At what point does a service pack become little too big for its own good?

[iamwiz82]

I'm downloading SMS v2.0 SP4 which is just a hair under 200MB. This seems like more of an upgrade rather than a service pack. MS need to stop bloating them. Look at Windows 2000 SP3, over 120MB! Hell, Windows NT4 SP6a was 34MB! Back to downloading i go.

 

[jlee]

I once installed Win95 and Opera on a 124mb HD...with 50mb free. The new service packs are bigger than that entire hard drive was...heh

If you think about it, the service packs seem to be about the same size as the operating system setup files..that, IMO, is a little large.

 

[Ameesh]

there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

 

[Derango]

Well...what they need to do is include all of the fixes from the previous service packs so that people don't have to install service pack 1, service pack 2 and service pack 3 in order to install service pack 4. So it makes sense that it's going to be a little larger.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

well i must come back to say why did it take MS 4 SPs to fix bugs that really shouldnt have been released in the first place?

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: Derango
Well...what they need to do is include all of the fixes from the previous service packs so that people don't have to install service pack 1, service pack 2 and service pack 3 in order to install service pack 4. So it makes sense that it's going to be a little larger.

but to install SP4 on SMS you must install SP2.

 

[Derango]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: Derango
Well...what they need to do is include all of the fixes from the previous service packs so that people don't have to install service pack 1, service pack 2 and service pack 3 in order to install service pack 4. So it makes sense that it's going to be a little larger.

but to install SP4 on SMS you must install SP2.

Ok, then then had to include service pack 3.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Remember the security patch for Media Player that was under attack cause of the changed EULA? There is a new patch for that out too, as the old patch had a security bug in it

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: Derango
Well...what they need to do is include all of the fixes from the previous service packs so that people don't have to install service pack 1, service pack 2 and service pack 3 in order to install service pack 4. So it makes sense that it's going to be a little larger.

this is not the company standard, i know for the windows service packs you just install the latest service pack, you dont need to do 1,2,3 and then 4. Ive never installled SMS Service packs so i'll double check that.

 

[iamwiz82]

i can take a screen shot, hold on.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

well i must come back to say why did it take MS 4 SPs to fix bugs that really shouldnt have been released in the first place?

no one would ever get their products if we tried to fix every bug. its just a fact of life.

 

[iamwiz82]

SMS SP4 error

 

[BD2003]

If theres one little bug in a 3mb file, the whole file needs to be replaced. That doesnt mean its 3mb worth of bugs.

Most of that 200mb is just stuff you already have on your HD thats largely being replaced for no reason. Its not a patcher.

 

[pulse8]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

well i must come back to say why did it take MS 4 SPs to fix bugs that really shouldnt have been released in the first place?

Please name me a product with as much code as an OS that's released without ANY bugs. In fact, name me a product that's released with much less code that isn't updated regularly. It's just the way it goes.

 

[yakko]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
well i must come back to say why did it take MS 4 SPs to fix bugs that really shouldnt have been released in the first place?

Bugs get released because there just are not enough beta testers and most beta testers that are out there don't have tons of crap running on their systems like the average user.

 

[nord1899]

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: Derango
Well...what they need to do is include all of the fixes from the previous service packs so that people don't have to install service pack 1, service pack 2 and service pack 3 in order to install service pack 4. So it makes sense that it's going to be a little larger.

this is not the company standard, i know for the windows service packs you just install the latest service pack, you dont need to do 1,2,3 and then 4. Ive never installled SMS Service packs so i'll double check that.

I seem to recall that the later service packs for NT4 all required SP3.

But yes, the reason it is so big is that the files are being replaced not patched. So even though one line of code may have changed, the whole DLL/EXE/etc... has to be replaced. With how big the OS's from MS have gotten, its understandable that the patch would be big.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: pulse8

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

well i must come back to say why did it take MS 4 SPs to fix bugs that really shouldnt have been released in the first place?

Please name me a product with as much code as an OS that's released without ANY bugs. In fact, name me a product that's released with much less code that isn't updated regularly. It's just the way it goes.

Well, SMS isnt an OS. The SMS folder is 130MB currently(not including system files in the OS directory), with no service packs.

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

Yes we should be happy they aren't sticking us with the bugs in the code that were there when they originally sold it. Just like I should be happy that my car maker recalls a vehicle and fixs a problem that causes the car to explode. Because as we all know companies aren't responsible for the product they release.

 

[dman]

it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

Of course, there are probably 50% new undocumented features in the latest FixPack. So, that's why there are SP1 SP2 SP3 etc until your software is N-3 and no longer supported and therefore no more fixes. (Where N= Current version, n-1 = one version behind).

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

First of all, MS is not fixing the bugs for "free". The price they charge for the OS initially covers them fixing bugs that are inevitable.

Second, I don't think I should be happy that MS is fixing the bugs. I expect it. That's part of the deal. They (all software makers, not just MS) sell us software that we are going to find flaws with, and as the bugs are found, they periodically release patches to fix them.
That's part of the process. It is expected. What else are they going to do, charge us for patches? That would go over really well, I'm sure.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb

Originally posted by: Ameesh
there is no bloat in a service pack. i hate when people say stupid $hit like this. Service packs now are almost exclusivly all bug fixes with very few exceptions. if it took 200mb it means that alot of bugs were fixed and you should be happy that microsoft is taking the time and money to fix those bugs for you the customer for free. if you dont like downloading them, dont, but they are for your benefit.

First of all, MS is not fixing the bugs for "free". The price they charge for the OS initially covers them fixing bugs that are inevitable.

Second, I don't think I should be happy that MS is fixing the bugs. I expect it. That's part of the deal. They (all software makers, not just MS) sell us software that we are going to find flaws with, and as the bugs are found, they periodically release patches to fix them.
That's part of the process. It is expected. What else are they going to do, charge us for patches? That would go over really well, I'm sure.

You mean like Windows 98->98SE? Yes they'll charge for it whenever they can, and people will pay too.