'Update Rollup' To Take Place of Windows 2000 SP5

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft has ditched plans to ship Windows 2000 Service Pack 5, and will instead issue a bundle of security patches and other non-security enhancements next year in what it is calling an "Update Rollup," the company announced last week. Windows 2000 SP5 was going to be the last update to the operating system before free support ends in June 2005. Now the Update Rollup will have that honor.

In mid-2005, Microsoft will ship an Update Rollup that contains all security-related updates created for Windows 2000 between the time SP4 was released, in November 2003, and the time when Microsoft finalizes the rollup, the company announced last week. The rollup will also include "a small number of important non-security updates," the company explained in its Windows 2000 Update Rollup Announcement, posted last Wednesday.

Microsoft says it chose to issue a Rollup, instead of a Service Pack, to make it easier for Windows 2000 shops to deploy the updates and keep systems secure, and also to minimize possible system instability issues related to updates. One of the reasons why the Rollup will be so much easier to deploy is that there will be a "significantly lower" number of actual updates, Microsoft explains. Additionally, most of the updates that will be included in the Rollup will have already been made available as individual downloads, the company says.

This is not the first time that Microsoft has used an Update Rollup as a vehicle for delivering code to customers. The company says Update Rollups are generally preferable to Service Packs later in a product's life when the product is stable and there are not a lot of security updates or enhancements that need to be distributed.

Users must be on Windows 2000 SP4 before installing the Update Rollup, Microsoft says.