• s (unregistered)

    Installing service packs and updates on my home PC would immediately render it unusable. I mean, Windows Genuine Advantage is known to conflict with all windows installs with the serial number I use.

  • A Nonny Mouse (unregistered)

    wasn't anyone in charge of these clowns? everyone knew what the right thing to do was, and yet the deployment team seem to be a law unto themselves!

  • Paddington Bear (unregistered)

    It's a sad story, but so many previous stories like this end up with:

    ...so the CEO chastised him for causing problems and he was sacked/walked and as far as he knows the problem still exists.

    At least in this case, a well worded argument got the right result.

  • (cs) in reply to Paddington Bear

    Yes, the real WTF is that the company Did The Right Thing!

  • (cs)

    So, The Real WTF™ is that logic and reason finally prevailed?

    Sorry, I call bullshit. Logic and reason will never prevail over small-minded twits that feel a desperate need to hold on to every shred of power they have.

    Or, maybe I'm just bitter.

  • Fred4 (unregistered)

    So the WTF is that service packs are now mandatory even when they would break something?

  • Valacosa (unregistered)
    Service Pack installations are now mandatory, and no excuses are tolerated.
    So one school of fundamentalist IT fanaticism is replaced with another. Where's the improvement?
  • (cs)

    I thought the SQLUSA ad on the right was funny in itself. Then I went to their site... oh no. The guy might know his stuff, but the layout and clipart.. just wow.

  • (cs) in reply to Valacosa
    Valacosa:
    Service Pack installations are now mandatory, and no excuses are tolerated.
    So one school of fundamentalist IT fanaticism is replaced with another. Where's the improvement?
    Do you honestly not see the improvement or is this just an electronic version of waggling your genitalia at the general public?
  • XML Hater (unregistered)

    I have actually seen MS patches fix one security hole only to open up a completely different sometimes-more-serious one.

    I thought that was a WTF in itself.

  • (cs) in reply to bobday
    bobday:
    Valacosa:
    Service Pack installations are now mandatory, and no excuses are tolerated.
    So one school of fundamentalist IT fanaticism is replaced with another. Where's the improvement?
    Do you honestly not see the improvement or is this just an electronic version of waggling your genitalia at the general public?
    I think he is questioning the whole "no excuses tolerated" thing. There are such things as bad service packs. The correct procedure is that all service packs are required, unless you can show that it either breaks an important feature or it creates a new/worse security problem.
  • OSE (unregistered)

    So the story has a happy ending? The guy made a reasoned argument to the common management, they listened, and idiocy was swept aside in the name of good IT practice?

    I don't know how to feel just now.

  • DwayneHicks (unregistered) in reply to Grimoire
    Grimoire:
    I think he is questioning the whole "no excuses tolerated" thing. There are such things as bad service packs. The correct procedure is that all service packs are required, unless you can show that it either breaks an important feature or it creates a new/worse security problem.
    Exactly... there's a big difference between "this might cause some sort of problem" and "I tested the service pack and it causes incorrect behavior X, Y and Z".
  • Bean (unregistered) in reply to Grimoire

    I can definetely defend the "bad service packs" line. To this day, Installshield 10 SP1 will crash if you add a merge module to an installation and try to build it. Any merge module. Any installation.

    I've heard that removing installshield and installing the slipstream IS X + SP1 together works, but we don't have a support contract so we can't get it. Installshield X without SP1 works just fine for us though.

    http://community.installshield.com/showthread.php?t=138263

  • mr_ed (unregistered) in reply to s
    s:
    Installing service packs and updates on my home PC would immediately render it unusable. I mean, Windows Genuine Advantage is known to conflict with all windows installs with the serial number I use.
    I tried updating IE 6 on my Linux install (via Wine) -- but first I had to verify that I was running a Genuine version of Windows.

    I was mildly surprised that my Linux install is Genuine Windows.

  • Evo (unregistered)

    This isn't a WTF... This is sysadmins being used by windows...

    Or is that the wtf?

  • (cs) in reply to Bean
    Bean:
    I can definetely defend the "bad service packs" line. To this day, Installshield 10 SP1 will crash if you add a merge module to an installation and try to build it. Any merge module. Any installation.

