THE latest upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system deliberately prevents a number of PC add-ons from working, New Scientist 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 (New Scientist, 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…
