Update Rollup for Windows 2000 SP4

Two days before Windows 2000 entered the Extended support phase of its life cycle, Microsoft released a large bundle of security and bug fixes for the OS. Customers do not have to deploy this bundle, which Microsoft has dubbed Update Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4, to get support as the OS transitions from Mainstream to Extended support, but many will want to do so because it contains more than 50 critical and important fixes for security vulnerabilities and 400-plus other bug fixes.

Focus on Fixes, Not New Features

According to a study by AssetMetrix, Windows 2000 still accounts for nearly half of currently deployed business desktops, so the potential base of customers who will benefit from the rollup is substantial.

Microsoft says it released the bug fixes in a rollup rather than creating a fifth service pack in order to make it as easy as possible to keep Windows 2000 computers up to date from a security perspective, and to reduce the amount of predeployment testing that customers must perform to deploy the updates. Microsoft says the rollup should require less predeployment testing than a service pack because it includes far fewer changes.