NT News Network - 01 Apr 1997

Given the problems with ServicePack 2 (SP2-see Jonathan Chau, "ServicePack 2," and Mark Minasi, "Recovering from a Network Disaster," March 1997), no one is surprised that Microsoft is feverishly working on SP3. Here are some specific problems that SP3 needs to fix:

—Valda Hilley

Active Server Pages Security Hole
Windows NT user Juan T. Llibre has uncovered a serious security hole in Active Server Pages (ASPs). By adding a period character to the end of the URL, he was able to download ASP files unprocessed. This capability potentially exposes SQL passwords and other secure information. Workarounds are available at http://www.genusa.com/asp/patch/sechole.html.

—Tim Daniels

Media Processors: Beware of NT Compatibility
Over time, PCs have shrunk in size, chip count, and price, as more features are appearing on smaller bits of silicon. In graphics/video chips, an example of chip-and-cost shrinkage is Chromatic Research's Mpact processor, which combines seven functions: 2D and 3D graphics, MPEG-1 encode (for recording) and MPEG-1 and 2 decode (playback), 16-bit wavetable audio and Dolby AC-3 audio decode, and modem/fax and telephony. Chromatic licensed the processor to Philips, LG Semicon, SGS-Thomson, and others that will start making PCs with Mpact in the next six months. Pentium Pro desktops (notably from AST) are now less than $2000, with no bottom price yet in sight. (Add-on Mpact cards will be available for existing systems.)

If Mpact is pervasive in desktops, NT buyers will have to be careful about buying systems with the card. The Mpact NT drivers are lagging behind the Windows

95 drivers by three to five months, so be careful about buying a driver for dual boot. As of this writing, Chromatic has no plans for OpenGL- or Heidi-accelerated drivers, so users who want high performance in GL applications, such as Softimage, will have to look elsewhere. For more information, see http://www.mpact.com.

—Alex Pournelle and Eric Pobirs

Motorola Adopts Lucent Technologies' Chipset
In the race to deliver 56Kbits per second (Kbps) modem speed over standard telephone lines, the number of competitors has shrunk by one. Motorola has adopted the Lucent Technologies chipset for now, delaying indefinitely promises to deliver its own chipset. Other sprinters in the race toward 56Kbps include Rockwell Semiconductor Systems and U.S. Robotics. All four companies will send data from the remote end to the user at speeds up to 56Kbps, although the return channel (user to host) will be slower.

Perhaps Motorola chose Lucent over the other 56Kbps standards proposals because the return channel can run at speeds up to 40Kbps, not just the now-standard 33.6Kbps. Lucent and Rockwell have promised full interoperability between their products, and Rockwell hosted the first ad hoc working group on 56Kbps.

Motorola's alliance puts considerable pressure on U.S. Robotics, which has become odd man out. U.S. Robotics has not promised to interoperate with any of the other 56Kbps chips, and has not participated in the ad hoc 56Kbps working group. Interestingly, some U.S. Robotics and Cardinal modems are upgradeable to 56Kbps directly through Motorola, presumably because they use Motorola chips.

For the Windows NT user, the new 56Kbps-capable modems will be compatible with Dial-Up Networking (DUN) or Remote Access Service (RAS), once standards have been set. To use any of the 56Kbps modems at full speed, updates will be necessary to both the dial modem pools and their phone lines. In real-world terms, this situation means that if users purchase their own 56Kbps modems, they may discover no speed difference.

The entire 56Kbps-over-analog idea has moved from proposal to near-delivery in just four months, which is astonishing, even in the PC industry. At press time, no one had yet finished a chipset for delivery, although samples had been delivered and alliances formed.

For more information on the 56Kbps initiatives, check the various chip manufacturer's Web sites, including Rockwell (http://www.nb.rockwell.com/mcd/k56plus), U.S. Robotics (http://x2.usr.com), and Lucent Technologies (http://www.lucent.com/micro/menews.html). You can find information on Hayes Microcomputer Products' adoption of Lucent K56flex standard on the Lucent page and at http://www.hayes.com. Motorola has a good FAQ at http://www.mot.com/MIMS/ISG/Products/tidalwave/standards_faqs.html, with information on how to sign up for upgrades.

Contact your modem manufacturer about 56Kbps updates, tradeups, and future plans. Newer internal and external modems may be upgradeable to these new speeds, but be warned: PC Card modems may not.

—Alex Pournelle

And Then There Was One
Intel shocked the computer world April 1 when it announced that it was dropping support for Windows NT. Following the trend of major chip manufacturers that are abandoning the NT platform, Intel has sent the Pentium and Pentium Pro CPUs the way of MIPS and PowerPC. Digital's Alpha is now the only processor that will run NT.

Intel felt that there was no longer any value proposition in the NT marketplace. The company just couldn't see distributed network computing as its future, and the home-PC industry hasn't been giving the company the investment return it expected. In addition, Intel just wasn't seeing the performance and scalability that its chips should have delivered, and announced that Microsoft was entirely to blame. Sources also recently revealed that Intel will drop Windows 95 support by April 1, 1998. The home computer/game market, Intel has reported, will be left to those with a vested interest, such as Nintendo.

Intel executives see much more market opportunity in the traffic-sign industry. They have refocused Intel 100 percent on automated street signs, and the company's embedded systems applications will allow it to build up to four- and eight-way Pentium Pro-powered stop lights. Zero-tolerance for traffic jams is Intel's motto--you'll never be late for work again!

—Fedora Wilson

Active Altair
As part of Microsoft's continuing efforts to be 100 percent backwards-compatible, it has ported Windows NT 4.0 Server to the Altair platform, as of April 1. This new 8-bit version of NT sports single-bit encryption, a full 64KB virtual memory space, support for 360KB floppies, and serial-port networking.

The new 4-LED interface lets users know whether the system is on or off, displays processor utilization (each retried instruction is mirrored by a flash), gives a logical on/off compute result, and has a last diode that is user-configurable. This expressive, flexible, and dynamic interface will move NT into the home computer market. Bill Gates said, "Ease of use is our primary goal here. We wanted to take home computing to its next logical step, and the Internet just wasn't hacking it."

The expected price for a 10-user license pack is staying at $995, firming up Microsoft's commitment to users to keep NT as much of a value-oriented OS as it is enterprise-aware.

—Fedora Wilson