SP2 Problems ( and some successes )

As reported to Fred Langa of Lanaglist  ( http://langa.com ) up until 13th September 2004

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SP 2 problems

Information from various people about SP2.  Unedited.  This is a VERY long document. I suppose you could search for a particular program by going edit, Find.  There is a workshop about installing SP2 in Computer Active Issue 171 and a guide to ironing out bugs in Issue 174

My own experience has not been as bad as this. So far only two bugs.  I was unable to Paste into WordPro from outside and Nero Burning CD writing Software came up with an error, which I ignored.  I cured the Wordpro problem by moving a copy of the complete Lotus folder to another part of the disk

SP2 is known to cause severe startup problems with PC's that have a certain combination of Intel chip and motherboard.  If you have installed SP2 to such a system it will not even start.  To discover what systems are affected you must download  amd install a program called Fidenu31.msi from www.computeractive.co.uk/downloads/1159287.  The dreaded CPU is Family : F,  Model 3, Stepping 3  Revision 3, 2, 1 or 0.  If your PC is likely to be affected you should download (and install) the Microsoft patch from www.computeractive.co.uk/downloads/1159286.  If you have a machine that will not start after installing SP2 you should Start it in BIOS mode (Press Del or F11 or F12 at startup). You must then disable the CPU l1 and L2 Cache in Advanced.  Save the settings and restart. Without the CPU caches the machine will work EXTREMELY slowly and restart can take HOURS.  Then uninstall SP2 using Safe Mode (F8 at Startup), via Add and Remove software).  Restart the machine in BIOS mode as above, re-enable the L1 and L2 Caches, download and install the patch and proceed as above.  

Driver Protection It seems that Microsoft has made this  type of thing happen for programs which it feels will make XP unstable or unsafe.  They call the "feature" Driver Protection (which cannot be turned off).  This is similar to what happened when XP was brought in and various programs fell apart, especially drivers for scanners and other perpherals such as TV and video add-ons, including Haupage, Bluetooth devices and card readers.

I'd like to pass this along--Win SP2 doesn't play nice with any system that uses L2TP (Level 2 Tunnel Protocol) VPN to connect to a NAT-T fixed server or host. SP2 hoses the NAT-T fix and renders connection next to impossible; you might want to pass this along. Good luck to those brave readers who install SP2 without waiting until at least November for all the bug fixes. Please, everyone: Turn auto update off for a few months. Phil Jacobs

3.0c GHz, 1 gig of ram, 256 MB DDR 400, G-force 5700 home built system. I installed SP2 almost two weeks ago. The system seemed to be fine, everything seemed to work. But I started noticing things. Windows Media player: If I click on a video file to run, it may start, or it may just hang and have to be eventually killed in the process list. If I kill the process and then try to restart by clicking on the video, it will lock up again. I have to wait for up to 5 minutes for it to "Clear out". I also found that if I triple click it's better, about 50/50 for program starts. My wireless mouse and keyboard unit started flashing constantly, and this kills the batteries in the devices within days. This occurs constantly now. At first, it was just a little thing, I noticed that the unit that is plugged in was flashing... I then noticed that my mouse was flashing back. All this while I wasn't touching it and it had been sitting for a good 15 minutes. Usually, if left that long, I have to click on the mouse to re-activate it. But it was instantly responsive. So, I removed the batteries from the units, and still the box kept on flashing. I also run a 4 port Kvm switch, and thought this might be the culprit, so I took it out of the mix, but the unit still flashes, and the mouse and keyboard's batteries die within 48 hours. Funny thing, if I switched the KVM from that system to the other XP or one of the 2 Linux systems, it stopped flashing. I've used the KVM and the Wireless mouse for well over 6 months now, so, I didn't think they were the problem. My Internet speed has dropped drastically to that system. I have the Extreme DSL package. I have 2 XP systems, and I can view Web sites in half the time on the system without SP2. It's also half the machine. P4 1.5. I have run every conceivable adware/spyware program to keep it clean. I run Diskeeper to keep the drive unfragmented, but now after two weeks the system is jerky, gets unresponsive, kind of freezes, and then suddenly everything I clicked on pops up. This continues to occur and gets worse to the point where I just have to reboot it. Again, this only occurred since the SP2 install. Prior, my machine was tested and was as smooth as you could want. I have no idea why it's acting jerky... I've run through the process list and can't find any service that's using any time up... the system idle is always at or around 98%. My CPU usage is a bit higher now, normally averaged around 6% to 8%, and now is averaging around 10% to 12%. MS Office products... Now this is interesting, as I have a mismatch of Office. Primary is Office XP, but I have recently upgraded to Outlook 2003 and FrontPage 2003, which were quite a bit different, so, of course I had to get them to keep up with my clients. After about 2-3 months of running these programs with no incidents at all, after the SP2 install, I suddenly had to reload the CD, as the programs said they had files 'missing'. It has done this now 4 times with Outlook 2003 and FrontPage 2003, and three times with the Office XP CD. Each time was an individual case. I haven't installed anything new, or made any changes, but when I start Outlook or FrontPage, it will randomly ask for the CDs to be put in so it can "Copy" some missing files. What's deleting these files? At first I thought it was something MS did to check on possibly pirated software, but this is a little beyond... I mean, I think after the first time, I proved I had the originals. I've rebooted my computer now more in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 3 months. I have currently 15 incidents open with Microsoft. For those that haven't loaded it, don't. I'm very careful with my computers. I run Adaware, Spybot, Diskeeper, Norton AV Corporate and AVG. Right now, I'm looking to wiping this computer out and re-installing it. Thank goodness it's my test machine and not used for anything else at the moment. Sorry, you asked. ;) Chip Hearn, CH Computer Networking Inc.

I installed SP2 and had to remove it almost immediately. It let me access OE and that was it. I could open most of my programs but couldn't open IE 6, at all, so I couldn't surf the Web from there. I should have listened to you and waited. Luckily, I had a back up to restore to my original configuration. Lorne Larkin

I installed it on three of my machines, two desktops and a laptop. It installed OK on all three machines and at first seemed to work OK on all of them. But on one of the desktops I started having problems when I tried to access any Web pages using Internet Explorer. I compared the security settings between the three systems and they all were set exactly the same, as was the firewall and other settings. After some time, I decided to uninstall SP2 using the uninstall in the add/remove folder. I was completely surprised that after about 45 minutes and a reboot that I was sitting right back at the system as it was before I began the upgrade. I don't know what might have been the problem, but once I was back at SP1, all Web browsing worked just as expected. Ken Mitchell

The auto-update screen came up, checked that, went to the next screen where it lists your firewall, antivirus, etc., read through that, looked, and didn't see anything saying next or exit, so I clicked the x in upper right corner, then nothing. All I had was my desktop wallpaper, no taskbar or anything! I pulled up task manager and it showed all my processes running as normal. Needless to say, I had to boot in safe mode and un-install SP2. Regards, Ron

Just a note about XP SP2. I repair and troubleshoot PCs for a living, so I see all sorts of strange things. Had a PC which keeps rebooting--turns out it was "updated" with SP2. Managed to get to the Windows Desktop and discovered that it was riddled with 27 different Trojans and 79 spyware/malware issues. It also sported a cracked, but disabled, copy of Norton AV 2003/2004 (don't know if the Trojans had disabled it--that happens!--or whether SP2 had). Pretty certain these issues were why SP2 failed--couldn't reinstall SP2 at all and, after an 8-hour stint, was informed that I couldn't uninstall it, either! Had to install a parallel copy of the operating system, upgrade that straight away to SP2, copy all the user's documents over, and delete the old installation. Seems to me that the best way to install SP2 is to install it on a virgin installation, then install software, etc. I'm dreading installing SP2 on my production PC (never had a virus or intrusion--router, firewall, AV & Spybot S&D). Only got 120 days or so left before I have to bite the bullet :( I was one of the brave few, as you so appropriately put it. I removed it just today after having had it in operation for about 3 weeks. I didn't have any major problems, but I did have some aggravating issues pop up that made me feel as if it were at fault. Outlook 2003 has been doing funny things and my wireless network has been a disaster for several days. Mostly the SP2 on the XP machine would cause the W98se machine to lock in the IP and it wouldn't release or could not be renewed. The weird thing was that both machines would access the Web, but the W98 could not see the XP and the XP could see the shared folders on the W98 but could not see the machine itself. There were a few shut downs to BSOD, but the machine would reboot OK. I had heard that the wireless networking component and Linksys were at odds. I believe this because of the network problems I had. My AVG antivirus shut down several times and didn't perform its nightly scan but was fully functional. These are some of the types of madness I had, so now I'll try without it for a period and see how it goes. Bill Wray

I must have installed SP2 without realizing it, and immediately had no sound. I went to control panel to uninstall most of the SP2 update, but one packet remains, and I don't know how to remove it. Luckily for me, my Santa Cruz is once again producing sound. My Dell computer has a Pentium 4 chip at 1.7 GHz, about 640 Mb of RAM, and was shipped with Windows ME. I had difficulty with the XP drivers for the sound card when I switched to XP. I'm not surprised to be having problems again.... At Add/Remove Programs within Control Panel, the last remaining element of SP2 is labeled: Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) [ See KB810243 for more information underneath is the phrase "click here for support information." If I click on the link another window pops up with the same message, and a little more detail. What's missing is the option to add or remove the program. Is this one of Microsoft's "once it is installed, it cannot be removed" deals? If I have a functioning sound card now, should I worry about removing the remainder of SP2? And finally, it seems that I might expect problems from this since it no longer has the rest of SP2 to interact with. Kevin Fajcz

