The painstaking process of testing Windows XP Service Pack 2 to ensure that business applications don't break when it's installed is slowing down companies that want to deploy Microsoft's big patch. By Microsoft's estimate, it can take businesses with 1,000-plus PCs from six months to a year to complete the job.
What's needed are tools to automate the process, and now, nearly three months after releasing SP2, Microsoft is about to deliver them. The company is working on a version of its Application Compatibility Toolkit, used by Windows administrators for other compatibility testing, that's tuned specifically for SP2. A test version of the toolkit should be available within a few weeks.
|