HomeInteresting
things often happen when Microsoft releases a Service Pack. Of
course, to BugNet, "interesting" means crippling incompatibilities,
massive breakdowns, and lots of angry users.
To your good fortune, and
our bad, Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 appears to have rolled out smoothly.
The only exception seems to have been the problem with two firewall
devices, ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm, and Network Ice BlackICE Defender. After
installing SP 1, ZoneAlarm users were unable to connect via TCP/IP,
which crippled Internet and many network connections. Users of BlackICE
found their system unprotected. Follow the links below for the full
details on these two problems, and on how to get their fixes.
Both these problems were
fixed rather quickly. Last minute changes to Microsoft's Software
Development Kit
may have partly been the cause of these problems.
The problem was also thoroughly dissected in the Microsoft.public.win2000.general
newsgroup, with Microsoft bashers and defenders having a good time.
Since lots of that talk is unsubstantiated (but fun) we will let you
check that out on your own.
Service Pack 1 is a collection
of bug fixes. Most important, it includes 17 security hot fixes that
Microsoft has released this year. If you haven't been diligent applying
your security patches, SP 1 is a fast way to catch up. There are also
many other bug fixes included. You can find the details on many of
those in the BugNet database.
Update Your Recovery
Console
One important troubleshooting
feature of Windows 2000 is the Recovery Console. It is an alternative
way to log on to a computer that won't boot, giving you access to
the Command Prompt and a number of DOS-like utilities for making repairs
to a computer. It's loosely equivalent of booting straight to DOS
on an older generation Windows computer. These utility files are housed
by default in your system drive's \Cmdcons folder.
Microsoft points out that
upgrading to Service Pack 1 does not update this folder. The only
way to update your Recovery Console is to re-run the command that
created it in the first place:
winnt32.exe /cmdcons
However, you must run this
command from an integrated installation of Windows 2000 and Service
Pack 1. This integrated installation is also called a slipstreamed
installation. Here's what you need to do to integrate:
- Either on your computer, or on a network distribution share, create a new folder, such as \win2kint.
- Take your original Windows 2000 CD-ROM, and copy all the contents to the \win2kint folder. You can do this by clicking and dragging via Windows Explorer, or any other way you would normally copy files.
- Next you need to put your Service Pack CD into your drive, and run Update.exe in slipstream mode. You can do it with this command: d:\i386\update\update.exe /s:c:\win2kint d: would be the drive letter for your CD-ROM, and c: would be the drive where you created the folder in step 1.
- Now go to your newly integrated folder, and run winnt32.exe/ cmdcons
Uninstall Me
If you are one of the unlucky
few that runs into problems with the Service Pack, Microsoft has built
in a line of retreat. When you install the Service Pack, it creates
its own uninstall information in a folder called $NTServicepackUninstall$.
You can uninstall it the same way you would any other program. Go
to the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. Select Windows 2000 Service
Pack 1 from the list, and click Change/Uninstall. You can also do
this from a command prompt.
-
Click Start, Run
-
Type cmd in the dialog, and click OK.
-
At the command prompt, change your directory to \%systemroot%\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst\
-
Give this command spuninst.exe
-
Later, you can close the Command Prompt window by typing Exit
Hopefully, you won't need
this. Except for the firewall problem, this has been an uneventful
Service Pack. Oh well, dull days for us mean happier computing for
you.
August 16th, 2009