As I have mentioned in previous posts, I work as a computing consultant at a local university which means I deal with lots of computers that I do not personally own.

The majority of the work that I do configuring a new computer for the campus network, specifically active directory. The university has a contract with three PC manufactures: (1) Dell, (2) Gateway, and (3) Lenovo. With these contracts, the university receives discounts on the starting price to special deals. For example, the most recent special deal that we had was on a Dell OptiPlex 745 starts at a price of $1,103.08 and includes an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40GHz processor, 2.0GB 667MHz, 256MB ATI Radeon X1300Pro with Dual DVI or VGA graphics card, a 250GB hard drive, 16X Dual-Layer DVD +/- drive, 16X DVD drive, a Dell 19 inch UltraSharp monitor, and 3 Year Warranty with NBD Service. This same configuration costs a normal small business customer $1,472 plus the cost of shipping and taxes. Sounds like a great deal doesn’t it?

You may have noticed that I forgot a spec.

Which one is it? That’s right, you guessed it. The operating system. Our contact with these 3 PC manufactures in laymen’s terms states that all machines have to be purchased with Windows XP Home Edition SP2 in order to save money; a whopping $63.75 per computer. I understand the logic because if the university purchased an average of 15 computers for faculty and staff members per 5 business days (the university has 4 colleges, which averages to 3.75 computers every 5 business days, per college), that equals 780 new computers per year. If each of these computers came with Windows XP Professional SP2, the upgrades would cost the university $49,725 a year. That is a crap load of money that can be put elsewhere. Like purchasing a volume license of Windows XP Professional SP2 from Microsoft.

Unfortunately, with every new faculty and staff computer that is purchased, the computer has to be configured for ActiveDirectory domain so they receive access to volume/floating licensed software and automatic network drive mapping. Windows XP Home Edition SP2 does not support domains. This means that every computer has to be upgraded to the university volume license of Windows XP Professional SP2.

As you are probably aware, upgrading or reinstalling an operating system erases every Microsoft security update that was previously installed. This means that after upgrading to Windows XP Professional SP2, every single update has to be installed that has been released since August 2004. It is now August 2007, which means 3 years of updates have to be installed. At last count there have been about 120 updates since August 2004.

Why is Microsoft taking so long to release Service Pack 3 for Windows XP? It is beginning to get ridiculous. Am I the only one that finds it completely crazy the Microsoft while probably be releasing Service Pack 3 for Office 2003 before Windows XP Service Pack 3? I understand that security is important but which is more important, security for a suite of desktop productivity tools or for an operating system?

Recently I came across a solution to this problem. Have you ever heard of the process called SlipStreaming? This is when you forcibly integrate a set of updates with the original set of operating system files. I used this process on my personal installation disc that didn’t have any service packs 2 installed it at all. Documentation on how to do it with just Service Pack 2 can be found here.

The process for SlipStreaming 120 updates is a lot more difficult but I found a site that takes care of all of the grunt work everything all by itself. Documentation can be found here. Basically all you have to do is download 2 files: (1) a 46.9MB download with all the updates; this is a 7z file that you don’t want to extract using WinRAR or another other compression program and (2) an integrator program that is a less than 1MB. Both of these downloads are available to download at the bottom of the page that I linked to above.

I hope that you believe that it is more important to have a more secure operating system. Come on Microsoft, change your priorities or Apple is going to increase its market share even more than it has over the past year.

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