAY it was available? Hallelujiah!


I am the systems administrator at a television station and so am used to
dealing with new technology. I have never had as many problems with a single
piece of software (and let me tell you, video-editing, TV production, and
graphics software can be extremely touchy and hard to work with) as I have
with SP2. It has bolluxed up so many systems at my station, rendering some
applications totally unusable, that I have removed it from every machine I
have. I've talked to the administration and we are looking into moving away
from all MS products and following the growing trend of dismantling our
Windows infrastructure.

I truly hope that the recent trend in computing to move away from the
monopolistic domination of MS is but the first scratchings of the proverbial
writing on the wall that will soon say that MS is on its way out. Maybe it
won't come soon, certainly not soon enough for any thinking and rational IT
person, but I think it is coming and on that day I will rejoice.

Thanks, again, Billy. SP2 did it's job well enough for me.

Frankly you both are juvenille but I sure would like to figure out why a
fresh install of XP Pro with SP2 applied right after the install has
left me with a machine that can't seem to find device drivers for new
hardware that is plugged in to it. Trying to add a sidewinder usb
joystick and an iPod(firewire and usb) results in the hardware wizard
failing for both, saying it can't find the drivers. Any tips for that
or just more of the same? Sadly I've done the same exact install before
and everything worked just fine.

lesjf wrote:
well thats great boohoo. I'm 100% behind bill and his team and am very
pleased with sp2. if you have had problems it probly cause your not taking
care of your systems and if you think you are your probly doing a half assed
job at it. thats all i got to say about that forest

"velozoom30" wrote:


Thanks to Microsoft's WindowsXP SP2, I have finally made the move to open
source applications. I've wanted to make the move for some time but some
laziness on my part has delayed me. Thanks, Billy, for pushing out the SP2
and specifically the security center because that horrid piece of programming
(I call SP2 the new WinME) finally made me so angry and frustrated with you
and your company that I built up a Linux box at home and will soon be
migrating all of my personal equipment over to the Penguin. If I am browsing
and come across some content that will only work in your non-W3c standards
compliant browser, I refuse to view it. DId you notice that FireFox 1.0 was
downloaded over a million times the first DAY it was available? Hallelujiah!


I am the systems administrator at a television station and so am used to
dealing with new technology. I have never had as many problems with a single
piece of software (and let me tell you, video-editing, TV production, and
graphics software can be extremely touchy and hard to work with) as I have
with SP2. It has bolluxed up so many systems at my station, rendering some
applications totally unusable, that I have removed it from every machine I
have. I've talked to the administration and we are looking into moving away
from all MS products and following the growing trend of dismantling our
Windows infrastructure.

I truly hope that the recent trend in computing to move away from the
monopolistic domination of MS is but the first scratchings of the proverbial
writing on the wall that will soon say that MS is on its way out. Maybe it
won't come soon, certainly not soon enough for any thinking and rational IT
person, but I think it is coming and on that day I will rejoice.

Thanks, again, Billy. SP2 did it's job well enough for me.