Microsoft has this date issued a release of programs that have issues with SP2. Check here I agree that you are right in saying DO NOT RUSH INTO DOWNLOADING SP2. Terence Lee

This rather long list below should serve as a warning about installing WIN-XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) prematurely... Program Version Vendor Star Trek StarFleet Command III v1.0 Activision Medieval Total War 1 Activision Pagemaker 7 Adobe PageMaker (German) 6.5 Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 Adobe Ad-Shield 3 Ad-sheild ERDisk for AD 6.7.128.0 Aelita Nero 6 Ultra 6 Ahead Nero Bruning ROM 5.5.6 Ahead Al Mawrad (Arabic) 2003 Al Ariss PhotoClick --- Al Maalin AOL 9 AOL AOL Toolkit 1.13.2 AOL Uno 1 Aris Buenaventura Dead Man's Hand 1 Atari MotoRacer 3 Atari Scrabble v3.0 Atari Unreal II 1 Atari Unreal Tournament 2003 1 Atari Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition 1 Atari Extra Enterprise 2000 2000 --- Attachmate Extra Personal Client 6.5 --- Attachmate Extra! Bundle for TCP/IP 6.6 --- Attachmate KEA! 340 v5.1 --- Attachmate Command Antivirus 4.9 authentium AutoCAD 2004 2004 --- Autodesk bv-Admin Mobile 7 --- Bind View StarCraft 1.05 Blizzard BitDefender 7.2 Blizzard Starcraft v1.11 Blizzard Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Collector's Edition v 1.0 Blizzard Patrol for Windows 2000 3.4.0.11 --- BMC Word Perfect Family Pack 5 - Encyclopedia Britannica Ready Reference 2003 Britannica WISO Sparbuch 2004 Buhl InnoculateIT --- CA MpegCraft DVD x Caropus Citrix ICA client 7.1 Citrix FileMaker Pro (German) 5 Claris ArcServe 6.61 Computer Associates ArcServe 7.0 --- Computer Associates BrightStor ArcServe Backup 9.0 --- Computer Associates eTrust 7 Computer Associates eTrust 6.0.100 --- Computer Associates Etrust EZArmor AE Test Computer Associates Corel Draw 9 - PhotoPaint (German) 9 Corel WordPerfect Office 11 Corel, 1st and 2nd Grade Excelerator Curious George Studio 1 --- Countertop Software Serious Sam: The Second Encounter 1 Croteam Retrospect Client x Dantz Dave's Quick Search Toolbar 3.16 Dave Bau http://notesbydave.com/toolbar/doc.htm Diet KaZaa 2.52 Diet KaZaa The Lion King Animated Storybook 1 Disney DivxPlayer 2.5.3 Divx Command & Conquer Generals --- EA Games Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour --- EA Games Earth & Beyond v. 1 EA Games Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 1 EA Games SimCity 4 v1.0 EA Games Freedom Force 1 Electronic Arts NBA Live 2000 1 Electronic Arts CheckSoft Home and Business 2004 Eliibrium EDM File System Agent 3.1 --- EMC Chess Advantage III: Lego Chess --- Encore High School Advantage 2003 --- Encore Software Encyclopedia Britannica 2000 Deluxe 1 Encyclopedia Britannica SmarTerm Office 10 --- Esker. com SmarTerm Office 11 --- Esker. com Diskeeper 8 Executive Software Der Brockhaus Multimedia (German) 2004 F. A. Brockhaus JAWS 5.0 5 Freedom Scientific F-Secure 5.52 F-Secure Drivers & Utilities CD --- Fujitsu-Siemmens Cute FTP 5.0 --- GlobalScape Conflict: Desert Storm --- Gothamgames Window-Eyes Professional 4.2 GW Micro HP Quick Launch Buttons --- HP HP SJ 6350 --- HP HPSetup 42NAheBLU1 SW build --- HP Exceed 8 --- Hummingbird Host Explorer 8 --- Hummingbird Rational's Clearcase 2003 IBM ViaVoice for Windows Personal Edition 10 10 IBM SmartSuite Millennium Edition ScreenCam (German) 9.5 IBM Lotus ICQ Pro 3916 ICQ iMesh 3.1 iMesh TurboCAD Professional 9 IMSI Installshield 8 Installshield Quicken 2003 Premier Home and Business 2003 Intuit Quicken Deluxe 2001 2001 Intuit Kazaa 2.52 Kazaa Kerio Personal Firewall 4 Kerio WinRoute 4.25 Kerio Playzone Preschool - Kindergarten - Jump Start Spelling 1 Knowledge Adventure Live Journal Semagic 1.3.9.6 Live Journal SmartSuite Millennium Edition - Fast Site --- Lotus Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic --- Lucas Arts Merriam Webster's Reference Library 2003 - Journey to the Planets 2003 M-2K ColdFusion MX for J2EE 6 --- Macromedia Freehand 8 (German) 8 Macromedia MapSend Direct Route --- Magellan McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 6 McAfee McAfee Parental Controls 1 McAfee McAfee VirusScan 4.51 McAfee NetShield 4.5 --- McAfee VirusScan 7 McAfee Encarta Encyclopdia 2002 Microsoft Age of Empires II: Age of Kings --- Microsoft Application Center 2000 SP2 --- Microsoft BizTalk 2004 --- Microsoft CMS 2001 Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3 1 Microsoft Excel 2003 Microsoft Halo Combat Evolved (Arabic and Hebrew) Trial Microsoft MapPoint Europe 2004 Microsoft Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 SP1 Microsoft MS License 3.7 Microsoft MSBN --- Microsoft MSN 7.02 Microsoft MSN 9 QFE1 and 9.1 beta 9 Microsoft Office 11 Microsoft Office - Power Point 2002 (German) 2002 Microsoft Office Access 2002 2002 Microsoft Office System - Power Point 2003 Microsoft Office XP Access 10 Microsoft Office XP Professional Excel 10.0 SP2 --- Microsoft Office XP SP2 - PowerPoint 11 Microsoft Office XP Standard 10 Microsoft Outlook 2000 9 Microsoft Outlook 2002 10 Microsoft Outlook 2003 11 Microsoft Outlook Web Access x Microsoft Revenge of Arcade v1.0 Microsoft Server Administrator Tools --- Microsoft SMS 2.0 SP5 Microsoft SMS 2.0 SP5 Microsoft SMS 2003 RC2 Microsoft SMS 2003 RTM Microsoft SMS --- Microsoft SNA Server 4.0 SP4 --- Microsoft SQL --- Microsoft SQL 7 Microsoft SQL 2000a 2000a SP3 --- Microsoft TaxSaver 1999 Microsoft Virutal PC 2004 Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Microsoft Visual C++ (16-bit) 2 Microsoft Visual Studio 7 Microsoft Visual Studio 97 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Enterprise 2003 --- Microsoft Visual Studio 98 6 Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 2 Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services --- Microsoft Word XP Microsoft Works Suite 2004 2004 Microsoft WSS 2 Microsoft Musicmatch Jukebox 8.20.0107 Musicmatch StyleSelector x NEC Veritas --- NEC AppManager 5.01 NetIQ End2End 4.1 --- NetIQ File and Storage Administrator 2.1 (191067) --- NetIQ VewNow 1.05 1.05 NetManage. com View Now 1.0 1 NetManage. com ViewNow 1.05 1.05 NetManage. com McAfee Remote Desktop 32 --- Network Associates ESET NOD32 for windows --- Nod32 Norman Personal Firewall 1.40 AETEST Norman Norman Personla Firewall 4 Norman Becky 12.09.01 KaZaa Media Desktop 2.6.3 PhotoImpact 7 (Traditional Chinese) 7 Sony: PCV-W510G 510G Super Collapse (Demo Only) 2 UX Theme MultiPatcher 1.5.1 PhotoExplosion Deluxe 1 Nova Development NovaNet Web 3.6 NovaStor Pinnacle Studio Beta NX - Pinnacle Studio 9 cause data execution prevention errors Instant CD/DVD 7 Pinnacle Real Player (free version) 10 Real Networks Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield 1 Red Storm Action Request System x Redmedy Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne 1 RockStar Games NASCAR Racing 2003 Season v2003 --- Sierra Tribes 2 1 Sierra Harvard Graphics 3 Software Publishing Corp SonicWALL Virus Scan --- SonicWall Sony: PCV-V200G: --- Sony VirusSecurity 2004 2004 Sourcenext BootSkin x Stardock Ghost Corporate Edition 7.5 --- Symantec Norton Antivirus 2003 2003 Symantec Norton Systemworks 2003 - GoBack Personal Edition Other MS Symantec Norton Systemworks 2003 Professional Edition 2003 Symantec Norton Systemworks 2004 - GoBack32 Beta Symantec PCAnywhere 11 --- Symantec Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition 8 Symantec Talkworks Pro x Symantec Winfax Pro 10 Symantec Roboword Pro (JAPANESE) 6 Technocraft Style XP 2 tgtsoft Eclipse 3 Unknown Midnight Outlaw: Illegal Street Drag 1 Valuesoft Roller Coaster Factory v3.0 Valuesoft Elite Forces Vietnam: Special Assignment 2 ver 1 ver 1 Valusoft Midnight Outlaw Illegal Street Drug v1.0 ValuSoft Backup Exec 9 Veritas Backup Exec 9.1.4691 Veritas Backup Exec 8.6.1 --- Veritas Backup Exec 9.1 --- Veritas BackupExec 9.1 Veritas BackupExec 8.6.1 Veritas Bakcup Exec 9.1 --- Veritas Volume Manager 3.1 3.1 Veritas Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 v1.0 Westwood Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 1 Westwood Windgate 5.2.3 WinGate Reflection 9 WRQ Reflection 9.03 WRQ Reflection 10 WRQ Reflection X 10 WRQ Reflection X 11 WRQ Reflection X 10 --- WRQ Xoreax Incredibuild --- Xoreax Yahoo x Yahoo Yahoo instant Messenger x Yahoo Yahoo Messenger 6.0.0.167 Yahoo PC Magazine Business Winstone Benchmark 2004 Ziff Davis ZoneAlarm 5.0.590 ZoneLabs Wait at least a month or two until the dust settles and all the *bugs* (features?) get worked out! Lou

