XP Service Pack 2 available

[Xoc]

The XP service pack 2 is available from the Windows Update web site. I installed it last night on one of my machines and had no problems. It was about a 90 MB download, and took quite a while to install.

Anyone else have experience with downloading and installing it, both good or bad? Did it break any programs you run?

(Let's try to keep the anti-Microsoft flames down and discuss any real problems or successes.)

[viggen]

Winzip doesnt work anymore, not sure if this is coincidence or XP2 related..

cheers
viggen

[ogletree]

When they push it out to people that have auto update it will be like a virus spreading across the world. It will cost companies millions to fix the problems it will cause. What they are doing is wrong. They need to make a custom version where you can decide to not include certain things. I know the big guys get to do this but it is hard for a smal firm of less than 100 computers.

[Warren]

There are various options available for enterprises with respect to patches.

Set up a server in the office with Windows Update Manager on it (or whatever it is called now). This is a central server for all machines to log into. The administrator can choose which patches to allow users to install and which not to.

Plus it saves bandwidth.

I think that Microsoft was in a "dammed if you do / dammed if they don't" position. They had to do something to try and prevent the various exploits and are now getting hammered for doing exactly what the security experts wanted.

[harbs]

Anyone else have experience with downloading and installing it, both good or bad? Did it break any programs you run?

I installed it on a partition with 1.5Gb Free space and the installation failed due to not enough disk space. Some of you may want to resize your partition to have about 2Gb free space to prevent this error message.

My Task Manager loads OK at startup but the CPU usage meter doesn't show at the bottom right hand corner. Anyone else seeing this?

[limitup]

Upgraded yesterday myself ... no problems here. I had never used a popup blocker before, but I kind of like surfing the web without the unsolicited popups...

[outrun]

Ive said this before but, It breaks debugging in Borland Builder C++ other then that Im happy with it.

regards,
Mark

[Easy_Coder]

It took approximately 30 minutes to complete the download and installation but I've been completely error free after the install of xpsp2.

[macrost]

My auto download doesn't work so I can't get to it that way. Every time I hop on the update site, it just freezes on me.

Go figure.

[RainMaker]

Whenever something like a service pack comes out for an OS I feel the need to format. When I got my hands on it I formatted and started with a fresh install with SP2. So far all of the applications I have ran and the drivers for all of my hardare installed ok. Although I do notice that SP2 does do some infiltration with IE and the desktop etc. So far I have been able to do what I normally do in Windows without a hitch...that is using Visual studio, web development as well as desktop development and running my benchmark programs. I don't know if it was because I started fresh and didn't apply on top of sp1 or not but I have been pleased over all. I will say though that I have a software firewall that is still blocking access attemps to my computer with SP2's firewall. So I am not too sure what's up with that...but I can't expect much from Microsoft in the security area despite their excellent efforts to fix pathches as new exploits come out...etc etc.

[macrost]

Ahhh! My harddrive was disabled! <sniker, sniker> :)

Just installed, haven't seen any immediate problems, but let's load up a couple of IDE's and stuff.

I kinda like the firwall deal that has shipped with sp2.
For some reason now, I hear clicks when I click on a link in a web page. Never heard that till now.

[Brett_Tabke]

We installed it on two test case machines yesterday - not a single problem of note.

(this on a machine heavy with non-microsoft software)

[Macro]

Did it break any programs you run?

Programs known to not work smoothly with SP2:
[support.microsoft.com...]

[Lord Majestic]

Installed on my home PC - works okay so far.

By the way, has anyone got concrete information on whether .NET framework 1.1 is included by default in SP2?!?!

[lawman]

Our Savan copier/printer/fax/scanner is networked at the office. We were having a problem with the scanner. Savan techs worked for two days to straighten it out. The finally discovered that sp2 autodownloaded and the new firewall (on by default) was keeping the scanner from working. We had to turn off the sp2 firewall and use McAfee.

That's the only problem so far.

lawman

[Holmes]

Had a customer call today and tell me right after they upgraded they started having problems with office.

They would go to print and the machines would lock up. Only way to recover was hitting the power switch. Found there was an update for their older version of office and after downloading it the problems went away.

