Microsoft Releases Windows XP Service Pack 2 Beta on MSDN

The beta of the service pack, deemed significant because of the array of new security capabilities designed to make Windows more secure by default, was posted to the MSDN web site on Wednesday. Sources said the company plans to begin sending out CDs later this week.

The code will now move into mainstream beta testing and will be available by mid 2004, Microsoft said.

As first reported by CRN, the beta of the service pack was slated to be released by the end of this week.

The service pack beta incorporates an enhanced and renamed Windows Firewall, safer web browsing, better memory protection against buffer overruns, and safer e-mail and instant messaging. The firewall in the current Windows XP was known as the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF).

For instance, Microsoft has enabled the Windows Firewall to be centrally administered though the Active Directory Group Policy. Improvements have been made to prevent malicious e-mail attachments from running and better protects Instant Messenger file transfers, the company said.

Many services have been turned off to make Windows more secure out of the box. including the Windows Messenger network administration tool, in order to prevent spammers from gaining access to the client. Microsoft also reduced the attack surface by reducing privileges to the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service and unauthenticated connections will no longer run by default, Microsoft said.

The Internet Explorer also guards against hacker attacks by automatically blocking download requests and prevent against pop-up or pop-under windows unless the user clicks on a web page.

Additionally, the code has also been recompiled to reduce the likelihood of certain memory buffer overrun vulnerabilities.

Finally, the code has an enhanced Automatic Update feature to simplify the downloading and installation of critical updates, and enhanced security with Windows Media Player 9 and Direct X 9.0b updates. The Service Pack 2 also offers updated Bluetooth support for wireless devices and a unified wireless local area network client that connects to a broad array of hotspots and features a new user interface.

The finished service pack is due in mid 2004 after a lengthy testing process.

Microsoft also plans to offer up a service pack for Windows Server 2003 to make the server code more hacker resistant. That is due to be finalized during the second half of 2004.

Solution providers say the service pack will be useful if it works as advertised.

"We will likely do some testing with XP SP2, but no huge effort," said Michael Cocanower, president of ITSynergy, Phoenix. "It remains to be seen as to exactly how much the attack surface is reduced. If the representations I have heard are true, it will be an encouraging step, especially in the SMB space where security practices are generally more lax. We do everything we can to try to improve security for our SMB customers, and a service pack that reduces attack surface will be a big positive step in that direction."