    I've heard that removing installshield and installing the slipstream IS X + SP1 together works, but we don't have a support contract so we can't get it. Installshield X without SP1 works just fine for us though.

    http://community.installshield.com/showthread.php?t=138263

    Any version of InstallShield with any service pack will crash whenever you try to do anything if you don't perform the proper sacrifices each morning at sunrise. At least that's been my experience.

  • Abscissa (unregistered)

    "The real WTF": Using the "S -> $" insult against Microsoft, right after that paragraph about Oracle. That's like saying "San Jose's crime rate is slightly higher than the US average, but MY GOD Sacramento is EXPENSIVE!"

  • Rob (unregistered)

    Ah yes. SQL Server service packs.

    We have an SQL Server 2005 server, which was running with SP1 installed since the start. Then we decided to upgrade to SP2. No problems there. Well ok, there were some, but unrelated.

    Anyway, a few days later our network engineer contacted me that the database backup had shrunk quite a bit. So I checked: there was only one backup per database instead of the 7 (1 week) that was supposed to be there.

    So I checked the maintenance plans, and immediately saw the problem: the SP2 upgrade changed all the "remove files older than 1 week" to "remove files older than 1 day". I spent half an hour changing all the maintenance plans. Then, a few days later, the Microsoft Update on my work station showed an update to this problem.

    I still have to install the update on the server itself, and already fear that all will be set to "remove files older than 1 month"...

  • Masked marauder (unregistered) in reply to Abscissa
    Abscissa:
    "The real WTF": Using the "S -> $" insult against Microsoft, ...

    I'm pretty sure this wasn't an insult to Microsoft.

  • despair (unregistered)

    Treating service packs with suspicion isn't entirely indefensible. Visual Studio in particular has a long history of service packs that totally break old projects and functionality. We're still interdicting SP1 to MSVC05 because it "doesn't support" one of our most important customer platforms.

  • ElQuberto (unregistered) in reply to Abscissa
    Abscissa:
    "The real WTF": Using the "S -> $" insult against Microsoft, right after that paragraph about Oracle. That's like saying "San Jose's crime rate is slightly higher than the US average, but MY GOD Sacramento is EXPENSIVE!"

    Joke <----

    You <-----

  • Ben4jammin (unregistered)

    As a network analyst, I've seen it go both ways. Like when I applied SP4 Rollup 1 to a windows 2000 citrix server and hosed it so bad it had to be rebuilt (uninstall wouldn't totally return it to its previous state). I've also applied SPs and improved security/performance. And as a bonus, I've seen people blame MS for stuff that isn't necessarily MS's fault. I work for a college and we use a SQL based system to keep up with student records, etc. They (the provider) told us we HAD to upgrade our SQL to SP4. We did. Then they sent an email that said due to a SQL 2000 SP4 bug, our database could become inoperable. Funny thing is, I never found any mention of this particular "bug" anywhere else (yes I googled it). I am not a db programmer but I did notice that SP4 does change how you have to do some things from a programming perspective. So maybe it was a "bug" or maybe they just screwed up and blamed MS because most of their customers don't have the technical knowledge to challenge them.

  • Sharkie (unregistered)

    I'm with the other posters that call BS that logic and determination prevailed in this situation.

    While everyone likes a happy ending, in software & IT, there never is a happy ending. The twits win, unneeded expenditures amplify, and hours are increased from unneeded work-arounds in order to further uncloud unabashed ignorance from the top down.

    And no, I'm not bitter. This is what makes our jobs a challenge. 60-80% of the corporate daily battle is unnecessary. But hey, if the people that sign the checks want to pay me to spin my wheels, so be it. It's a nice fairy tale to read of someone making the same case we do daily and actually having it yield return. I just hope our hero makes it back to his cubicle before midnight before his horse and carriage returns back to a cup of ramen and a couple of cockroaches.

  • evilghost (unregistered) in reply to XML Hater
    XML Hater:
    I have actually seen MS patches fix one security hole only to open up a completely different sometimes-more-serious one.

    I thought that was a WTF in itself.

    Ah yes, MS06-041, Microsoft Wisdom at it's finest.

  • Ben4jammin (unregistered) in reply to Sharkie
    Sharkie:
    I'm with the other posters that call BS that logic and determination prevailed in this situation.

    While everyone likes a happy ending, in software & IT, there never is a happy ending. The twits win, unneeded expenditures amplify, and hours are increased from unneeded work-arounds in order to further uncloud unabashed ignorance from the top down.

