Microsoft

Microsoft has started to send out its latest major security patch to home PCs — but some people won't get it for a while.

The first computer owners to get Windows XP Service Pack 2 began receiving it on Wednesday night, Microsoft said. The update is being sent to people who have the automatic update feature turned on in the operating system. But it will take at least a few weeks to deliver the 80-plus megabyte patch to the installed user base, a company representative said on Thursday.

Security researchers have identified a new version of the Download.Ject attack that is now being used on the Internet and can compromise fully patched Windows XP machines.

Since Microsoft released its Windows XP Service Pack 2 for download, early adopters have reported a range of problems with SP2, including software incompatibilities and installation headaches. I.T. security group Sans Institute reported that around a third of users experienced solvable problems on installation, while one in 10 saw systems crash or had to rebuild their systems.

Security researchers say they're starting to find flaws in Microsoft's latest major update for Windows XP.

Last week, German company Heise Security announced that two flaws could be used to circumvent the new warnings that Windows XP Service Pack 2, or SP2, normally would display about running untrusted programs, potentially giving a leg up to a would-be intruder's attempts to execute code on a victim's PC.

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Many people including business people have MSN accounts since MSN or Windows Messenger is accepted widely as a communication application. Many including yours truly, never used it much for mailing unless it was the only way.

Microsoft has snatched up one of the open source communities favorite programmers Jim Hugunin. The very man responsible for creating Jpython/Jython is now working with Microsoft. Despite what some people believe this isn't the end of the world. Jim Hugunin has announced that he will stay committed to his open source projects as he works to improve Microsoft’s support for dynamic languages.

Microsoft is delaying distribution of Windows XP Service Pack 2 via its Automatic Update service by at least nine days in order to give corporate customers more time to temporarily block automatic downloading of SP2 by their employees.

The software maker notified customers of the decision in an e-mail on Monday, when it had planned to make SP2 available through automatic distribution. Microsoft said many big companies aren't ready to make the move and need more time to put in place tools to block automatic updates to SP2 until they can fully test their internal applications.

While users are testing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP to prevent compatibility problems, hackers are picking apart the security-focused software update looking for vulnerabilities, security experts said. While users are testing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP to prevent compatibility problems, hackers are picking apart the security-focused software update looking for vulnerabilities, security experts said. "We will see new vulnerabilities discovered in SP2 over the next few weeks.

Microsoft has been waiting for security researchers to say that its Windows operating system has a lower total cost of ownership. One finally has, but that's not good news. On Friday, David Aitel, a noted security professional and managing director of vulnerability assessment firm Immunity, published a paper stating that "owning" a computer -- hacker-speak for compromising a system -- is easier if the target computer runs Windows. While couched in puns and jokes, the paper takes a serious stance on the security of Windows compared with modern Linux, Aitel said.

With automatic download of Microsoft's enormous SP2 security patch to the Windows XP operating system set to begin, the industry still waits to understand its ramifications. Home users that have their preferences set to receive operating-system updates as they are made available by Microsoft may be surprised to learn that some of the software they already run on their systems could be disabled by SP2 or may run very differently.