Installed XP Service Pack 2 yet?

[JohnBoucher]

I am curious what luck, good or bad, you had when you installed XP Service Pack 2? Was it worth it? Any of your programs not like it?
I am hearing that there is some tweaking that needs to take place once you commit to it.

[Tristan Lall]

No issues on a clean install with my brother's computer. There's always tweaking to do with a new install, but there was nothing particularly unusual.

[Cory]

I didn't install it.

WPI's network doesn't support it as of yet.

Cory

[Nate Smith]

I just installed it on one of my 2 XP machines(actually just finished the end-of-install reboot), and no major issues as of yet...Security Center had issues talking to my copy of Norton Antivirus to get its status, but I just told it to ignore it...

[Venkatesh]

I have been running it for some time (since beta 2149), and I have found that it is excellent. Security features abound, its fast, and I have had no application problems.

My only complaint is that it changed my startup logo, from the XP Home logo to a plain "Windows XP", without a Home or professional.

[Kyle Fenton]

I have heard that some people had trouble with the iTunes sharing feature. To prevent this you have to open port 3689.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

I did a fresh install after slipstreaming SP2 into my XP Pro install CD.
I ran the pop-up blocker and firewall through some tests. The pop-up blocker is equivalent to the built-in firefox .9, and the firewall showed no open ports. Much improved. I'm still trying to test it's performance. I understand they changed some things about how it handles memory and stuff. If anyone has more info/links about this it would be much appreciated.
I also tested out the new wireless things. It seems good, unfortunately, I'm using a card that likes to crap out randomly. But I like what I saw.

What has everyone's experience been without doing a clean install, but using the upgradde instead? Does it leave things messy or screw up any programs?

[Gary Dillard]

I just installed it on all 3 computers at home yesterday and will be test-driving it this week. I installed the upgrade and did minimal work afterwards (Printshop, IE, Outlook) so I didn't expect to find too much wrong yet.

Only 2 comments so far:

1) There was a message I saw somewhere AFTER I installed it that said there were some known compatibility issues with MS wireless network software (which I use). It seems to work OK but I wish they'd told me that BEFORE I installed it.

2) I LOVE the pop-up ad supressor feature. I didn't realize this was available and it makes for much more hassle-free surfing.

Kyle - can you elaborate on the iTunes problem? My son uses this and I'll need to walk him through anything I need to change..

[Billfred]

iTunes seems to work for me. But I may be wrong.

I installed it last night. No problems so far--well, Microsoft says only letting them tell me that updates are available (as opposed to automatically downloading and installing them) is a problem, but that's their thing. I like knowing what gets onto my system.

Other than that, nothing noticed on Firefox, VirusScan, and Notepad. (hey, can't knock the hustle.)

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

I just installed it on all 3 computers at home yesterday and will be test-driving it this week. I installed the upgrade and did minimal work afterwards (Printshop, IE, Outlook) so I didn't expect to find too much wrong yet.

Only 2 comments so far:

1) There was a message I saw somewhere AFTER I installed it that said there were some known compatibility issues with MS wireless network software (which I use). It seems to work OK but I wish they'd told me that BEFORE I installed it.

2) I LOVE the pop-up ad supressor feature. I didn't realize this was available and it makes for much more hassle-free surfing.

Kyle - can you elaborate on the iTunes problem? My son uses this and I'll need to walk him through anything I need to change..

Well the only Windows computers I have, is at work, and I can't install itunes there. But basically I have heard that the new SP2 firewall blocks a lot of ports and it supposedly blocks port 3689, the port that iTunes uses rendezvous to access other people's playlist. A way to override this is to start control panels->Security Center->Windows Firewall->Exceptions->Add port then type in "Itunes rendezvous" and port 3689.

As far as I know, iTMS works fine without modifications, however I don't know about Radio Stations though.

Just a note that while SP2 has block-up popper, it is not as elegant as Safari's. For example it tells you every time that it has blocked a pop-up add, which is just as annoying as the pop-up. And it block all pop-ups, including ones that you click to activate, like in CNN.