    And no, I'm not bitter. This is what makes our jobs a challenge. 60-80% of the corporate daily battle is unnecessary. But hey, if the people that sign the checks want to pay me to spin my wheels, so be it. It's a nice fairy tale to read of someone making the same case we do daily and actually having it yield return. I just hope our hero makes it back to his cubicle before midnight before his horse and carriage returns back to a cup of ramen and a couple of cockroaches.

    And if it IS true, may I have the contact information for someone in their IT dept? :)

  • (cs) in reply to s
    s:
    Installing service packs and updates on my home PC would immediately render it unusable. I mean, Windows Genuine Advantage is known to conflict with all windows installs with the serial number I use.

    I just keep skipping that upgrade. (I do own a legit XP copy - my computer wastes enough cycles on random Windows. I don't need to waste more checking to make sure I'm not a crook.)

  • Dax (unregistered)

    As always the development guys think they know everything about everything, when in reality they don't know shit about shit. You realize that you need to stage a deployment, then do testing and QA and THEN you release the service pack on to production. Who do you think is going to be staying late all weekend to rebuild your precious SQL server when the latest service pack breaks something? The developers? I don't think so.

    Everyone always bitches about OPs moving slowly and being over cautious about changes to production, but then when shit hits the fan it always gets turned into "Why on earth did you do THAT"

    Its so fucking simple it deserves its own WTF "If it ain't broke, don't fucking fix it!"

  • (cs) in reply to Grimoire
    Grimoire:
    I think he is questioning the whole "no excuses tolerated" thing. There are such things as bad service packs. The correct procedure is that all service packs are required, unless you can show that it either breaks an important feature or it creates a new/worse security problem.
    Right. In a production facilities that sees customers, you should have a "smoke test" environment where you initially deploy candidate service packs and test them to see if they break things. If it passes, you allow the service pack to be installed. Security-related service packs should get expedited priority.

    It's bad to procrastinate on service packs that fix problems, particularly security ones. It's also bad to automatically deploy everything Microsoft says you need to run.

    Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6 is a highly public example. It broke a wide array of network applications. Microsoft had to issue an updated one, SP6a, to address these problems.

  • iMalc (unregistered) in reply to Dax

    Well clearly you had an itch that needed to be scratched. But clearly you are way off base in trying to relate your own experiences with those of this wtf.

    The wtf wasn't just talking about the latest service pack, it talked about multiple already released service packs. Sure, you can go slowly and cautionsly with one, but by the time the next one comes out, if you aren't already using the first one, then either it must be because it provably sucks, or you're a moron.

    The last line of your post is so not applicable here. It was clearly VERY VERY BROKE and very much needed fixing!

  • (cs)

    I must channel the signature of 25% of IT workers in the world...

    If it ain't broke, fix it until it is!

    In case you're wondering, the other 85% of IT workers have something about "there's only 10 kinds of people..." and the rest of us are too busy giving 110% to make up for your lazy asses.

  • oldami (unregistered) in reply to MikeBeer
    MikeBeer:
    Bean:
    I can definetely defend the "bad service packs" line. To this day, Installshield 10 SP1 will crash if you add a merge module to an installation and try to build it. Any merge module. Any installation.

    I've heard that removing installshield and installing the slipstream IS X + SP1 together works, but we don't have a support contract so we can't get it. Installshield X without SP1 works just fine for us though.

    http://community.installshield.com/showthread.php?t=138263

    Any version of InstallShield with any service pack will crash whenever you try to do anything if you don't perform the proper sacrifices each morning at sunrise. At least that's been my experience.

    Thats why we switched to Nullsoft scriptable install system. It works, and its open source.

  • finally (unregistered) in reply to s

    So it finally happened; after all of the products, patches, updates, and patched-updates and updates-to-patches that have been installed since they first invented the lowly transistor, someone with common sense finally prevailed on the powers that be to override an idiot.

    I'll bet it's snowing down below right now...

  • (cs) in reply to Dax
    Dax:
    "If it ain't broke, don't fucking fix it!"
    Yes, that was the logic used by a coworker with whom I once worked. She resented the change brought by computers and argued that we should keep using adding machines, typewriters and mail couriers. There was nothing wrong with that system; it worked fine.
  • PM-who-me? (unregistered) in reply to Thuktun

    Thuktun wrote:

    Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6 is a highly public example. It broke a wide array of network applications. Microsoft had to issue an updated one, SP6a, to address these problems.

