A.P. Lawrence

2005/06/20 SP2 (Windows Service Pack 2)

Windows SP2 was originally just supposed to be a simple patch, but instead, Microsoft decided to try to include some of the security enhancements meant for Longhorn. They did manage to increase security, but also broke some applications. Although most of that breakage is probably just poor understanding of firewall issues, some application vendors have been recommending that their customers NOT install SP2. That, coupled with the fact that SP2 just about replaces the entire OS and thus requires high speed access for any reasoble download, has caused an adoption rate estimated to be less than 50%.

That's not good. Until very recently, Microsoft helped that along by allowing people to tell Windows Update not to download SP2. That's been disabled, but unfortunately you can still tell it not to install. Because of all the FUD surrounding this, too many people will probably do just that, leaving them without important security updates.

As I said, most of the application problems are really non-issues that can be easily fixed with the firewall configuration. To its credit, Microsoft has a tool to help test application problems. Unfortunately, almost any application glitch is apt to get blamed on SP2, so I suspect that deployment will remain low.

Psst - Wanna work for yourself?

Comments


Fri Jun 24 10:49:20 2005: Subject:   drag
I known some people who have had problems with SP2. My sister's laptop can't boot with it installed, even when on a fresh install. Most of the issues though stem from systems that are already pretty screwed up from all this spyware stuff windows xp collects. There realy isn't any excuse. Personally I'd rather have to reinstall from scratch to get SP2 on properly then have to deal with a Windows XP SP1 machine for more then a week.



SP2 makes a WORLD of difference to the stability, maintainability, and security of Windows XP. Of the few machines I have to deal with that have Windows XP on them (my 2 parent's computers) they became much easier to deal with after SP2 was installed.

rolling back a service pack is possible, too. If it causes a machine to become unbootable then you just follow these instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;875355



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