The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

The important lesson is...

The developers at FogCreek don't keep their machines up to date with the service packs. Behind a firewall or not, if it takes you two hours to download service packs on a machine that isn't freshly installed, you have some gaping holes on your machine.

I think Joel does need a SysAdmin.

Plus, and maybe I need to ask this in the .Net forum, wouldn't something like "csc cntdwn.cs /r:your.dll" include the required libraries?

Andrew Burton
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Not all service packs are required. Microsoft suggests installing the latest service pack, but they don't require it to be secure. As long as you apply the latest security patches, you should be fine.

m8v316
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Hmm. Ok. I've never really drawn the distinction, figuring that patching any and everything (ideally) will make things more secure all around.

Andrew Burton
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Actually, they do.

Security patches are issued as deltas off of the latest service pack. If you don't have the latest service pack yet, you can't get the newest security patches, either.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

The other important lesson is, you've missed the entire point.

Joel isn't complaining because he couldn't get .NET to work, he was complaining because what he did to make it work (or what his 'sysadmin' would have done to get it work) is way too much to ask of his end-users, thus making .NET a useless platform for his END-USER software business.

Mister Fancypants
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Joel is complaining about a strawman, that's what he's doing.

You don't have to use windowsupdate to install the .NET framework.

Infact, that's about the worst way to do so.

That said, it's a serious issue that the developers at fog creek are so fart behind on their security patches. If they happen to get hit by a particuarly nasty virus or worm, they could be looking at much worse than just a couple of hours of downloading patches.

Sum Dum Gai
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

There are so many undiscovered holes in Windows, what the heck it the point of patching. It's like raking water.

Handel
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

> You don't have to use windowsupdate to install the .NET
> framework.

Yeah, isn't there an executable file from MS for that? It's like a 20-100mb download.

Andrew Burton
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Yes, the framework is downloadable without going through Windows Update:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Thursday, January 29, 2004