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Tuesday, March 25, 2003

BetaNews | Microsoft Internally Corrects XP SP1 Slowdown - Windows XP Service Pack 1 brought about many fixes for Microsoft's flagship operating system, but a change to the memory management system caused applications on some machines to run much slower.

A source told BetaNews that most performance complaints received by Microsoft came from users running a Pentium 4 processor. Microsoft recently acknowledged the problem and privately issued a hotfix, but a patch has not yet publicly appeared on Windows Update or Microsoft's Download Center.

9:34:15 PM

Red Hat slips into the red. The Linux seller slips into the red and below analyst expectations for its most recent quarter but reports revenue growth and progress in selling its premium business products. [CNET News.com]
8:43:01 PM

According to reports the update released to fix a vulnerability found last week in WebDAV, and now acknowledge to be much more serious, is causing some Win2k server to fail on reboot. The problem is traced to incompatibility with certain versions of ntoskrnl.exe.

The best description of and solution to the problem is in this post to microsoft.public.win2000.general and microsoft.public.exchange2000.admin as archived on Google Groups

"Subject: Re: Hotfix 815021 Blue Screen SESSION5_INITIALIZATION_FAILURE

As per microsoft :

"If you are running Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 (SP2), before you install
this update you must check the version of Ntoskrnl.exe on your system:
1.. Browse to the %windir%System32 folder.
2.. Right-click the Ntoskrnl.exe file, click Properties, and then click
the Version tab.
Versions of Ntoskrnl.exe between 5.0.2195.4797 and 5.0.2195.4928 (inclusive)
are not compatible with this update. These versions were only distributed
with Product Support Services (PSS) hotfixes."

6:25:00 PM

Mozilla Tightens Up - Not surprisingly for an application that is intended mainly as a development platform, the Mozilla Web browser continues its seemingly constant upgrade cycle. Version 1.3 of the browser adds many useful new features, including some effective anti-spam features in the mail client.
Other new features in Mozilla 1.3, which was released by the Mozilla Organization earlier this month, include newsgroup filters, automatic image resizing and dynamic profile switching. Also, while many who made a quick jump to Mozilla 1.2 ended up regretting it because of several initial problems, eWeek Labs has found Mozilla 1.3 to be very stable and fast during the week we've used it since it was released. (Mozilla 1.3 can be downloaded for free at www.mozilla.org.) - Eweek
4:07:43 PM

Red Hat Linux 9 - World's First Look at Shrike - OSNews.com:"The first thing you will note is that Red Hat has decided to move away from the x.x numbering of their products. Now they've moved directly from Red Hat 8.0 to Red Hat Linux 9 ending the 7.1,7.2,7.3,8.0 releases of times past, sure there was a 8.1 beta called Phoebe but that was all it was, a beta.

The CDs available for download are now 6 in total, up one from the last major release; however, most of us will get by with just downloading the first 3 CDs only, in order to install and setup Red Hat Linux 9 (the last three are source CDs).

"
2:49:26 PM

PCWorld.com - Wireless Service Hits DSL Speeds - Several services on display here at the CTIA Wireless 2003 show offer a glimpse into a faster wireless future. Verizon, Novatel Wireless, Navini Networks, and IPWireless are among the vendors bringing DSL-type speeds to wireless networks.
10:22:50 AM

Program exploits Windows 2000 flaw. A Venezuelan security consultant releases a small program designed to compromise Microsoft Internet Information Service servers that haven't had a recent security hole patched. [CNET News.com]
8:57:13 AM