Microsoft Internally Corrects XP SP1 Slowdown

Windows XP Service Pack 1 brought about many fixes for Microsoft's flagship operating system, but a change to the memory management system caused applications on some machines to run much slower.

A source told BetaNews that most performance complaints received by Microsoft came from users running a Pentium 4 processor. Microsoft recently acknowledged the problem and privately issued a hotfix, but a patch has not yet publicly appeared on Windows Update or Microsoft's Download Center.



Service Pack 1 was released last September after months of beta testing. The upgrade includes many enhancements to Windows XP such as USB 2.0 and the .NET framework.

The memory manager in Windows XP was updated to increase security, according to Microsoft, but the fix negatively impacted programs that frequently allocate and deallocate memory. Such programs could take up to ten times longer to execute.

Microsoft posted a knowledge base article on its support site describing the problem, but failed to include a link to the fix. The company instead "recommends that you wait for the next Windows XP service pack that contains this fix."

Although a hotfix has been issued internally, it is not clear when the update will be available to the general public. The hotfix has leaked out to Internet sites however, a rare instance in which users are distributing fixes to Windows without the permission of Microsoft.

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