I think waiting 120 days is a "real good" idea, but that's just my opinion.... Microsoft's toolkit or this toolkit for those of us that heed your newsletters suggestions) blocks XP's SP2 from downloading for 120 days. Dan

I installed SP2 this last weekend and lost my NetDefense Firewall (VCOM System Suite 5). Before installing SP2 I did a total backup using Acronis, then did a System Restore, and a Recovery Commander checkpoint, then I disabled my NetDefense Firewall so that there would not be a possible conflict with SP2 when it did the install. After the installation I went in and disabled the Windows firewall but I could not get NetDefense to load properly. I rebooted and the NetDefense splash screen appeared, so it seemed to be loading, but when I checked NetDefense it was not activated. Whenever I tried to activate NetDefense I got an error message. I contacted VCOM and they suggested that I uninstall System Suite and then re-install the program. I plan on doing that this weekend (when I have some time). Meanwhile, I turned the Windows firewall back on just so that I would have some protection. Don Cauble

I'm running Win XP Home (fat 32) on one of my computers and since it's a system that I use to experiment with various freeware programs, I decided to install the full SP2 download. The installation went well; however, upon reboot, the system hung. This repeated itself until I removed Norton's Antivirus 2004. I suspected the problem was either Zone Alarm or Norton's and since I had been having problems with Norton's installing a recent program update, I removed it. It worked fine for a while thereafter. I installed Nod32 Antivirus without difficulty. Zone Alarm ver 5.1.0011 works fine. Recently, I have been experiencing "hangs" when I shut down or reboot. Today I am reinstalling an image of my SP1 system using Acronis True Image. I will wait before I install SP2 on any of my XP computers. Sincerely, Brooks Church

: You asked for feedback on SP2. In my case, SP2 fixed 1 problem and caused 3 problems, none serious. I installed the network version (260 mb) on my Pentium 4 3 GHz for which I have an older machine as backup on a LAN. The Pentium runs XP Home version; the older computer runs well on ME, with an occasional system restore!! The Pentium was giving problems of not shutting down and SP2 fixed that. Problem 1: The computer would not print to a Canon MPC190 printer/scanner and slowed the computer down when I clicked on My Computer--there was no response to that request for 70 seconds+ . The fix was found online where Scott Woodward and others write... "edit the file MPNETIPC. INI, change 127.0.0.2 in this file to 127.0.0.1, this will fix your problems. The file should be located in \windows\system32" This worked, but I had to go to safe mode to change it by Notepad to edit the file. The info was not on the Canon website when I looked a few days ago. The company I bought the computer from did not respond to my E-mail request for help. Problem 2: Nero Burning ROM required a new version--it identified that fact and directed me to the Nero new version, which installed with no problems. Problem 3: The Pentium would not access Internet through my router until I allowed it as an exception in the Security Centre in XP SP2, as designed. Overall, SP2 has worked well to date. But I would not install SP2 on any machine used in business applications where there is no other computer as backup. Regards, Graeme

While I respect your advice, I went ahead and installed SP2 on my XP Home system. Actually, it proceeded flawlessly and I've disabled its firewall as I use Norton's, but so far I've seen only two problems that I think I can attribute to it.

1) On certain Web sites that use Java applets (www. speakeasy. com, www. broadbandreports. com), automatic/manual links within those applets that should advance to a results page do not work. I've checked IE's security settings and don't see anything that has been changed or added. I also updated to the latest version of Java. Others report no problems on these specific sites, so maybe it's something else, but they were working before SP2.

2) More troubling, my upload ability via FireWire to my NOMAD player is broken (I can download to my PC and do editing on the NOMAD, so the connection is established OK). I've written to Creative TS about this and the answer, so far, is to do a cleanup maintenance with NOMAD and, as a last resort, update FireWire and format, in which case I'll lose 13GBs of MP3s. And, of course, no guarantees that the format will solve the problem. Yikes! Other than that, everything's cool. Shoulda listened to you, though. Damn! Bruce

I doubt anyone will read about SP2 breaking explorer. exe in the MSKB ever. It did on my system. Regards, Jim A.

Installed SP2 in two PCs at home ... I could no longer launch the scanner and camera wizard after the update. I could no longer transfer pics from my camera to the PC. I uninstalled it. Michael

Last week I was honored by Microsoft by the auto-update icon in my system tray telling me I could download SP2. Because I had decided to follow your and other people's advice to wait updating to SP2 until others have served as the guinea pigs, I unchecked the check mark in the "Choose updates to download" window and clicked Close. This has never caused problems in the past with some security updates that weren't relevant for me. But now the auto-update icon keeps reappearing. When in Task Manager I end the process: wuaudt. exe, the icon disappears for a second then re-appears. In Task Manager there are now 2 instances of wuaudt. exe, one with my name, the other with System. So Bill Gates is force-feeding me SP2 by pestering me with his icon. Marco

I downloaded and installed XP SP2, and it "broke" my homepage, which is an html page of my favorites generated by a program called Create Favorites Homepage (v 2.6), freeware that I found about from the LangaList. Now IE 6 is getting all worried about this "dangerous script" and won't load it unless I specifically tell it to "allow blocked content" by clicking on the information bar. All the settings I tried to tweak didn't seem to have an effect, and at the same time I don't want to leave the door wide open for stuff I do not want in. How do I let IE know that this file is just fine, thank you very much? Bernie

I downloaded the full admin install and tried to build a fresh, new system from scratch with SP2. The results were terminally frustrating. I installed XP-SP1 from CD plus the Intel motherboard drivers for the NIC. I brought the operating system up to date with Windows update (rebooting more frequently than probably necessary to make sure that each update was fully incorporated). I then installed SP2 from the downloaded file and rebooted. The story ends here every time. The systems seem to normally boot until sometime during the screen with the MS Logo and progress bar. There it stops. I tried this with a broad variety of hardware (discs, memory, power supplies, video cards) from my stash. The constant was the motherboard. I tried more than one of the Intel boards. Same result. My conclusion is to suspect a fundamental incompatability with the Intel boards that I have. I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else so I am not confident in my results but very concerned. BTW, the upgrade was tried on one of our IBM T30s and went off without a hitch

(well, except for a continuous stream of comments from the user about it being in his face in one way or another all the time. I'm not sure that means anything, however. Just thought I'd share my experience, thank you for asking. Terri Gilbert

Hi My XP tester PC had SP2-RC1 on it with no problem, so I allowed the installation of the final version of SP2. Just a minor problem or 2 so far, the scroll wheel feature of the cheapo Genica mouse quit working and the PC seems to have slowed just a bit, which is to be expected, I suppose. Jim Ward

I took SP2 for a new PC I am building so that this will be my stable image. So far problems are in your face reminders that I am sure I will find how to tweak out. For instance, the icon in the systray that keeps telling me I am not secure drives me nuts . I switched off the default junk it turns on as I do other things to protect my PC. As for applicat8ions nothing so far but I have yet to get to Outlook IE is locked down and Active X disabled which prevents myPlaceware (bought by Microsoft and Softiesed) from working unless you turn it back on . Otherwise, so far it seems OK.

Hi I installed SP2 on a brand new Dell Inspiron 1150, 2.4GHz Celeron. This machine was only going to be used for Word, Outlook Express & IE, so I figured it would be safe. After SP2 (the 'full' 272-Mb version), the machine was very slow. System Properties showed Celeron(R) CPU 2.40-GHz 287 MHz, which seemed to indicate it was running at 287 MHz. It certainly behaved like it. To cut a long story short, it turned out that rolling back the processor driver restored the speed. This was solved with the help of members of the Dell Community Forums, not Dell themselves who just referred me to Microsoft. This particular problem only seemed to affect Inspiron 1150's. Ron Colverson

I downloaded SP2 and regardless of what I tried, I couldn't access the Windows Firewall settings. Nor did the Windows Firewall service appear on my services listing. Because I couldn't turn it off, my laptop could not communicate with my desktop (the one one with SP2). I could access the laptop, but not vice versa. Microsoft tech help has not been able to solve this problem with me yet. Roy Herman

Install SP2 and down goes several programs. I had my computer serviced at a well respected tech house. As a "gift" they installed SP2. Could not access Internet. Worked hours trying to troubleshoot why I could contact my ATT dial up then get the screen... Page Cannot Be Displayed. Even called ATT and spoke with a sweet woman in India who read a Microsoft Tech Page I had downloaded months ago and used in my troubleshoot. (Let's get Tech back OnShore!! I meant no disrespect to the lady but I did get tired of asking her to repeat what she had just said.) Problem solved without help from ATT offshore tech: I did a total Uninstall of Norton FireWall. Did a quick connect without FireWall. Connected! Reinstalled Norton FireWall. Connected to Net and redownloaded Symantec Security updates. After four days I am back on the Web. Chuck Leonard

