Shenan said:
I don't recall it being available as an ISO - only as a free
order.. If you mean the predecessor to the SP2 CD, that is.
I may be mistaken, but there was something related available as an
ISO about that time.
In any case, It would be good to see a single ISO that could take
care of it all.
But I am not sure how large it would be.
Would they have a separate ISO for each language or OS?
The one that just came out is over 100 MB as it is.
It would be great to have ISO(s) for each of these in my opinion - available
to the general public.
As for how they would do it - I couldn't say. One per OS, one per language,
etc. Speaking from experience (making my own) I cannot imagine it being
feasible for more than one per language/per OS. Windows 2003 SP1 and its
English patches until now are a total of 391MB. I have not created a new
Windows XP patch in a few months - but I think in November there were 64MB
of english patches Post-SP2 (non-inclusive for SP2 that is.)
I don't think it would be asking too much for them to create an ISO with all
the patches per language/per OS. While I agree - I personally wouldn't
trust an update CD (supposed) from too many people - but I know many of my
customers would trust me to supply them with one and I have confidence
enough to trust I give them what they need. An ISO that would include all
the updates like that from Microsoft - I think I could bear to trust. =) Or
at the very least - have instructions for my customers with high bandwidth
Internet to use and create their own - if that makes everyone more
comfortable.
As it is - I recently downloaded (as a teaching excercise) all the patches
for Windows 2003 Server - including SP1 - so I could teach some people how
to integrate all these patches into their installation CDs. Starting from
SP1 and moving until January 6th - it took about 45 minutes to find/download
all of the patches needed on a 5Mbit downstream Internet connection. Having
them all in one ISO already would, I would estimate, cut that time (at that
speed) down to about 15 minutes. That would be nice. =)
For other users - I know many people who would be comfortable with their
family members with high-speed internet connectivity bringing a CD to their
home andinstalling all the patches (know many who do now who should not..
*grin*) - to me this would be a better way than collecting al lthe updates
individually like they may do already for that family member with high-speed
Internet.
The real question you posed, however, was how would it be organized?
With 64+MB of Post-SP2 patches in english already available - and not
knowing how many languages they are available in - it may be possible to
have a 700MB CD image that would cover them all (post SP2.)
Do I think that a 700MB file is too much to download?
Personally - no. I cannot speak for others - but I would bet that for
most - the benefit of having this for their own system as well as family and
friends who trust them enough to take the ISO image from them - would
outweight the "less than 4 hours time" it would take up for most high-speed
Internet users. =)