    Unfortunately WinNT SP6a corrupted the NT kernel loader in some environments. I found this out the hardway with a couple servers.

    Repeat after me a valuable lesson learned: Always backup both before and after installing patches.

  • MX5Ringer (unregistered)

    Not got time to read others comments,

    Where is the WTF here? Guy argues case for service packs, Guy wins, Procedures changed so that Service Packs are installed.

    Yes there have been problems with service packs in the past Win NT SP5 did it for me but these days honestly whats the problem, install service packs 1 update behind if you have to so that hot fixes and SPs are available if you have a specific problem.

    It's not a WTF if you have a problem with procedure and procedure gets changed as a result of that.

    Just my 2c worth..

    Captcha:- Yummy, Back to Schrodingers cat food again (but how would you know?)

  • Curmudgeon (unregistered)

    Sorry, but this item is ridiculous. Installing patches to working machines can break things, the IT guys were right about that. Taking a known-working system and changing its software without a better reason "service packs are good" is just dumb.

    The real issue here, of course, is not that the IT shop didn't apply "service packs" but that they didn't apply a specific service pack that was required to fix a production bug. Which patch is that? No idea. C. D. was apparently too lazy to find out, and spent his time writing a rant for WTF instead.

    WTF's all around for this one. Everyone involved was dumb, including the site operators for posting it.

  • Mr C (unregistered)

    Mr. Ed: If you're running Novell's (or should we say Microsoft's?) Suse, then might that explain it being detected as Genuine Windows?

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to Curmudgeon
    Curmudgeon:
    Sorry, but this item is ridiculous. Installing patches to working machines *can* break things, the IT guys were right about that. Taking a known-working system and changing its software without a better reason "service packs are good" is just dumb.

    The real issue here, of course, is not that the IT shop didn't apply "service packs" but that they didn't apply a specific service pack that was required to fix a production bug. Which patch is that? No idea. C. D. was apparently too lazy to find out, and spent his time writing a rant for WTF instead.

    WTF's all around for this one. Everyone involved was dumb, including the site operators for posting it.

    Yup. How many copies of Vista are sold because it's XP with all the service packs?

  • AndrewB (unregistered) in reply to Dax
    Dax:
    As always the development guys think they know everything about everything, when in reality they don't know shit about shit. You realize that you need to stage a deployment, then do testing and QA and THEN you release the service pack on to production. Who do you think is going to be staying late all weekend to rebuild your precious SQL server when the latest service pack breaks something? The developers? I don't think so.

    Everyone always bitches about OPs moving slowly and being over cautious about changes to production, but then when shit hits the fan it always gets turned into "Why on earth did you do THAT"

    Its so fucking simple it deserves its own WTF "If it ain't broke, don't fucking fix it!"

    I think Mr. Irons here just set a new record for bitterness on this site.

  • BTDT (unregistered) in reply to Paddington Bear
    Paddington Bear:
    It's a sad story, but so many previous stories like this end up with:

    ...so the CEO chastised him for causing problems and he was sacked/walked and as far as he knows the problem still exists.

    At least in this case, a well worded argument got the right result.

    Disagree. It sounds like he had all kinds of buy-in before his well-worded argument, which is probably more likely for the success. Most of the stories with sad endings seem to involve one guy going up against everyone (or at least someone higher up the totem poll) with little or no buy-in.

    Such stories are dubious anyway. Anyway getting fired over this issue (or similar) needs to study up on office politics. At best they are blind to office politics enough to not only fail to make the change happen, but also to get themselves fired. At worst, they really are causing problems (even if they are right). Any story which makes such a person look "good" is not only questionable, but really doesn't make such a person look all that good anyway because its really highlighting their own failure.

  • (cs) in reply to mr_ed
    mr_ed:
    I was mildly surprised that my Linux install is Genuine Windows.

    I guess it only checks if you aren't genuine then. Perhaps it should be called "non-genuine disadvantage"? Clearly your Linux install isn't a pirated copy of Windows, so that's all they need to know. Stoopid MS.

  • (cs)

    The real WTF, obviously, is that it's MS.

    [/troll] :P

  • (cs) in reply to evilghost
    evilghost:
    XML Hater:
    I have actually seen MS patches fix one security hole only to open up a completely different sometimes-more-serious one.