About a week ago I turned on my PC and found a different icon on my task bar! Held my mouse arrow on it and read approx.[Microsoft would like to install SP2 do you wish to continue or start later] I clicked OK or whatever, and away it went for about 40 minutes, then a restart took about 5 minutes. First thing that bugged me was an E-mail from a friend had a line in yellow saying that OE wouldn't let me open it. Incensed, I E-mailed Microsoft saying I objected and would like to make my own decisions. Got a nice reply by a gal named Jayne telling me how to disable that feature. Great. The only other thing I noticed was my auto-virus scan I do each Friday took 2 hours and 5 minutes instead of the usual 57 minutes. Just remembered one other thing--after the long reboot, it would not restart and I had to physically shut it off and then power up again. Jim

I let MS install SP2 on my Gateway 700XL automatically, in spite of your recommendation to not do so. So far, I've encountered only one problem. As part of a special incentive package when I got my computer, it came with Money 2002 installed. After updating to SP2, whenever I use Windows Explorer or go to browse my "C" drive, the Windows installer starts and it attempts to install updates for Money 2002. It gets so far and then requests the original CD from which the program was installed because it needs a file not already on my system--it doesn't indicate which one. I can't locate the CD, so I cancel the install, but it comes back immediately. I must cancel out of it 3-4 times before it stops regenerating itself. However, if I'm still in Windows Explorer or the browser window for the "C" drive and select any program or file, it triggers the installation process all over again. I opened the Windows Security Center and de-selected the automatic update in favor of "Notify me, but don't automatically download and install them", restarted my PC, but it didn't help. I haven't gone to MS support or to any of the online user support sites to see if anyone knows how to address this problem. I guess my other option is to try and locate the CD, assuming I received one in the first place. Anyway, that's the only bugaboo I've experienced to date. Regards, Jim Cook

The XP SP2 did download on my computer automatically and I thought I would give it a try. Well, it crashed my PC and Windows would not start; only got a black screen with white letters. I was able to go into safe mode and do a system restore, which put my computer back into working order. I have turned off automatic updating and will wait to reinstall the SP2, if ever. Sincerely, Marshall

Literally two hours before your newsletter recommending against it, I'd already downloaded (about 3 hours) the 266 MB Windows XP SP2. ... Two major glitches. #1 DSL (PPOE type) slowed to a trickle. A call-in to the local BellSouth tech reached no resolution. After going in circles for about an hour, I asked for and got a supervisor. He proved to be "super." The primary issue resolved with a Safe Mode reboot, uninstallation of the onboard Ethernet card on a Compaq Armada E500, followed by a reboot to normal mode where the system recognized and reinstalled its card. Now we're back up to speed. The "information bar" in IE Explorer went "bye-bye" quickly after it refused to allow me to load My Favorites Homepage, an older software program recommended in LangaList long ago and much enjoyed. Seems ActiveX is automatically rejected now. I went back to security in IE and checked off those areas. No problems there now. Best, Sample SP2 Success Reports So far I've done two SP2 updates--very recently, so no long-term observations. But, they did go on quicker then other service packs. No glitches, no problems with the install. Quick and easy. Had to turn off the virus and firewall warnings. It wasn't satisfied with Symantec Antivirus and kept warning me, and I have not tested the firewall yet although I have hopes that it will be good enough to use. I did Ghost it first since I will have a couple problem machines if 15% of the installs fail [as has been reported elsewhere]. Dave Bower, Joint Warfighting Center, Joint Training, Analysis, & Simulation Center, JW900 Systems Engineering

I work as head of user tech support for a local hospital, and the one small headache that the Service Pack has caused is in regards to the new firewall. Since the hospital itself is heavily firewalled off, I COULD just disable the firewall completely, but that would be no fun (GRIN). I need to be able to access my office system from any of our four sub-nets; however, the default setting is to allow access to only your own subnet. With the service pack being so new, there's not a lot of information to be found on Google yet. However, about 10 minutes of playing around trying to get the proper syntax to allow access from all four sub-nets seems to have resolved even this minor problem. Wildcards do not seem to be supported (unfortunately!) and I don't want to have to list all 400+ IP Address' that may be in use at any one time... Note that I AM taking your's and Microsoft's advice and am NOT rolling this out yet to all our systems--I'm not quite THAT Brave !! mark me as a happy camper (GRIN)

I've had nothing but GREAT success from installing SP2 on my XP Pro Machine office system. I first installed the Service pack back in release candidate 2, prior to installing this, I had been experiencing 2 to 3 HARD lock-ups per day where updating chipset drivers, Video drivers Etc did not help, however since the installation of the Service Pack, I have not experienced a single lock-up... I'm happy! Bruce Ruona

We maintain a handful of servers / workstations, about 60 from several different clients. One client got the SP2 updates via Windows updates, obviously prior to it being pulled. The only issues we had was one computer didn't have enough free disk space, but the other nine installed fine. However, we do our maintenance remotely, and the auto-enabled feature of the firewall caused some issues with connecting to these machines, but we were able to work around that by stopping the service. All in all, no known issues for this update. The update does in fact block some known vulnerabilities, and we are anal about applying these type patches as soon as they are released. We're also aware that these updates have caused issues where systems had to be completely reloaded (mostly NT4), but feel it's worth the risk of reload versus intrusion. This being said, I will agree a 233 meg download (compressed) service pack does scare the heck out of us. Robert Sexton

Used auto-download, auto-install... Noticed download taking place, so closed my firewall/antivirus programs... Whole process took about 45 min. No problems, everything still works :) It did leave a lot of junk files in its wake, so cleaned them out after a couple days. Bob Crawford

Regarding your request for feedback from those who have installed SP2, I've done so on about a dozen systems of various configurations and ages in the past two weeks (desktops and laptops). There were absolutely no problems with any of them -- either during or after upgrade. In each case I "patched" an existing SP1 installation rather than formatting and slipstreaming. The only issues noticed were that in a couple of cases the new Security Center did not recognize that Norton Anti-Virus was active, even after downloading the new NAV updates (the most important being the Norton WMI Update). Obviously, this is just a cosmetic issue since NAV is actually active and running in the background. The two options at this point are to either simply ignore the message or to reinstall NAV and then download the update again. At our site (tweakxp. com forums) I am recommending that all home users download the update. So many of the problems reported to us over the years by less sophisticated users (and even some power users for that matter) are a result of spyware and viruses that I'd much rather see a forced implementation of the new security measures incorporated into sp2 than worry about some program incompatibilities or other minor issues we can address later. Note I said "home users". Businesses clearly have to decide for themselves. We have had very few, if any, reports of serious problems after sp2 installation at our site. And in my visits to other forums it is clear to me that a vast majority of the problems reported by users were either avoidable, foreseeable, correctable or trivial. I hate to disagree with your "wait and see" recommendation, but it is my considered opinion SP2 should be implemented by most of your readers as soon as possible. Thanks, Fred. Allan

I have a network with about 125 machines that are a mix of W2K and WXP with about 11 W98 thrown in for good measure. I upgraded the 51 XP machines to SP2. 50 had no problems at all. 1 machine Asus P4C800 mb (identical hardware to 1 other machine, same MB as 5 others) made it through the install, shut down but would not boot. I tried to get to safe mode command prompt, but it hangs in the same spot each time (not sure exactly where, but right when it gets to the bottom of the screen listing the drivers it is installing MUP. sys maybe?). Tried a fresh install of WXP and had the same result after installing SP2. Tried an image of a working machine with compatible hardware drivers that already had SP2 installed, and it hangs in same spot. I tried switching memory, to no effect. I ended up leaving that machine at SP1 until I find a solution. Mike Krall, Systems Specialist/Technical Director

I've installed XP SP2 on 2 different systems of mine, one XP Pro and one XP Home. I used 2 different methods for the installs. On the XP Pro system, I downloaded the full network install (200+ mb) and on the XP Home system, I let automatic updates download the update (but not install). Both installs went perfectly, no problems during or after the upgrade. Of course, both of these systems were updated and running perfect before the upgrade. Hard drives are defragmented on a scheduled basis, spyware and adware removed religiously, no viruses and all operating system updates and hot fixes had already been applied. I think a lot of the problems with this update come from people that expect their machines to self-clean and self-maintain themselves. You can't start out with a poorly maintained machine and expect the upgrade to work without issues. Pete Kurz

SP2 successfully installed and has caused *no* problems for me on my own Dell Dimension PIII B800r dual-boot machine running XPPro and 98SE on a home LAN with another 98SE box; and same reult on my sister's new Dell 4600 running XPHome. The only disappointment so far has been the failure of Windows Firewall to properly detect the status of NAV running on the latter (perhaps Norton's fault?). The SP2 installation on my XPPro machine was via Windows Update -- an early install as I had already been running RC2 (also without problems). I downloaded and installed the full SP2 package on my sister's machine as I grew tired of waiting for the SP2 update for XPHome to be delivered via Windows Update--and desired to have the security advantages of SP2 available to my sister ASAP (she already got hit by Blaster shortly after receiving this computer with SP1 and no firewall, thanks to the SP1 default settings). As another writer has pointed out, large numbers of students will soon return to the WWW --- might we not hope that as many computers as possible will have SP2 installed and (just maybe) help slow down the spread of worms and other nasties? Best regards,

Well, I won't deny the fact that some have had problems, but I haven't. I installed the network SP2 a week ago with 0 problems on my XP Pro machine. Windows update downloaded SP2 on my wife's machine yesterday morning, even though we had it set to just notify us when it was available. It did ask for permission to install, though. No problems there, either. We are both able to use all the programs we did before, including Zone Alarm 5.1 and Norton's AV 2003. I have also installed the network SP2 on 3 other machines running XP Pro with no obvious ill effects for several days now. Just be sure to turn off AV scanners and firewalls during the install. I do have to click a little more to see all my E-mail and get around the Net, but the extra security is welcome. Dave DuRette