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by Kyle Fenton

Just a note that while SP2 has block-up popper, it is not as elegant as Safari's. For example it tells you every time that it has blocked a pop-up add, which is just as annoying as the pop-up. And it block all pop-ups, including ones that you click to activate, like in CNN.

It's extremely easy to turn that feature off. Every time the notification bar comes up, it says click here for options or something. Click there and just tell it not to pop up any more in the box that appears.

As for SP 2 in general. I had a bad experience. Keep in mind I'm pretty knowledgable with windows (bazillions of installs, repairs, I do it for money...). I can't tell what exactly happened, but it seems to have messed up my permissions. My administrator accounts some how lost there permissions do certain things like edit the registry and other things that an administrator should be able to do. It also seems to have broke Windows Update. I tried uninstalling it, but the bugs persisted, and it did not appear to be uninstalled as that line of text in safe mode still reported that it was SP2. Anyway, I did an inplace install with a slipstreamed SP2 and it is working flawlessly, now.

[miketwalker]

Pros:
I personally like the new startup background, more professional and clean.

The security center's built-in firewall I enjoy very much.


Cons:
Since I've installed it my computers been more twitchy and programs like AOL Instant Messenger seem to mess up sometimes where I have to sign off and back on and it starts taking all my CPU power, don't really know why it's doing that but I've never seen that before.

It can be annoying with it's alert if you don't have anti-virus installed (I use Pc-Cillin Housecall cause installed programs like Norton take way way way too many resources for what they're worth) or you don't want Automatic Updates on it keeps bugging you. I disabled the security center from booting up with Windows, but the firewall system still works and asks to allow or disallow programs to connect, so it gives me everything I want.


Overall: I'd definitly recommend using it, I love the built-in firewall system. I am just wary of the fact that it seems to be making the system allocate resources in a way that it causes issues... but this might be a simple thing they'll patch quickly (I hope) or a clean install would fix.

[ahecht]

Originally Posted by Cory

I didn't install it.

WPI's network doesn't support it as of yet.

Cory

Yes it does. Netops doesn't want Faculty and Staff to install it on WPI owned computers, but a dorm computer should have no problems at all (mine doesn't). If you have trouble, you can always deactivate the firewall, and the network interface will act virtually identically to SP1 computers (unless you do something silly like join the WPI domain). Don't let NetOps scare you, they could honestly care less.

[Matt Attallah]

Allright.

Microsoft You better be listening.

I Just had a MAJOR problem when I was installing SP2.

I have XP Home Edition (it was upgraded from windows ME) and the download/install went perfect. Asked to reboot and that is when the problems came. I oked it to reboot and than it'd flash my compaq screen and than say that Windows could not start up because the file "biosinfo.inf" could not be found. I have spend about the past 2-3 hours trying to get this figured out - and finnaly did. Gotta have the old CD of XP and a copy of the file "biosinfo.inf" on a floppy. (ONLY that file on the floppy) and have to use recovery option ("r" selection) and manually copy the file to the \WINDOWS\INF\ directory. It was a huge pain in the rear.

Microsoft - for your sake - you better hope noone else has the same problem that I did. Eather than that SP2 seems to be rockin' pretty well...

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Matt Attallah

I have XP Home Edition (it was upgraded from windows ME)

Incidentally, a clean install is really a much better idea! Windows Me has essentially nothing in common with XP--the upgrade tries to preserve settings, but because of their notorious unreliability and the many concessions to the upgrade process (files in different places, no NTFS, etc.), it isn't particularly prudent to go from any Windows 4 to Windows 5 OS. (That's 95, 98 or Me to 2000, XP or 2003.)

Did you have Norton Antivirus installed when you ran the upgrade? There's an issue with Norton causing a biosinfo.inf error during an upgrade from Me to XP. If you didn't encounter the issue going to XP, maybe it is still relevant going to SP2? (That's only a hypothesis.)