Microsoft releases SP1 for Windows Server 2003

Madrid, April, 1st, 2005 - Microsoft has published the first Service Pack for Windows Server 2003 in order to improve the security, reliability and performance of these systems and simplify administration.

The updates distributed in Service Pack 1 cover the majority of the basic functionality and therefore removes the majority of the attack points of Windows Server 2003. These updates include fixes for Internet Explorer, Outlook Express the WebDAV redirector.

An interesting innovation for certain systems is ´Hot Patching´. Updates offer require systems to be restarted, which can cause problems for critical servers. Hot Patching allows administrators to apply updates to drivers, DLLs, APIs, or any other component (that is not part of the Windows Server 2003 kernel) without needing to restart the server.

As well as Hot Patching, other improvements incorporated in Service Pack 1 are:

- Stronger default settings
- Privilege reduction on services
- Support for ˝no execute˝ hard
- Network Access Quarantine Control components included
- MIIS 6.0 metabase auditing
- Windows Firewall included (similar to the one included in Windows XP Service Pack 2)
- Post-Setup Security Updates (PSSU), aimed at improving security during installation
- Security Configuration Wizard (SCW), a wizard that configures server security based on existing server roles.

Complete information about Service Pack 1 and the addresses for downloading it, depending on the installation process to be carried out, are available at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/servicepack/default.mspx

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