So far I have not observed any real problems (cross my fingers !!) It does seem like my DSL has slowed down a little bit, but that is all I have seen. I don't know why I received it so early, but it is loaded and appears to be working. Wes Schilling

I have always wanted to make a media machine to use DVR features, or TiVo-like features, as well as to store my movie library and also MP3 library. To that end, I purchased a Radeon 9800 All in Wonder to put on an Intel 2600 processor, P4P800 motherboard. The Intel processor has the dual virtual processor and, to my surprise, didn't work well with the TV part of the Radeon. I contacted Radeon, who referred me to a Knowledge Base article at Microsoft which explained the problem. The symptoms were the Radeon would crash causing either a complete machine lockup, or the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Microsoft made me jump through a few hoops to get the fix. I had to contact customer support and convince the tech to give me a patch that would supposedly fix the problem. That took about 2 days to get the hot fix. In the meantime, given that it was the virtual multiprocessor that was causing the problem, I disabled it in BIOS which had NO effect on the problem. The tech finally sent the update file and warned it might not work. He also advised the problem would be addressed in SP2. True to his word, the patch was useless. When I saw SP2 finally released, I updated my machine and the problem has gone away. I've been running it for about a week and have noticed NO problems with SP2. The firewall was a bit annoying at first, but when I got the settings figured out, it functioned as a good firewall should - in the background doing its work quietly and unobtrusively. I know you recommend 'wait' on SP2, but there are problems that it does resolve. Keep up the good work. Bill

,Being an adventurous person by nature, I've installed Win SP2 to see what is being planned. So far, I'm pleasantly surprised, cautiously optimistic, and watchful with some of the included items. The pop-up blocker seems to be doing great so far. I disabled the one I normally use and have left SP2s at the default setting and then hit sites that love to open pop-under windows under my main browser page. So far I have yet to have either a pop under or over window open that I did not want. Next I went to sites that open child windows that offer larger pictures or more info, those that my regular pop-up blocker prevents unless I specifically OK it. Ins popup blocker let them through without a problem. At this point it seems to be working seamlessly and completely transparently, which is what I would want. I next disabled my firewall (Zone Alarm Pro) and relied on the new improved Windows firewall. Now not being a too trusting soul in this area, I visited Steve Gibson's site and ran ShieldsUP! The results showed only one area of concern; it responded one port (113 IDENT) existed but was closed. ShieldsUP! doesn't want to be able to see any port under the belief that what a hacker can't see, they can't probe. I can't fault that kind of thinking, but I am pleased that while that while it shows the port there, it was closed. I'm going to keep an eye on this, but again, no complaints so far. The new Security Center will also monitor your antivirus software to make sure it is up to date and turned on. I'm getting mixed results here. On my desktop I have Norton's Anti-virus, which is running with the latest virus definitions and a full scan done weekly. SP2 is detecting NAV, but the status is unknown, causing this to be flagged as being at risk. However I have a laptop with Grisofts AVG installed which is being detected and reported without any problems. On this I'm optimistic but want to see it fixed because it will tend to be ignored if it cries wolf all the time. Thanks, Kent

Hello, Fred. I wanted to let you know about my experience with XP SP2. I have installed it on 5 computers at home. All except one were trouble free. One laptop and 3 desktop machines with Pro were completely trouble free. A Dell laptop with XP Home and Centrino wireless connection became erratic connecting to the network, and about a third of the attempts failed. I upgraded the driver and it has straightened out. These are just on a home network, no unusual software that might be broken. Bob Coon

Just wanted you to know that I have installed SP2! Began receiving it on the 24th. It's installed and running fine. No problems with any thing so far. My computer is not as complicated as some may be, but I have many different software programs running and so far, not one single problem. efg After doing all the usual things (backup, etc), I installed SP2 on my system (P4 3.0, Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard, Raid 0 boot drive) using the 266Mb network install version. I have noticed no problems at this point after running the update for 5 days. Although I only use IE for specific sites (I prefer Mozilla for my browser and E-Mail client) I have experienced no problems at this point. T. D. Handy

I've installed SP2 on 2 PCs and have had no problems at all to date. If anything, my PCs are running rather smoother and faster than before. Thanks, though, for all the warnings -- I made very sure I had both systems imaged before I installed SP2. Martin Robson

I have a fairly minimalist computer, 128 megs RAM, 15 gigs HD, 600-MHz processor, and, aside from a resource in Office 2000 developing a burp, I have had no problems with SP2. All of my hardware and software works fine, as do all 3 of my IM programs. I am not a gamer, so I have no idea how SP2 would affect that, but I am so far pleased with SP2, particularly the beefy pop-up utility that IE gets (I used to avoid IE like the plague due to it's frequent crashing, but now it's my default browser). I figure, if my bare-bones whitebox can handle it, anybody's personal confuser can. james. fiddler

I installed SP2 as a beta RC. It didn't break anything, so I let the automatic update download the real thing. So far, nothing has been disabled UNLESS it's what was causing my SecondLife program to crash during the trial. Don't know the answer to that. I run pretty run-of-the-mill apps at home for the most part. Adobe CS ,Firefox and Thunderbird, Dreamweaver MX 2004, GoToMyPC. One weird thing I noted was no matter what I did, I couldn't make my IE browser display JavaScript Web sites. It still is throwing the info bar and blocking them. I don't know if I've missed something or it's buggy. I installed it on a test machine at work, too, and so far it seems OK. That just amazes me. We have an old, crappy, proprietary database and a bunch of Web apps that I was sure it would kill, but so far so good. I'm still not putting it out on all the desktops until the end of the year, though. Beth Camero, Information Systems Manager, California Association of Health Facilities

For several weeks I had read any and everything I could find on SP2.... Enough thinking, time for action. I saw a finger on the right mouse button thrust down. The gate had opened; with exuberance the screen flashed a new message. "Installing update" I also thought I heard a sigh of relief from Redmond. Start Time 6:51, I could see hard drive activity.

6:57 I shut down Zone Alarm and A/V program. 7:00 Download started. 79.60 MB EST. 7:04 Download finished 79.40 MB (Four minutes, Eat your heart out, EarthLink.)  7:05 Verifying download  7:05 Installing  7:08 Wizard for Install: followed by, updating, inventory, checking space, creating abinets SP2, and Cab backup files.  7:16 Created Restore Point (This was not only interesting, but reassuring as well.)  7.19 Install files  7:24 Update registry keys  7:25 Finishing  7:29 Cleanup  7:30 Done  7:31 Restart  7:33 Please wait..... 7:34 Help protect PC  7:35 Normal Welcome Screen  7:36 Desktop, toolbars and Icons normal. 7:38 Security Center page - Windows Firewall disabled (My Choice.) Now it was time to check the results, the test run of programs found two minor glitches. Norton's one button scan found 10 errors in the Registry Scan. The "Fix" button repaired. Local Area Connection shut down for Outlook Express. This was fixed with a reboot of the computer. No further problems with connectivity has been noted. I have not found any changes in the operation of my computer so far. I am thinking about giving my IT guy a salary increase for his good work and a letter to Bill Gates for a job well done. Garland Toomer

More Sample Success Reports In general, I agree with the advice you gave regarding SP2. However, there are significant improvements within the update for Tablet PC users. The release has been found to be pretty stable, and definitely worthwhile, by a large group within the Tablet PC community. The most significant change is to the handwriting recognition, which takes another leap forward with this release. Some people report that it reads their handwriting better than coworkers and family members do! The Tablet market is not yet huge, but there are a few of us out there already and I wouldn't be surprised if a few of your techno-savvy readers aren't among them! David

Just wanted to report to you my experience with SP2. It has been a good one, for what that is worth. Maybe better stated: it has been a benign one. My IT guys here at work gave me a CD with the service pack on it. Also on the CD was a registry patch that disables the default-on feature of the Windows Firewall. They told me to install the registry patch first, then install SP2. I did as they suggested, on both my computers at home. SP2 has been running on both for a week and I have not noticed any problems or ill effects. When I reported this back to my IT staff, they said the fact that I had current operating-system-critical updates and patches on both machines played a major role. They think that people who have not kept up with Windows Updates will be the ones who have the most problems. Upon installing SP2, I enabled Automatic Updates, and disabled the pop-up blocker (I use the one associated with Google toolbar). The registry patch effectively shut down the Windows Firewall. I have a firewall router at home and so do not really need the integral firewall. I cannot really tell a difference in how Windows works with SP2 loaded. None of my programs have crashed or refused to work. David Epstein

In a slack moment I thought I might as well try SP2 after first having ghosted my C drive. I downloaded the full package and installed it on an Inspiron 4150. Totally painless and no problems evident after a week. Cheers, Peter

Downloaded today, 2004 Aug. 26. 5 hrs 56k modem. Seems ok. Ken

I have 3 computers at my home, and have installed SP2 on all of them. One is an Emachine and the other two are Gateways. I have Windows XP on each with 1GB DDR memory on each. The install went off with no problems, and all 3 are working fine. So far, I have not had any problems at all with SP2. I run ZoneAlarm Pro on the computers and disabled the new firewall in SP2 and everything is working properly. On my computers, no software was broken or disabled or trashed because of SP2. In fact, each computer seems to have more zip, and are working great! James Northcutt

I downloaded and installed the SP2 file pack. It installed cleanly without any problems. It did over-ride my Outlook Express security settings for attachments and images, but I just reset them the way I like. Most noticeable was a slow-down in my startup, with the desktop icons very slow to initialise. I did a defrag and cleared the Prefetch folder, with no immediate improvement. However, within a day or two, and after several reboots, the problem cleared and I was back to my normal startup time. Rodger_B

Regarding SP2, I installed it and could not be more pleased with my decision. My computer is now faster and more responsive. There have been no problems whatsoever! I use PC-cillin and Windows' own firewall. Regards, Pat

Braver than most?? Installed SP2 RC1. Nothing "blew up," nor did it when the official version was sent by MS. The only oddity is an occasional BSOD when using an external drive. As with most Windows problems, one can often never be sure "A" is the cause of "B." Regards, Frank Thurber

I recently had to do a restore on my XP home machine and did not realize that it restored my default settings on Windows Update and before I knew it SP2 had drizzled in so I decided to take the risk and install it. Much to my surprise, I have not experienced any problems and all seems to work perfectly. After installation I did a cleanup and defrag and found little in the way of clutter or fragmentation.

