Service packs and bug reports
The first thing I noticed as I examined the ActiveWin list is that almost all of the reports address bug fixes available individually from Microsoft, although the Microsoft site says the fixes are "not completely regression tested." Thus one way to think of a service pack is as a collection of bug fixes that Microsoft has tested sufficiently and declared ready for general release.
When should you install service packs? Some say that if your operating system ain't broke, don't fix it. However, many users require service packs to execute general system tasks and run applications. Take article Q265367 for example, which fixes bugs in two COM+ programming events — IComActivityEvents::OnActivityCreate and IComActivityEvents::OnActivityDestroy. Programs that rely on these events (which report the creation and destruction of Com+ Activities) require SP2 to function properly, at least in certain circumstances.
If you find that some of your systems need the service pack, you should install it across the board so you have a consistent platform.
Installing a service pack is not a trivial operation, and like any major upgrade you should back up crucial system information, such as the system state and boot files, before applying it.
The ActiveWin list contains relatively few bugs that bring Windows 2000 to a screeching halt. When you read these bug reports, it's important to note words like "may." For example, Q262137 says that "Client Connection Manager for Terminal Services Causes Access Violation in Explorer.exe." It sounds severe, but this only may happen. In fact, this is an old bug and one I tried to reproduce when writing my book ADMIN911:Windows 2000 Terminal Services, with no success. I don't deny its existence, but you can't assume it will happen to you. Nothing I see about Windows 2000's bugs has me overly concerned.Below I've categorized titles and links to notable bugs the ActiveWin article says SP2 fixes. A large number seem to be "Access Violation" errors. These are usually conventional programming errors that occur when a Windows 2000 program accesses memory outside its space, or more likely accesses memory that it had mistakenly released too early.
- Crashes and lockups
- Q266704 — Computer May Hang When Hot-Swapping UDMA IDE Devices
- Q266221 — Bugcheck 0x000000D1 Caused by Dlc.sys
- Q266132 — Windows 2000 Hangs at "Preparing Network Connections" Screen on Multiple-Processor Computers
- Q276504 — "Stop 0x0A" Error Message When You Eject a CD with Norton Anti-Virus 7 Installed
- Q269593 — "Stop 0x0000001e" in Win32k.sys When You Quit a Program
- Security problems
- Q274835 — Buffer Overflow in Network Monitor May Cause Vulnerability
- Q273854 — Denial of Service Can Occur with Microsoft NetMeeting
- Q260069 — Malformed HTR Request Returns Source Code for ASP Scripting Files
- Q267559 — GET on HTR File Can Cause a "Denial of Service" or Enable Directory Browsing
- Q267560 — Changing the URL in a Specific Manner May Expose Contents of a File
- Q263693 — Group Policy May Not Be Applied to Users Belonging to Many Groups
- Q263743 — RasDisable and RasForce WinLogon Policies Can Be Bypassed
- Q274372 — Patch Released for "Domain Account Lockout" Vulnerability
- Q266433 — Patch for Numerous Vulnerabilities in the LPC Port System Calls
- Q272743 — HTML E-mail Link Transmits User Name and Password to Unauthorized Server
- Serious programming interface errors
- Q265367 — FIX: IComActivityEvents::OnActivityCreate and IComActivityEvents::OnActivityDestroy Notifications Not Sent.
- Q274853 — BUG: PdhExpandWildCardPath() ANSI Version May Fail on Windows 2000
- Q265017 — Gethostbyaddr() May Return Node Name Instead of Virtual Name
- Memory leaks
- Q269733 — Memory Leak in Dfssvc.exe
- Q262386 — Non-Paged Pool Memory Leak on Master Browser
- Q266655 — Registry Handles Leaked in Winlogon When Canceling Drive Reconnect Dialog Box
- Q260241 — Registry Quota Leak In Windows 2000
- Q26005 — OHCI1394 Driver May Cause a Memory Leak During Asynchronous Write Operation
- Q262539 — Memory Leak in Lsass.exe with Large Built-in Groups
- Q266375 — Network Load Balancing WMI Provider Memory Leak
- Performance problems
- Q257357 — Performance Degradation When Heap Is Fragmented
- Miscellaneous and strange events
- Q278011 — Legacy-Free Computers Take Longer to Install Windows 2000
- Q275206 — User Must Click 'Finish' to Reboot the Computer When Unattended Installation Is Complete
- Q271935 — Windows 2000 SP1 May Cause Some Menus to Revert to English When Applied on Non-English MUI Configuration