service pack query?

Question

with the stop of updates for service pack 2 ,what does this mean,when you install a old copy of windows,will it not receive any updates at all or will you still get critical updates
its like people with "non-genuine windows",they still get some updates but not all of them
microsoft are just becoming a pain in the xxxx

Answer 1

There are a couple of things you need to understand before this answer makes sense...

1) Service packs are nothing more than a big package of all of the previously released patches for a specific Operating System. Windows XP has had 2 service packs... SP1 contained all of the patches released up until it's release and SP2 contained all of the patches released between SP1 and SP2.

2) Microsoft's current policy is to support an operating system back through 2 releases of Service Packs. To support (continue to develop patches and fixes) for operating systems further back than that becomes difficult and time consuming for Microsoft and not effective. With Windows XP, you must have SP1 or SP2 installed on your machine to download patches. If you have not installed SP1 or SP2 then you cannot use Automatic Update to receive any new patches. When Microsoft releases SP3 for XP then you will need to have SP2 or SP3 and any system with only SP1 will no longer receive patches.

3) Most of this is only affected if you use Automatic Updates. If you read the actual technical bulletin from Microsoft you can follow the link and download/install the patch manually. This still requires that you have at least SP1 or SP2 as there may be functionality in the patch that requires functionality included in either of those releases.

So to address what I think your question was... if you install an older version of Windows (such as 95/98/ME/NT) or newer packages without all of the Service Packs (W2000 prior to SP6 or Windows XP without a service pack)... you will be unable to use the Automatic Updates service to receive new patches.

It isn't that Microsoft is becoming a pain in the xxx... it is just a matter of being able to assign resources to what matters... which is keeping current software up to date and patched. If they had to continue to build patches for Win3.1/95/98/NT then they would not be able to focus on patches for current OSes.... Ford doesn't make tires for their 1939 Model T anymore... Microsoft can't support Windows 95 either...

Know this is long... hope it helps

Answer 2

you install the old software then run updates, one of the first updates you should be offered is the service pack two update.
you will then be able to continue to download.

i should say i'm basing my answer on having recently had to re-install an old windows 98 on an old system, and ran live update after MS said updates would no longer be available. what they actually meant is that no new updates would be released. existing updates will remain available for the time being.

again baseed on experiance and not official MS information. so i freely admit this info may be wrong in part.

Answer 3

generally you will still get updates to the day they stopped issuing new ones
it means no new updates

Answer 4

don't know microsoft lost a lot of money last year.