I have had no compatibility issues that I can see. I installed it on my laptop running WinXP Pro. Although the other computers in my home are running XP Pro also, they are still using SP1. I intend to wait until you give the go-ahead before I update them.

I just installed Win XP on a 3-year-old Dell Inspiron 8000 notebook that was running Win ME. I followed that installation with the full SP2 install I had downloaded from MS. Went quite smoothly. Had to tweak Outlook Express. I'm running Norton Systemworks 2003, which is not recognized by SP2. So another tweak in the security panel to tell it I would monitor my antivirus myself. So far I'm pleased with the installation. Will play with this a while before installing on my "real" machines. Anne

With dial-up modem and automatic download, SP2 took all of one night (like 10PM - 8AM) and about half the next day to finish. Other than a few changed M$ "skins," I haven't noticed one blessed difference in any of my other myriad applications or files. Just lucky? Mr. Billie J. H. Abraham

Installation was surprisingly smooth. I used the downloadable "Network Installation Package" (266MB !). My system is a "home-built" P4 2.2 GHZ (Intel "boxed" processor), Intel Motherboard, 1GB RAM, ATI video, WDigital hard-drives, all brand-name components.

Glitches: Very few. I used "msconfig" to temporarily turn off programs such as Norton AV, OmniPage Pro, ATI Video applets, etc. I also disabled Norton Internet Security, of course. (NOTE: I used "msconfig", because I found it easier to use for this purpose, as opposed to "services. msc"). I had a backup disk image (Acronis True Image) ready in case of serious trouble. After the installation was complete, I DID have a few minutes worth of trouble with my DSL's PPPoE services. I simply powered down and restarted the router, DSL modem and PC, and all was fine.

Pleasant surprises: The installation setup backed up files and created a System Restore point, even though I had turned that service off. It did so automatically. The new firewall features, such as the information bar, and pop-up blocker are easy to use and intuitive, although perhaps too basic for advanced users. As far as I can tell, the programs I was most concerned about (Norton AV, I-Hate-Spam, and my spy-ware programs) appear to be unaffected. So far, so good. I'll let you know if I come across anything else of interest to readers. Despite my success, I think that your prudent advice still stands: WAIT TO INSTALL XP SP2, IF YOU CAN. Ray McIlwain

I have installed SP2 on three home PCs, two desktops and a laptop, and, so far, I have had no problems with any software. Some examples of the software that I am using and which seem to be working fine: Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 APC Powerchute Personal Edition 1.5 HP PhotoSmart 7960, with associated software Epson Perfection 2400 scanner (and associated software) Office 2003 Professional Microsoft Streets 2004 Norton SystemWorks 2004, including AntiVirus 2004 Norton Personal Firewall 2004 Weather. com Desktop Weather Premium Lotus Notes 6.5.2 Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 Adobe Acrobat 6.0 (reader and creator) Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 Quicken 2004 and 2005 PaperPort Pro 9 Palm Desktop Pumatech IntelliSync Desktop 5.3.2 Seti (classic) Seti (BOINC) NISTIME 32 Nikon View 6 Arcsoft Panorama Maker Family Tree Maker 11 Lavasoft Ad-aware 6, build 6.181 Nortel Contivity VPN Client V04_15.14 TiVo Desktop Mozilla Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv: 1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2 That's not a comprehensive list, but I think it includes a fairly broad assortment of home, utility, and office applications. I will say that before I did the upgrade, I was careful to upgrade everything with the latest patches and service packs, especially the Norton products that required several. With the patches, the Norton products seem to communicate properly with the SP2 Security Center. Regards, Stan Rose

I have done 4 Service Pack upgrades using the 260-MB network download. To date, no recognizable problems. I did a complete image backup on each computer before making the upgrade. Jack Strom

I did download the Network install on the 9th when it became available at the 266mb, and I backed it up to my own CD for myself. I formatted my PC and installed clean Version of Windows XP Professional SP1 because I wanted to change from Home to Pro . So, then I copied the exe for the SP2 back from the CD to my C: Drive, and installed it.The nice thing that it DID do, which I was not certain it would, was the Archiving of files and Creating the Restore Point, etc., "just as if" it had been on Windows Update!!! OK with everything I use - including Norton Anti Virus 2004, which I already made sure to have patched with the WMI patch from Norton's Live Update, so that the Security Center would recognize Norton. I use Avant Browser as an IE Shell so I can have tabs, etc.,I use Incredimail for email - I've had no issues with Adobe or Microsoft Works or Publishing (for greeting cards) - or my HP Scanner/Printer/Copier all-in-one, either - which is usb and said might have issues, does not have any... Well - all I can say is that I'm a fanatic for "clean installs" and "optimized systems" - so, if that was what it took for things to work this wonderfully on my system, then I'm thrilled having SP2 and it works beautifully for me - it really does have tons of potential already - even at this stage... And, as you said - this IS a major operating system upgrade code type - not just some small patch, and people need to realize that, and give it a bit more slack on time for companies and programs to "mesh better within it"... because I'm sure it will - it has to! I adore it!!! Judy A. Smith

I went to the Microsoft Web site and downloaded a small program to stop my office computers from trying to download SP2 till I tried it on a test computer, that one being mine. I downloaded the whole file and saved it, so we can install it on the rest of my computers in the office without the download (10 computers). I have a fairly complex system, with lots of programs, Corel Draw Suite, Office Suite, programming software like Visual Fox Pro and Leopard, also we have proprietary software that we use for programming embroidery sewing machines, and much more stuff... The only problems I have encountered in the last week (7 days) are.... Norton Antivirus doesn't show as working and the security manager says that my system is open to viruses, Norton has some FAQ's on the subject at their Web site.

Mozilla Firefox v 0.9 at times doesn't let me save .JPGs from Web sites, it tells me that the item is no longer where it's supposed to be and I have to close it and try again. Most of the time it works the second time. I consider these minor inconveniences for the changes that you get in SP2 like the firewall, and the Wireless Connection Wizard. I think Microsoft did a good job. Ernest Aguilar

I installed the big one Monday and I find all work and operating system is faster. Mark Gilbert

Loaded it onto Windows XP Pro the day the release came out and have not had any problems at all. In fact, it appears to have repaired some glitches I had. We have two computers on a home net. One is an AMD Athlon and the other is a Pentium 4. Both computers have SP2. Have not experienced any utility problems or networking problems as warned I would. The only complaint I may register is when the computer is opening Windows, an annoying pop-up telling me that my antivirus program is not active when it is throws that message at me (running F-Stop). The notice disappears by itself after several moments. I was hit with a worm about a month ago and that would have happened had I had SP2 installed at that time, I am sure of that. So far, it's the year's best bargain.

Have installed network version on 5 different computers (4-P4's and 1 AMD). Only problem so far is the known issue with Norton Anti-Virus. I should be more forthcoming and tell you that all systems were first backed up with an image copy. And I do try to keep C: "lean and mean". installed it on the following:

2 XP Home Desktops (Dell and HP) XP Home Laptop (HP) XP Pro Upgrade Desktop (Dell) XP Tablet (HP) In all cases, everything worked fine except that it couldn't tell that AVG antivirus was up to date. The improvements made to the text-entry tool on the Tablet version are a MUST HAVE, in my opinion. The firewall has been pretty unobtrusive. One other thing--on one of the desktop Home XP systems, my IE security settings were changed so that I could no longer run any scripts at all. This only happened on one computer, and it was easy to fix. Odd, but easy. Cheers, Jeff Wagg

In regards SP2, two days ago I had just reinstalled XP Home edition and brought it up to speed as SP1 with all the fix's when MS decided to send me SP2. I let it install. The only problem was the downloading. It would DL about 20% then would freeze up and need a reboot. After 5 reboots it was loaded and the installation went smoothly. Since then I have installed my various security utilities, scanner, printer, digital camera software, and a few other programs. When I had ZoneAlarm up and running I turned off the XP firewall. So far, no problems. I have an AMD 1G processor 256-MB memory and connect with a cable modem with 2-GB bandwidth capabilities. Dan Krueger

I've used automatic update from the start when I installed WinXP Professional and have not had any of the problems experienced by your readers with any of the updates. On SP2, Microsoft started downloading on Aug. 11 at 3:00 p. m. and 50 minutes later (I'm on cable) I re-booted and everything has been smooth running ever since. No problems so far, nary a one! I do notice it takes some 10 to 15 seconds longer to boot WinXP than before. Otherwise, no noticeable negatives. Really happy with some of the changes made and have my fingers crossed that all continues well. BTW, I'm one of those 'nuts' who never "clean-installs" anything unless the vendor says it's mandatory. I just upgrade what is already on my machine and hope for the best. Charlie G.

