I’ve been posting on this all over the web and I’m fed up with it. The premise of some people’s issues with SP2 is that Dialup users won’t be able to benefit from this 100MB+ download because they won’t be able to (or be able to afford” to) download this monster update. What people don’t realise is what BITS does. People who have XP have been using the first generation BITS client for ages.
The next version is even smarter and downloads before XP SP2 does.
The biggest change to the next generation client is that it allows for latent, resumable, seamless downloads of updates.
Let’s walk through this a little bit in really simple language so everyone gets the concept:
Latent: It doesn’t use up your Internet connection. It’ll use what you aren’t using, but release it as soon as you need it. Essentially, your browsing experience won’t change.
Resumable: When you disconnect from the internet, BITS doesn’t care. As soon as you reconnect it continues to use your latent bandwidth.
Seamless: It’ll download multiple updates and only present them to you in the order they need to be installed.
What does this mean? It means that no, users won’t suddenly flock to broadband, cause them to order CD’s, or any other such behaviour. Unless they want to, of course.
Certain people should know better. Like Joe Wilcox in his piece today:
Or, maybe, as I believe, the company is betting too much on distribution via Windows Update. Considering the large number of dial-up users, many using Windows XP, I think Microsoft would do better to get out as many CDs as possible to as many people that want them as quickly as the update discs can humanly–or mechanically–be shipped.
Heck, even people at Microsoft are saying folk should order CD’s because using dialup would be such a pain. Certain people should know better.
Especially when the CD could reasonably take over a month to get to you. No, if you’ve got the new BITS client and are concerned about speed, it’s the fastest way to get the update. Period.
August 26th, 2004 at 10:39 am
Gah. I tried to educate Joe Wilson a couple days ago about the BITS client. Clearly it hasn’t worked yet. Are there any better ways to teach these analysts what they need to know? I’ve tried blogs and email. What next?
August 26th, 2004 at 10:50 am
I’ve tried several times via email as well. I try not to write him off because he is objective “enough”. Sadly there are no comments or trackbacks on his blog otherwise he’d get more input on this.
August 26th, 2004 at 1:01 pm
It still has to get that 100 MB over dialup though.
August 26th, 2004 at 1:04 pm
Uh huh. But, it never interrupts the user experience. If someone’s online for an hour a day with a typical 56K connection, they’ll automatically get it downloaded and installed in about a week. Faster than a CD in the mail.
August 26th, 2004 at 2:52 pm
How do we educate the analysts?
August 27th, 2004 at 9:43 am
How do we educate the analysts?
August 29th, 2004 at 8:41 pm
7 hours for 100+ MBs , I don’t think so !! Just how long has it been since you have used dialup. In rural area it is not uncommon for connection to be limited to 28.8 because of the poor quality POTS. This all goes with of saying the bandwith used over the internet as a whole. Personally I think all XP users should order the CD. We paid enough at the begining fo a stable, secure OS, oly to have loads and loads of updates and 2 service packs and they still have security issues. LEt Bill spend a few mil on the CD’s