To those that are interested to find their 10-15 Gig.of System Restore snapshots,(which Windows Explorer can’t,or won’t locate,try this.
Download a totally free program called EXPLORER XP,and then locate a folder entitled SYSTEM INFORMATION.When you open that,you will immediately come across anything up to 200 odd snapshots called R.P.1,R.P.2,and so on.
Not only is the system restore not working,the blasted program is creating restore points by the bucketload,and not deleting any.

When windows worked so well with SP1A,and there was nothing amiss,why did Microsoft try to fix something that warn’t broke.That question has bugged me for years.
As I mentioned before,all you very frustrated and angry people out there whose System Restore doesn’t work,please check out EXPLORER XP and find the folder in question.

Don’t try to follow the expert’s methodology to locate them by punching two pages of confusing commands to (maybe)achieve something you can do in a matter of minutes.

John jurss

See, I think thats where we are seeing a disconnect between what you think is going on and the reality.

The reality is that the customer understands all that you’ve typed. What they do not understand is having an unexpected bill, several hundred dollars at a time, each month. While we all expect there to be issues with computers – which is why we test, lab, backup and so on – we do not expect there to be problems each and every month with what should be a seemingly problem-free process by now.

In 2005 and beginning of 2006 that was the case. Windows Server could be flipped on automatic updates and everything would be fine. Likewise slightly before that, the only thing you had to do significant planning for were service packs.

Please allow me to quantify the problem in as few words as possible since Susan tries her hardest to distract from it:

Any critical update released on second Tuesday of the month should work properly.

Is that fair enough to expect? That your security patches do not cause a downtime beyond that needed to restart the server. It is unreasonable to expect a small business server to be up 99.999% of the time. It is also unreasonable to have it down 2-4 hours every second Tuesday because you haven’t tested this properly. We, unfortunately, cannot afford to wait a while because exploits are already in the wild by the time your patch is available.

You talk to a ton of people in the SMB, I know that. How many of you would say that the patching experience has improved over the last 6 months? Was that not the #1 selling point of SBS R2 – the green check of health indicating everything was up to date?

-Vlad

However, like all software it is not perfect. And just becaue your h/w and software stack is standard for you, does not mean it is for others. When I was working with some major named OEMs they told me that they changed something inside the box every 5 days – without changing the number on the outside. This was one of the biggest challenges of the Windows DataCenter progam – they could not do that anymore.

As I said, could it be better yes. Do we advice the installation of service packs – yes. Do we strongly recommend your own testing yes. Do we provide roll-back capability – yes. Do we provide free support if it is a bug – yes.

Software is not perfect. Are you telling me that you never had a problem with your software? MS has millions of customers – we have a huge team developing the products and fixing bugs that we become aware of, through testing and feedback – and we do fix them and change the testing process.

at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx we state “Microsoft recommends that business customers use the above table to plan for the evaluation of new Service Packs as soon as they become available and to allow for the fastest possible transition time, in order to maintain all PCs on current service packs. When preparing for deployment of a service pack it is important to test your mission critical line of business (LOB) applications internally. Microsoft takes great care prior to releasing a service pack to ensure that there are no regressions in the product, and we test with many applications, but it is not possible to test with all LOB applications. Prior to deploying a service pack please consider the following as part of your deployment plan. ”

That link was hit #2 in the search http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=microsoft+service+pack+testing+site%3Amicrosoft.com&first=1&FORM=PERE

Why do you think our support policy is to support the previous service pack for 12-24 months after the new one is released? For those who have done the evaluation and found a problem!

If you want to see what it takes to keep systems patched and highly available to the extreme (we have customers with >99.999% availability) have a look at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/datacenter/dcprogram.mspx – this is a joint program between the software and hardware vendors. We don’t need to do all of this to have systems with 99.999% availability, but management of what and when something goes on a server is key.

Does it show that this used to be a key area for me? That I care passionately about it

ttfn

David
http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton

This is one area I cannot support Microsoft in – my organization has lost faith in Microsoft’s ability to provide a reliable AND secure operating system. My customers don’t have the luxury of picking one or the other, nothing else matters.

-Vlad

And no Vlad, Microsoft doesn’t set the risk in my firm.

Yes it matters. And it should to you as well. Caveat section of every security bulletin details the known issues. Read them tomorrow.

Then you approve.

Again, that may be Microsoft’s stand, but it’s not mine. I’m not the mindless drone here, I’m the one making the decisions.

There is only one thing that matters:
It is an official update issued by Microsoft that is AUTOMATICALLY pushed down to the server by default.

There should be no reason, aside from a physical failure of the hardware, for the patch to result in anything but a perfectly functional system. Ever. That is Microsoft’s stand as well, thats why built-in patching in Windows server recommends the patches be automatically downloaded and installed by default.

-Vlad

Service packs are not security patches. You are confusing the two. Stop that, Vlad. Use the terms properly.

I am telling people to determine your own risk by educating them Vlad.

Like I said, sign up for http://www.patchmangement.org.

Game over.
Buck stops right here.