Hey, Fred: In regards to SP2 installation for WnXP, I have installed it on my XP "pro" machine as well as a "home" machine and have had no real problems to report. I worked with SP2RC2 for about a month, putting it through the daily paces (after a good image backup, of course) and did not really notice any problems with it as well. In both cases I did download the IT Administrator (full download) edition and use that for install. In some of the forums I have read, it seems ironic those reporting no and very little problems installed via that route as well. I run a very wide variety of software packages and the only small glitch was with my Acronis Privacy Expert Suite on my "pro" machine. After SP2 was installed, when I went to restart the computer it would shut down instead (both shutdown and restart would cause a shutdown). I found it to be in the scheduling portion of that software. After I removed the automatic scheduling feature, restart worked normal again. I checked the Microsoft link you provided and found I have many of the programs listed and none of those in common have given me any grief since SP2. Maybe I'm just lucky... for once! Kurt A.

Hi Fred; I've installed SP2 (production only--I never installed a beta or RC) on about three-dozen systems to this point. I don't believe for a moment the scare-stats that SP2 hoses 15% of all systems it touches: that's either nonsense, or people deliberately trying to find configurations SP2 would break. Below is a complete list of every problem I've found so far, installing mostly on Dells (OptiPlex and Latitude, some Inspirons), along with a few Toshibas, Sonys, and one Compaq (or HP--can't remember). My direct experiences are labeled [PE] for "personal experience." They're supplemented with direct reports from my colleagues (labeled [RR] for 'reliable report'). Collectively, this probably represents about 200 installs of SP2. I've put the list of problems identified in roughly descending order of seriousness/difficulty to troubleshoot: [RR] One Dell Latitude D600 blue-screened due to an outdated BIOS. Updating the BIOS allowed the system to reboot perfectly.

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate 9.0.1.1000: LiveUpdate failed with a numeric error. Checking Symantec KB showed that firewall was blocking LiveUpdate: adding luall. exe to the exception list solved the problem.

Security Center reports "unable to determine the status" of Symantec AntiVirus Corporate v 8. Upgrading to v9.0.1.1000 solved the problem.

Linksys 'Net Check' diagnostic Web-app (Linksys Web site). A combination of the firewall, popup blocker, and new Internet security were preventing NetCheck from downloading the ActiveX control required for it to run. Again, adding the site to the necessary exception lists and choosing 'allow' when prompted solved the problem.

Windows Update died hard. This was technically related to SP2, but was in fact a stupid error on my part: I downloaded the patches necessary for the new WinUpdate Web site (BITS and WinHTTP 5.1), then failed to reboot before installing SP2. SP2 overwrote the patches in a way that didn't affect the operating system generally, but broke both WinUpdate and AutoUpdates. I had to remove/reinstall the WinUpdate objects in IE and even get MS Tech Support involved to help me get things working again. (They didn't charge, which was good of them, given that it was my dumb shortcut that caused the trouble.)

Outlook/Exchange problem (firewall interaction--fixed by adding a registry key to Outlook and a port exemption to the firewall). This has been reported on several elists, but none of our more than 1,000 Exchange users has yet actually experienced it; in fact, I'm writing this on a system that, according to these reports, shouldn't be working :-) That's it: The whole list taken together may look a little scary, but believe me, it's trivial--I've had worse days as a tech-support staffer, even without a major operating system update to blame. If you only count systems that have to be reimaged as 'hosed,' then it's a failure rate of 0. If you count the blue-screen episode as "hosed," even though it only took 3 minutes to fix, then it's a failure rate of under 3%. Only if you count every problem, no matter how trivial or inevitable, as 'hosed,' do you get a failure rate of slightly over 15%. I was particularly surprised--and pleased--by how well SP2 played with a range of third-party firewall products, including the freebies (I've seen ZA, Sygate, Kerio, and Outpost so far). Dunno if the vendors have been working overtime or what, but there are no horror stories to report to date. Of course, I do update those products to their latest versions before installing SP2. In summary? I would echo the frequent advice you see, to make sure before you update that you have SP2-compatible versions (or updates) for all critical apps on the system, and of course that you make a full backup beforehand. I would add three more recommendations that I don't see as often: Update your system BIOS. Usually, it's not worth the risk, but SP2 is much more like a full-version upgrade than a patch, and updating your BIOS beforehand is probably worth the risk. Even if you don't want to risk a preventive BIOS update, download the BIOS update from your vendor and have it ready before you install SP2; if you do blue-screen, the BIOS update should be your first diagnostic step. (I was startled when the BIOS problem came up on the Latitude D600--the oldest of those machines is only a couple of years old, so your machine doesn't have to date back to the CP/M days for you to have to worry about BIOS compatibility.) Even before you start, make sure you know exactly how to add an exception manually to the Windows Firewall: you'll probably have to do it for at least one program, and maybe several. A Google search for "Add exception Windows firewall tutorial" turns up 44,000+ sites apparently willing to show you how. Remember that older apps--and their error messages--have no idea SP2 exists, so they can't very well anticipate it. If you run into an odd software application problem post-SP2, don't automatically believe the error message text; instead, go to the application vendor's Web site, plug the error information into their support/search tool, and check the latest info. (For example, the SAV error text (problem 2 above) talked about a 'corrupted definition file': it didn't say anything about a firewall problem. But when I plugged the error number into the Symantec search engine, the first hit talked about how a misconfigured firewall could trigger this error--et voila! One more search to get the name and path of the LiveUpdate executable, and the problem was solved.) We're still testing SP2 for full organizational deployment, and probably won't roll out for at least several more weeks. But I've heard from several dozen users at this point who've installed at home without trouble. I'm encouraging home users to go ahead and install--and I'm also encouraging those of them with slower Internet access to order the CD from the Microsoft Web site. I don't doubt that people with marginal systems, and extreme power users who have their systems tweaked outrageously, can run into trouble with SP2; for that reason, given your readership, I think your caution in recommending SP2 to the LangaList is wise. But for mainstream users who have bought mainstream systems from mainstream vendors and kept them basically plain-vanilla, the doom-and-gloom scenarios are just scare-mongering. A little prudence, and a little common sense, should be enough to make SP2 a very tame pony. If you want to use any/all of this feel free, but I'm not allowed to use my organizational affiliation. If you want to use my name, just cite me as CJ. Best regards, and thanks again for the great newsletter! C. J.

I installed SP2 with no problems and no apparent conflicts. I downloaded the entire 279MB file, Windows XP-KB835935-SP2-ENU. exe (we have four PC's in my house running WinXP), and used it to upgrade a five-and-a-half-year-old PC (the oldest one first). The system originally came with Windows 98 installed, and the operating system has now been upgraded four times, (1) to Windows 98 SE, (2) to Windows XP, (3) to Windows XP SP1 (about a week after installing XP), and (4) finally to Windows XP SP2. Dale F. Ogden

I have been running SP2 since RC2 without problem. I have installed the RTM on 8 computers and so far, all is well. The installs all went without a hitch. I have always kept the computers up to date with AV, spyware, and Windows-critical updates. So far, my experience is all positive. Richard Brooks

I have installed 5 SP2's on XP Home & Pro with nary a glitch. If your 15% failure rate is any guide, I should expect a problem in one of my next two installations. We'll see. Don't forget that most XP SP1's have glitches in them already that could affect any upgrade. The list of third-party programs that might break is somewhat overwhelming, but therein lies a clue: there just might be a programming flaw in them. As I went down the list I realized that, although I have tons of programs installed, not one of them was on that list. (Except for the firewalls , but with the new SP2 firewall and a router, who needs 'em?) I give SP2, "two thumbs up!" (IMNSHO). Doug

I installed SP2 on three machines last week--2 Sony Vaio P4 laptops, 1x WinXP Home and 1 x WinXP Pro, and a P4 2.4 GHz desktop running XP Pro and sharing a 802.11g network. I used the full network version of SP2 downloaded from the MSDN download site. The installation on all three went relatively quickly (30-40 minutess) and painlessly. I have to say I was quite relieved and surprised at how smoothly it went. So far after using SP2 on my desktop for almost a week (the two laptops I only installed a couple of days ago) I have experienced very few problems. That could be because the first thing I did after the installation was to disable the Windows firewall, as I have a Norton firewall installed and don't see any need for two firewalls to be running at the same time. However, one of the laptops is using the XP firewall and so far all the software that my wife runs on it has also worked without a problem. The only problems I have noticed relate to using Internet Explorer and an error on startup. On booting up the desktop with XP Pro SP2 installed I get an intermittent error Windows Application Error that says an "instruction at 0x004edb0 referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be written." I haven't been able to track down the application that is causing the problem yet. The only other sign that something isn't quite right is that after I boot up and get the error message, Internet Explorer takes 30 seconds or so to display my homepage (Google). But if I start Mozilla, there's no delay at all. So its not a network problem or a glitch with the ASDL, but something specific to IE. But after the brief delay IE works just as quickly as Mozilla, even if I quit the program and re-start it. I haven't been able to find any other references to the above error in the MS Knowledgebase, but a similar error referred to an issue with IIS--which could be the problem here, but I don't know for sure. Other than this one minor problem, all of the software I use regularly on my system is working as well as before (MS Word 2002, Open Office 1.1.1, Adobe Photoshop, Mozilla browser and mail, MS VB. net 2003, Dreamweaver, Dark Basic Pro, Nero, AdAware, Spybot, etc.) and it really hasn't caused me any grief so far. The two laptops, which don't have IIS installed, haven't experienced any problems yet at all. So I have to say that so far my SP2 experience is pretty good and if I can nail down the one incompatibility I'll be a very happy camper. Darryl Luscombe

