Windows 2003 SP2 out !

[Rune J. Winje]

For your information: It looks like Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 is finally out...

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sp2.mspx


Cheers,
Rune

[Armin Kerl]

And is it Supportet with PSP 7.70?

[Rune J. Winje]

Good question.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/458915-0-0-0-121.html
says: "Includes support for the two most recent Microsoft Service Packs."

But as always in production environments - test first :)

The reality is that SP2 came after PSP 7.70, so common sense says there could be issues. However a Service Pack is generally preferable to many hotfixes, since the qualification and testing of hotfixes included in the SP is more comprehensive.
And there are _lots_ of bugfixes included in SP2 - remember these have not been distributed by windowsupdate since windowsupdate only concerns itself with security hotfixes and not bugfixes.


Cheers,
Rune

[Uwe Zessin]

Yep, Great thing. I was testing a VSS provider for a storage array and although I installed hot-fix required by the vendor, it did not work fully. Then I slapped on SP2, reinstalled the provider and it works fine now!

[Rune J. Winje]

Sounds good!

Let's have some fun here. I'll give 10 points whomever can show that SP2 introduces new problems compared to SP1 plus hotfixes.

Preferrable the problem should be easy to reproduce or verify.


Cheers,
Rune

[Tommy_6]

You think I'll actually install SP2 on one of my test systems, I'll just have to wait 6 months.

Tommy

[Rune J. Winje]

Combine it with your yearly backup-restore test :)

Backup, install SP2, test... restore the backup.

Be sure the console session is to your test server and not the production server though ;)

[Rune J. Winje]

Here is some VERY useful information regarding SP2:

"Certain Windows Server 2003 hotfixes have been repackaged to be compatible with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2)"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932132/

_______ Quote ___________
Certain hotfixes have been repackaged to replace earlier versions that are incompatible with Windows Server 2003 SP2. To install Windows Server 2003 SP2, you must first remove the earlier version of each affected hotfix, install Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, and then install the repackaged version of each affected hotfix.
____ Unquote ____________


So, this does indeed make it necessary with some pre-qualification before installing SP2.



Cheers,
Rune

[Tommy_6]

You think the SP2 installation actually tells you this information when you install? I wonder what would happen if you install SP2 without removing these hotfixes?

[Rune J. Winje]

No, I don't think SP2 will automatically detect patches - so this makes it necessary to check the installed patches on servers and compare with the KB article above.

Use Qfecheck or similar
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282784



Cheers,
Rune

[Tommy_6]

Thanks for the updates, if I hear anything else, I will post it.

[Jon Finley]

Actually, according to the KB article, SP2 will detect hotfixes that are incompatible, and advise you to halt the install to remove the hotfixs.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932132/

"In addition to the hotfixes that are mentioned in this table, the Windows Server 2003 SP2 Setup program may detect installed hotfixes that are incompatible with the service pack. In this scenario, the Setup program prompts you to stop the service pack installation, and to remove the incompatible hotfix."

Let's hope it works REAL well. :-)

Jon

[Chris Sears · Accepted solution]

I ran into a rather frustrating problem caused by SP2 on pair of new DL580s. The main symptom is that you can't make inbound or outbound TCP connections, while other traffic, such as ICMP or UDP, works fine.

The caused turned out to be a new (with SP2) Windows network setting called Receive Side Scaling. It seems to only affect systems with NICs that have advanced iSCSI or TOE features. Apparently Windows tries to hand off some TCP functions to the NIC and something gets mishandled.

The issue is described in this KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927695

We've been rather disappointed by the Broadcom NICs, both in recent HPs and Dells.

Hope that helps someone out there.

[Rune J. Winje]

Interesting bug for sure.

Although I'm not sure where to put the blame, on MS or Broadcom... Evidently it's fixed by a small (but important) registry change - indicating the hw is not directly to blame...

Anyway, thanks for your report - I'm sure it will help others.


Cheers,
Rune