Update notified me of the SP2 update Thursday and I told it to go ahead with the download. The tray icon disappeared and AFAIK the download aborted.

[limitup]

The clicks you're hearing when you click on links is most likely the pop-up blocker telling you that it has blocked an exit pop-up.

[surfgatinho]

I've had two cases so far (including my newly installed P4) where the computer wouldn't even boot up aftewards.
I followed the instructions on how to uninstall the SP but that didn't work properly and eventually had to run repair from the XP installation disc. I tried to install the SP again and had exactly the same problem.

As I said this also happened to a client of mine's PC - completely different set up as well.

I've never had a problem with a SP before so I don't know what happened here

[digitalghost]

Installed on one, 3 more to go. Relatively painless, but it took a LONG time to boot up the first time.

no problems so far though.

[Namaste]

just installed Fedora...wow, it's a dream.
what USP does MS have left...can't see anything special in SP2! Fedora already has the security stuff worked out

[gramski]

I installed it yesterday. No real problems apart from winzip...it won't open my logfiles from my website. Cpanel downloads them as .tar files and winzip refuses to open them. But I found a way around it - I now save them as .gz files and winzip opens them OK.

[sandor]

installed last night for me and no real problems so far. i like the fact that it auto-stops attached and embedded images from loading in your emails.

before, it was too easy for spammers to use embedded images to confirm active email addresses.

[macrost]

Ok, bug update for me. Right now I'm operating with practically no operating system. SP2 totally killed my computer. Thank god for 2 partitions and opera on the other partition.

I am going to be down for a while, have to upgrade to win 2k pro.

The first thing that I noticed was that in the middle of the update it said it ran out of room. I didn't believe that, cause I had more than enough space. I clicked retry and it proceeded with the update.

The first restart totally killed the computer. After the second restart, It performed normally until I restarted again.

Then error messages started popping up. Could not save data blah blah, all of the data has been lost, specifically in Windows, Windows/system32, windows/system32/config, and others.

O woe me. I'm almost ready to switch to Linux.

[bumpaw]

I got part of it with automatic update and then a few days later the rest of it came it. The install was slow and after the first security screen on reboot it crashed like Win 98. I hard killed it and ever since it has run great. No other problems except the first few reboots were slower. I ran Registry First Aid and that seemed to help.

Not much of a big deal since I had Zone Alarm and Opera blocks pop-ups. But I now have a Security Center where all three are code sick orange instead of green. It will probably be an improvement for the average user.

[VidGa]

First of all, you're all evil for keeping Auto Update on ;)
I went to the Miscrosoft site and updated it manually, and everything went pretty well. In fact, I have a couple of those programs that are listed to have problems, and they've run without a hitch. Go figure. First thing I did, by the way, was turn off all that silly security stuff, and then killed their pop-up blocker (all my browsers do that for me already).
The one annoying thing: when testing the local copy of a website, IE now gives me some funky warning about the javascript, and I can't figure out how to turn it off.

[outrun]

I installed it yesterday. No real problems apart from winzip...it won't open my logfiles from my website. Cpanel downloads them as .tar

Ive always had that problem with winzip even before sp2 it can't recognize compressed tar files for me anyway, and adding gz to the end just tells winzip its a compressed tar file.

regards,
Mark

[Bio4ce]

Watch out if you are on a wireless network. What a pain that was. :(

[BrewCrue]

Just installed XP2 with no problems what so ever.
Every program is working great. I am also on a wireless network running thru a router and still no problems. I am also running Zone Alarm pro and Norton 2004 and having no problems and yes windows firewall is also running. I DL it in 15 minutes but took 2 hrs to install.
Must be pure luck.

Brew

[glitterball]

The built-in zip facilty in XP no longer works since installing SP2 (seems to read the .zip files correctly, however when I try to extract them (copy) nothing happens).

Some settings in IIS were messed up too, I had to reintall IIS and then manually change some stuff to get it to work.

[Leosghost]

Not an anti MIcrosoft flame but

exactly what the security experts wanted.

Wasn't "the worlds biggest patch" ..
it was an OS that wasn't open to whatever it's browser and or mail client or media player via virii,trojans or malware of any sort told it to do...because they built them "locked together"....
Still waiting ......humungous patches are not the solution ..