I was one of those "brave souls" who downloaded SP2 as soon as it became available. I considered the risks, weighed the potential consequences, made my backups and took the plunge. I can say that I have no regrets whatsoever. Benchmarks run before and after the upgrade revealed a substantial increase in system speed. Several minor annoying bugs have disappeared, and frankly, I decided that security was paramount, and SP2 is more than just a firewall upgrade. I even went so far as to enable the DEP service for all applications (I figured I might as well push it all the way). Not a glitch to report. The machine has been running almost continuously for almost 2 weeks now (I say almost because I did restart a couple of times to accommodate some software installations and a run of ntregopt). While I realize that not everyone will have this level of success, I should note here that I have installed this on 6 other machines so far (including a very old, very slow IBM ThinkPad) with no problems on any. Avast! antivirus and AVG antivirus integrated well with the Security Center and Windows quickly detects and notifies when the resident protection is disabled (a nice touch). Wireless networking is a lot better, network folders open much more quickly and home networking actually stays set up (with SP1, network shares would sometimes vanish without a trace, causing system freezes when we tried to access them). In my case, this has been the best Windows update yet (including 98se). installed SP2 on Aug. 10, 2004. The machine is a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop running MS XP Home. I have not had any trouble with my system or software during or after the install of the patch, but other than using it 10-12 hours a day, I'm not doing much fancy on the machine either. I'm happy with it and have just installed it on my father's newer Dell Dimension, also without issue. No blue screens, no problems. Jeffrey Davidson

I installed SP2 on my laptop (HP Pavilion zt3000) where I've been running Release Candidate 2 (RC2) for about one month. I'd had no problems with RC2, other than the issues of incompatibility for web applications running in Local Machine zone. However, the MS documentation warned about the new security restrictions in this zone and the types of applications that would be affected, so the issues came as no surprise. The update occurred sometime near the middle of August via the Automatic Updates applet and over an analog modem. It took several hours. I left the computer running unattended for the entire time, and came back to find SP2 downloaded and ready to install. I had selected the option to "let me choose when to install...". I shut down all applications, including my antivirus software and my firewall, and ran the installation without any problems. When the computer rebooted, the Security Center applet correctly detected both my firewall (Sygate) and my antivirus software (Avast!). Amazingly, the computer seems to run smoother than ever. In fact, before I installed RC2, I was experiencing intermittent shell failures -- sometimes as many as three every hour. I had no idea what the problem was, and had spent a considerable amount of time trying to isolate the cause. But since I use this computer primarily for testing, I finally gave up and decided to install RC2 out of curiosity. I was fully expecting to have to reinstall the entire operating system at some point anyway; however, the upgrade didn't cause any problems, and much to my surprise the shell hasn't crashed since. I no longer feel an urgent need to reinstall the system. I have only experienced one problem with SP2, and this is a problem that I've seen mentioned in the newsgroups ever since XP was released. Thus, the problem may not have been caused by SP2; however, I did not notice the problem before I installed SP2. The problem was one of disappearing icons. Whenever I would reboot the computer, most of the programs that normally would place icons in the system notification area were unsuccessful in doing so. The programs would be running, but the icons wouldn't show up. I would have to log off and log back on (or restart the shell from Task Manager) to get the icons to show. I finally fixed the problem by uninstalling the "UPnP User Interface" component under the "Networking Services" group of the Add/Remove Components applet. Not sure what the consequences of removing this component are, but so far my wireless network runs fine, and now I have my icons back. That little bug was *really* annoying. See this Google search for posts regarding this bug and the fix. As for the new Internet Explorer, I like the Information Bar, the pop-up blocker, and the new security defaults. I think that the Local Machine lockdown is a wise move. All long overdue improvements. The improvements to the built-in firewall are nice, too, but I wish it had the ability to manage outbound traffic. I don't understand why Microsoft neglected to include this capability, other than to guess that they didn't want to be accused of killing the firewall market just as they were accused of killing the browser market. Maybe the Justice Department has made them gun-shy, or maybe Microsoft just didn't wish to deal with the support problems that outbound traffic management would inevitably create due to clueless users. Robert Perry

I installed SP2 last evening and so far have had no problems with it. I had to reset my homepage and turn off their firewall (I am using ZoneAlarm) and thus far that's all I have had to do. The one minor glitch is that I keep getting a pop-up saying I am not protected because I am not using their firewall. I will figure out how to stop that tonight after work. Jim

I have installed Windows XP SP2 on three PC's with zero, nada problems. My setups cover a lot of situations. My main PC which does just about everything -- browse, E-mail, play music and DVD's, spreadsheets and document editing, photo editing, online banking, antivirus, all of which are working problem free. Likewise for the work unit, which does similar things including running several networking tools 7x24. My kids continue to play basic games and watch DVD's without issues. These PCs span Intel and AMD processors, a commercially built computer (Dell) operating on a LAN, and 2 "white boxes" working on a wireless network. I'd note that 2 of the 3 were upgrades from the beta product and one was a fresh SP2 install. I'm a pretty hard grader, but I would give Microsoft an "A" on SP2. Thanks, Mark O'Neill

Have installed and been running for two days, so far no problems. My install was a total one-shot 73mb and about 45 minutes to do. Russ Knorr

I installed SP2 on my XP Pro machine. It worked out very well. I had a few concerns, as I was not planning on using XPs built-in firewall, and didn't intend to install a new antivirus program. My major concern, however, was whether or not my Adobe applications (Photoshop, Premiere, and Acrobat Reader) would work as advertised, since there is a dire warning about Adobe Help file incompatibility with XP SP2 on the Adobe Web site. Everything does work, as far as I know. I use Mozilla 1.72 as a default browser, and haven't removed it to find out if the HTML-based Adobe Help files still work in Internet Explorer 6. It seems likely they will. To sum up, XP2 seems to be working fine. It recognizes my CA Antivirus, and allowed me to easily turn off the Windows Firewall. Oh, for anyone who does incur problems with their Adobe Help files, there is a workaround on the Adobe Downloads site. Jon Ramsdell

I first installed the last beta build on my computer and haven't had 1 problem and now I have the final release. I love it, the firewall works great, not like the so-called firewall in the previous version. Overall, my computer runs real good on SP2, maybe because it's only 6 months old, but it seems more stable now than when I first purchased it. I sometimes had an application crash but now I haven't had one. I'm running an HP Pavilion a335w, 2.5-GHz 80gig hard drive with XP home edition, also I have 768 MB of RAM. SP2 has been installed now for about 2 weeks. I made sure I backed everything up and made a restore point. Also, I made a restore point in System Suite 5 I have installed on my computer. Robert Singleton

I am one of those who let the download install itself and was very nervous about it after I had read so many horror stories. I have Windows XP (home) and a Gateway computer. After installing, the computer rebooted with no problems. I have an HP 990Cse printer and an HP scanner, all of which have worked just fine since the install. My Wacom Graphire also has worked without problems. I have run most of my programs and they all seem to be working OK, too. Of course, I will not know if there is a problem until I use each of my programs in a project. I like the Pop-up blocker but looking at red X's instead of pictures when I am on the Internet is going to take some getting use to, even though I can just click on the warning bar and get them back. Most of the stuff I never looked at anyhow. So, I may be one of few who haven't had any problems as yet. I love your newsletter and advice, but just have to take a chance sometimes. Thanks for all of your helpful hints. Wesley Norman

I did a full backup first, just in case. Downloading the 120 Mb via cable and installing it took 48 minutes, then 8 minutes for verification. After a success message and a reboot, I checked my Add/Remove Programs to see whether the update was there--it was. Then I checked the Control Panel and found the icon to manage the update. SP2 warns the user not to use two firewalls or two antivirus programs. Since I use a router and Norton Works, I turned those MS features off. So far, I have had no problems and don't notice any changes in my operating system, in my use of the Internet, or in the speed of my system (an Intel 3-Gbyte multithreaded processor for an 875FSB Gigabyte motherboard. Will be interested to hear how your subscribers found SP2. Because they are more sophisticated than most users, my guess is that they will have fewer problems with their installations. Cheers from down unda'. Chip

I jumped in headfirst and grabbed the SP2. After installing and taking it for a test drive, I headed to Steve Gibson's Web site Come to find out, Microsoft by default is turning on File and Print Sharing inside the SP2. I removed that and Steve's Web site gave me a green light. Michael

Friend of mine with a small tax office, 1 machine was set for auto update and SP2 came down. It reset his inside network [3 machines], I had to reinstall the network on 1 machine so other machines would see it. I have 3 machines at home networked together and after I installed SP2 on my machine, I had to reinstall the network also so other machines could access it, but 2nd machine with SP2 installed didn't require network reinstalling. The firewall checked by default caused one problem and it changed the network name back to MSHOME [default] was easy to reinstall but be aware of possible problem with networked machines. Otherwise, no problems so far. I did have EZ Armor firewall, but removed it before SP2 installation as I read about a problem with it. Don Kinney

I've been running SP2 on two computers for a couple of weeks, with no problems at all. Nothing broke. I'm a power user but not a gamer. I use ZoneAlarm (free version) and not the XP firewall. Larry

I've installed SP2 on my production machine that I use for development and haven't had any issues. In fact, my Bluetooth works properly now. I was involved in the beta and had very, very few problems with any of the builds. Granted, my machine is very new, one of the newer Toshiba M200's. I've had beta builds installed on the production machine as well as in a MS Virtual PC session. The machine that's used for my business accounting is running QuickBooks 2002 and have heard rumors of issues with QB so I haven't installed on that machine yet. Haven't had the time to image it and go through the process. Most of the issues that arise are based on tighter security, which obviously isn't a bad thing. I'm one that advocates installing it right away--with proper backups, of course! George

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