Posted by Virus Bulletin on Mar 15, 2007
Major update release emerges in mysterious silence.
Microsoft has released a new service pack for its Windows Server 2003 platform, almost entirely without warning or promotion. The release contains a swathe of fixes, including many security flaws patched since the previous service pack, and also covers the 64-bit version of Windows XP.
Service packs are the biggest upgrades issued for the Windows family of operating systems, and the release of SP2 for Windows XP, which took place in August 2004, was a major event with some important changes in the security model of the platform, including dramatic enhancements to the Windows Firewall. The Server 2003 release, however, is a less significant change to the platform, consisting mostly of minor updates and fixes, with a few new versions of some components. The release was initially expected in early 2006, and after a long delay the sudden appearance of the product on Microsoft's update sites has come as a surprise to many.
The standard 32-bit version of the service pack can be downloaded here, a summary of new items included is here and a complete listing of the updates is here. The Microsoft update team's blog, at the time of writing still carrying no mention of the service pack release, is here.
Posted on 15 March 2007 by Virus Bulletin
