THE latest upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system deliberately prevents a number of PC add-ons from working, 91av has learned.
The upgrade, a massive 80-megabyte package called Service Pack 2 (SP2), was already known to cause some equipment to fail, and users had been led to believe that this was because of the strong security it contains (91av, 18 September, p 4). Microsoft says that “some programs seem to stop working after you install SP2” because the upgrade’s anti-hacking firewall blocks vital drivers, the software that allows add-ons to run on a PC.
While security measures may be part of the problem, Microsoft’s website reveals that XP already bars use of certain drivers, but the SP2 upgrade extends this to many more because the company considers them to be a threat to the stability of a Windows XP computer. Components whose drivers are affected in this way include some TV tuners, scanners and Bluetooth radio links.
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Hauppauge Computer Works of New York state, which makes TV and video add-ons, pointed 91av to an area of the Microsoft website that reveals why some drivers are failing. It says that in addition to improving security, SP2 also uses a feature called “Driver Protection”, to stop PCs using certain named software that Microsoft deems errant in some way. Crucially, SP2’s Driver Protection cannot be turned off by the user, the site says.
“SP2 is causing massive problems for many manufacturers,” says a Hauppage spokesman. Sitecom, a British maker of Bluetooth wireless printer links, has had to devise a complicated workaround to get around SP2’s blocker. Antje Schaefer, of Omnikey, a German company which makes smart card readers, says: “Three of our readers do not work any more after installing SP2.”
Computer scientists see Microsoft’s action as poor software engineering practice. Drivers designed to work with earlier versions of Windows may not work reliably with XP, but until now users who upgrade have at least had the option of giving them a try.
“If it’s known that something can crash a PC, then of course it makes sense to try and stop it,” says Lindsay Marshall, a computer scientist at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. “But there should be an override. Otherwise we are creating technology that users don’t have any control over. If you want to do difficult stuff, the operating system shouldn’t stop you,” says Marshall.
However, Jeff Wettlauffer, a spokesman for Microsoft UK, says the company consulted widely with manufacturers about XP and SP2’s driver blocking capabilities. “Driver Protection is in place to protect end users from experiencing instability due to known issues with some driver releases,” he says.