    I thought that was a WTF in itself.

    Ah yes, MS06-041, Microsoft Wisdom at it's finest.
    Oh! It's obvious that Microsoft doesn't test for security related bugs before shipping.

  • StressBomb (unregistered)

    "Micro$oft $QL $erver (ha, take that, Micro$oft!) i$ al$o a $cary upgrade."

    Bravo! You have my admirations, soldier! I'm sure Microsoft pissed their pants reading this!

  • Galactic Dominator (unregistered)

    I agree with the questions about this even being classified a wtf. My experience comes from my own personal best wtf when I installed SP 5 or 6(been a long time) at the county seat where Sturgis bike rally is held...I installed a standard SP only to figure after rebooting that I was working on a dual cpu system and when I first saw that BSOD after POST I nearly shat myself. I haven't trusted patches since so there's definitely a backup on any update prior to installing them...obviously that little incident could have prevented by me doing a research first, but there also should have been an idiot check so a non-smp compatible couldn't be installed.

  • Jens (unregistered) in reply to s
    s:
    Installing service packs and updates on my home PC would immediately render it unusable. I mean, Windows Genuine Advantage is known to conflict with all windows installs with the serial number I use.

    Hmmm.. Most of you guys here are programmers or developers right... You get payed for developing software right... You probably get payed much more than the average Tom, Dick and Harry right....

    The developers at Microsoft get payed too right.... Yeah, Bill makes a buck or two more than you do, but do you know... He's brilliant... I dont know anyone, who wouldnt make as much money as he does, if they had the wits..

    If you want free seoftware, use Linux.. All of you stating Linux is better than Windows.. Fair enough.. You use Linux.. I havent the wits to install Linux, as I dont know half the parameters my graphics card wants entered in Linux. But I ackowledge all you that DO have the wits for this..

    I BOUGHT my windows, and its real easy to install and use... So you peskering theives out there... How about starting to buy your software, OR use freeware..

    You expect to get paid don't you???

  • Jor naim (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    I must channel the signature of 25% of IT workers in the world...

    If it ain't broke, fix it until it is!

    In case you're wondering, the other 85% of IT workers have something about "there's only 10 kinds of people..." and the rest of us are too busy giving 110% to make up for your lazy asses.

    25 + 85 = 110. So, uhm. Where does the guys giving 110% come in? ;) We already have everyone and then some being turdmuffins. ;)

  • Jor naim (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    [quote user="FredSaw"][quote user="Dax"]"If it ain't broke, don't fucking fix it!"[/quote]Yes, that was the logic used by a coworker with whom I once worked. She resented the change brought by computers and argued that we should keep using adding machines, typewriters and mail couriers. There was nothing wrong with that system; it worked fine.[/quote

    While being a programmer, I cant help thinking that she might have been right. ,) I mean, isnt pretty much all software sitting on a nice easter egg of an security hole, is instable or any other kind of problem?

    How about the ridiculus user interfaces. Ive seen some seriously scary shit out there. Those guys would probably have been better off without computers.

  • Jor naim (unregistered) in reply to Jens
    Jens:
    s:
    Installing service packs and updates on my home PC would immediately render it unusable. I mean, Windows Genuine Advantage is known to conflict with all windows installs with the serial number I use.

    Hmmm.. Most of you guys here are programmers or developers right... You get payed for developing software right... You probably get payed much more than the average Tom, Dick and Harry right....

    The developers at Microsoft get payed too right.... Yeah, Bill makes a buck or two more than you do, but do you know... He's brilliant... I dont know anyone, who wouldnt make as much money as he does, if they had the wits..

    If you want free seoftware, use Linux.. All of you stating Linux is better than Windows.. Fair enough.. You use Linux.. I havent the wits to install Linux, as I dont know half the parameters my graphics card wants entered in Linux. But I ackowledge all you that DO have the wits for this..

    I BOUGHT my windows, and its real easy to install and use... So you peskering theives out there... How about starting to buy your software, OR use freeware..

    You expect to get paid don't you???

    Ill give him that he knows how to make money. I know of a few others that pulled off pretty much the same ammassing of cash without relying on stock being locked in an upwards spiral.

    Hell, that guy was even the richest in the world when the bubble burst and all IT stock plummeted. He had all his cash safely tucked away on a bank account. ;)

    Name? Ingvar Kamprad

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