XP SP2 installing without my permission!

Sneaky behaviour going on here

[Hester]

I got a 'yellow note' in the corner of my desktop at home a while ago asking if I would like to download Service Pack 2 for XP. I clicked Yes, but haven't had a dialogue box yet to say it's ready to be installed.

Yet right-clicking My Computer yesterday I noticed a new screen with the SP2 shield graphics on. Checking Add/Remove programs confirms that a long list of SP2 updates have been installed!

I checked IE6 which does not have a pop-up blocker added yet. But the version number is SP2!

I don't get this. It appears to be downloading and installing SP2 all by itself.

The point is, in my settings for updates I have it set to prompt first - never to download or install automatically. Is this some new Microsoft tactic to just go ahead with installing it anyway?

I was going to wait as I want to install a game that I hear has problems with SP2. Now that won't be possible!

The giveaway that something was happening was when my PC chose to scan the hard drive upon boot-up last night. I didn't switch it off suddenly the night before, so I couldn't see a reason for the scanning. Perhaps it was another part of SP2 installing itself.

I don't know what to think about all this. Sure, I clicked Yes to download the whole pack, but I then expected a box asking me if I wished to install it, as happened on four different PCs at work, which now all have SP2.

Looks like my machine is different. Or it would seem that Microsoft are ignoring the Windows update settings and overriding the user's wishes. Surely not?

[aspire]

My co-worker here installed SP2. The computer decided not to boot up anymore.

I am very sceptic to it all, and the more i see about it makes me want less and less to do with their updates.

Several people, and especially the poor ones running dial-up, that has windows update turned on, are experiencing a severe speed loss, becouse it keeps downloading hughe packages when they are online without telling the user.
This is especially cruel to people who have no idea what is going on and have very little experience in computer whatsoever.

After reading your post i just had to check my own setup here to be sure that SP2 was not installed.
To my relief i only saw SP1.

[Noisehag]

Friend of mine brought over his computer after trying to install sp2 and it was stuck in a reboot loop. Just as it starts to go to the first progress screen, the screen flashes blue for a spit second (can see an error of some sort at the top but can't read it) and then reboots.

I reformatted it, updated everything leaving out sp2, created a restore point, then installed sp2. Sure enough, same thing again. Got back in through safe mode, restored to the point prior and it's running perfectly now. Guess he's out of luck for this patch.

[aspire]

That is what happend to my co-worker.
It keeps rebooting.

It's so full of bugs i can't belive they actually released it (them being microsoft, who only announce a bug when they have come up with a fix)

I think perhaps we should live without SP2.

[Essex_boy]

This update is a dog! Its knocked out my scanner slowed down my games and PC in general oh and to boot its stopping me from looking at pop ups that ive requested.

Can I stop this from happening?

[Hester]

Last night I noticed a huge file downloading. Eventually I got the popup message to say that Service Pack 2 was ready to install! I installed it, thinking it would take 45 minutes (like it did at work) but it was done in around 15. The reason? A lot of it had already been installed!

I can only conclude that Microsoft have started using a version that's available in chunks. So you can get a chunk at a time and install each chunk. The point is though - you're not asked if you'd like to install each chunk! They just install themselves automatically. Then a final chunk wraps everything up.