XP SP2 Features In Older Windows Versions?

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1612919,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1612919,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The world must wait until late July at the earliest until Microsoft Corp. delivers the final release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). But that isn't stopping testers and customers from asking what Microsoft's intentions are, in terms of back-porting the SP2 updates and fixes to other Microsoft operating systems and related products."</i><br /><br />The update will be applied to XP Media Center Edition and the Tablet PC Editions of XP as far as I know but this article asks a really good question about whether the updates will also be applied to older versions of Windows. Anyways, XP SP2 RC2 (rolls of the tongue there ;-)) was just released, and I was wondering if any of you installed it yet? Anything cool to report, especially with Media Center Edition? I was particularly disappointed with its performance on lower end machines and there was some talk about that being addressed with SP2, so I was looking forward to getting more information on that. If you want more information on XP SP2, <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/SP2Preview">this Microsoft site</a> has plenty of information.

[David Horn]

I'm running it on my Tablet PC and it seems perfectly stable. Much faster than RC1 too.

[mcsouth]

Based on Microsoft's previous Service Pack record, I am planning on holding off on this update for at least a month until enough is known about general installation issues. While my home PC is certainly not a mission-critical unit, I don't have bags of extra time to undo the damage that other users had when the first XP service pack rolled out.....

[Jason Dunn]

I don't have bags of extra time to undo the damage that other users had when the first XP service pack rolled out.....

What sorts of problems did you have on your system with SP1?

[Crocuta]

I'm taking the same tack as McSouth. My system is reasonably secure as is (automatic updates, Norton Internet Security, and IE security options set to conservative levels), so there's no need to rush in headlong without knowing what I'm getting into. There's no way to anticipate all the types of problems people will have with this, and we've seen over and over that these types of updates often have problems when initially released that the beta testers didn't find. A few months later, all the wrinkles are usually ironed out and necessary updates for applications are online, so why not give it a little time until we see how it's all going to work out? I'll let the more anxious ones among you check it out and be gamma testers for me, and then I'll follow along in a few months if everything seems good. :wink:

[arebelspy]

I haven't done it on my desktop, but have on my Tablet: well worth it. The new wireless (wifi and BT) dialog boxes are great, and the new TIP for the tablet is amazing.. thats just on the upgrade to SP2 .. there isn't much of a difference between RC1 and RC2 as far as most of us have seen, other than perhaps subjective performance enhancements (a bit faster perhaps)? If you have RC1 installed they say to uninstall it and then clean install RC2.. I'd recommend you just install over the top.. it's what I did (and a bunch of others) and it works perfectly.. other people had problems removing, reinstalling, etc.. I wouldn't recommend you remove RC1 first, IMO. End result: well worth it if you have a tablet pc, on a desktop it'll just be minor enhancements that aren't too big (IMO) so I'll wait for the offical release on that one.

-arebelspy

[mcsouth]

I don't have bags of extra time to undo the damage that other users had when the first XP service pack rolled out.....

What sorts of problems did you have on your system with SP1?

I never had any problems with SP1 myself - in fact, my WinXP Pro CD came with SP1 integrated. However, I read lots of reports of folks that installed SP1 on their systems, and ended up with all kinds of problems - in some cases, resulting in loss of data, and requiring a format C and reinstall to resolve.

Now, are some of those reports probably the result of inexperienced persons not knowing what they are doing? Probably....but I've seen enough people have trouble with major software updates (like iPaq ROM updates on the original units!) to be a bit gun-shy when something like this comes out. I figure that since I have WinXP's Update running automatically to pull the latest patches, and keep Norton SystemWorks Pro up to date, that my system is probably okay. If everything looks cool a month after the release, well then I'll look at making the plunge.....

Paranoid? You bet....but I'd rather spend the little bit of free time I have reading the Media Thoughts sites ( :wink: ) than 'fixing' my PC.....

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Tried it. Found it annoying. Not for power users who know what they're doing.

[Suhit Gupta]

Tried it. Found it annoying. Not for power users who know what they're doing.
Why, is it buggy? Or because you just didn't like the features?

Suhit