Microsoft has delayed the official release of its touted Windows XP Service Pack 3 because of a newly found “technical glitch.”
The giant software company added that there was a “compatibility issue between the XP service pack and Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, a retail chain management program for small and midsize businesses.”
The company had finalized the code for SP3 last week and had originally planned to make it available beginning today.
“In order to make sure customers have the best possible experience, we have decided to delay releasing Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update and Microsoft Download Center,” the company added in a statement.
The same glitch also apparently exists between Microsoft Dynamics RMS and Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which was already released earlier this month and more recently via Automatic Updates.
“To help protect our customers, we plan to put filtering in place shortly to prevent Windows Update from offering both service packs to systems running Microsoft Dynamics RMS,” Microsoft said. “Once filtering is in place, we expect to release Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update and Download Center.”
Microsoft also advised anyone using the Microsoft Dynamics RMS to not install the SP updates until the company completes a fix. The “fix is currently in testing and will be available as soon as that process is complete,” they added.
Result for: best possible experience
Last week, PC game Mass Effect’s producer Derek French confirmed that the game would have rolling DRM, meaning every 10 days you would need to activate the game again over the internet. If you couldn’t, you would not be able to play the game.
According to a new Q&A on the company’s official forums however, BioWare will be scrapping that type of DRM and giving gamers back their freedom to not phone home if they do not want to.
“BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them,” says BioWare community manager Jay Watamaniuk in the post.
“To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.”
That “feedback” was of course, hostile reactions from every community that posted the news, including here at AfterDawn.
For the time being it seems Mass Effect gamers will only have to authenticate their game once (during original installation) and re-authentication will only be necessary to download extra content or official patches.
Result for: best possible experience
Last month, we reported that the blockbuster PC game Mass Effect was set to have rolling DRM, the form of DRM unflatteringly known as “phoning home” as every 10 days the game would connect to Bioware’s servers and re-activate itself. After the report surfaced around the Internet though, the backlash was too much for the company and they decided to remove the DRM from the game.
As was said then, “BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them,” said BioWare community manager Jay Watamaniuk.
“To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.”
The game of course still has DRM though, and the DRM is upsetting gamers. Instead of “phoning home”, the game only needs to be authenticated once but can only be installed 3 times, total.
This has obviously become a problem as it is appearing that many PC upgrades trigger the game to be re-authenticated again, burning through one of your possible three. There have been reports and forum posts from users who have upgraded their video card and been forced to re-authenticate. How did EA respond? The company said the users should buy another copy of the game if they run out of activations. This is what you will receive if you “waste” your activations: “The game can not start. For security reasons, only a limited number of machines can ever be licensed by a single purchase. This limit has been reached. Please purchase another registration code, reinstall, and then try again.”
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