By Steve Ragan Mar 16, 2007, 15:07 GMT
It looks like Microsoft did release a security update of sorts this month. Thirty-four security patches were released in Windows Server 2003 SP2. In total, the security patches are a small part of the overall listing of fixes with this release. Most of the thirty-four are minor, or moderate at best. There are seven hundred seventy-four KB Articles associated with SP3 for Server 2003 and of those there are a bulk of upgrades to the .NET framework. Windows users might have noticed that .NET 3.0 was offered over the last week on Windows Update.
There are a series of networking related issues fixed. One such fix that bothered many IT network administrators, the incorrect FQDN in a DHCP-Request packet error that popped up on DHCP when running on Server 2003, or other various network issues including one for Telnet that should have been listed as a security related issue. There are COM+ corrections as well as several Kernel patches added.
There are some minor improvements to the management console, adding more options at a glance, and making some options easier to locate. A new XML parser called XmlLite is included for backend XML management and development issues. WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) 2support is added, there is a firewall per port authentication upgrade, and improvements to IPSec.
The release of Server 2003 SP2 surprised many, as there was no formal announcement. This opposes the hype and buzz that came in 2004 just before SP2 for Windows XP was released. The question is why the silence? Why was there no warning, or information sent out ahead of time for this? No one from Microsoft has answered that. Maybe Microsoft is not fully aware it was released, the product update blog for Microsoft is mum about this release and has yet to mention it.
Server 2003 SP2 is 372MB in size and can be downloaded form the Windows Update website.
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