So what is the risk/benefit ratio here? What’s in this update that is worth risking screwing your machine all up?
It comes with a popup blocker and blocks pictures in email. Most importatnly, it fixes the Microsoft GDI+ vulnerability which allows viruses to spread via JPEG comments. It does not fix the vulnerability in other vendors’ software though.
Thanks Lute. Considering how I’ve already got things set up, it doesn’t sound like it would be worth the risk for me to update.
It got to where my computer would only run for about ten minutes before crashing, so I tried to uninstall SP2. Unfortunately, the computer crashed halfway through the uninstall and Windows was unusable. I ended up having to reinstall XP.
This makes me very cranky, but my computer isn’t crashing any more!
I installed SP2 and everything was hunky-dory. At first.
But then I discovered it wouldn’t let me play any of the Flash movies I had stored on my hard drive. It told me my internet security options wouldn’t permit it. I tried tinkering with those settings, but in vain. So I uninstalled it.
I did have the pleasant experience that the uninstall brought my system back to its prior state just as it was supposed to, though.
It took hours to download. It changed my security settings in some way I haven’t yet foubd and won’t let me download documents from my e-mail. Other than that, it’s just yippy skippy.
Here’s the official word from Microsoft:
How to Disable Antivirus Alerts When Security Center Does Not Detect Installed Antivirus Application
I did run into one problem when I updated to SP2. This new-and-improved firewall that’s built into the security center was preventing anyone from connecting to my IIS-based web server. Turning off the firewall made it start working again. I guess even Microsoft knows what a security flaw using IIS is 
?
After installing it my PC blue-screened on boot up. Disconnecting my wireless mouse solved that. Then I discovered that Camedia, the software essential for my digital camera, did not work and there were no updates on the Olympus site. I’ve uninstalled SP2.
Are you on a wireless network? It might have restarted Wireless Zero Configuration, which basically allows you to use a non-Microsoft wireless network adapter without installing the relevant drivers; for some reason, my Linksys card won’t work unless the Linksys drivers are installed, although I can then bypass the Linksys software and use Windows Networking instead.
I admit I’m in an aggravated mood at the moment… but I would say, if you have a firewall program that you like, and you do NOT like the idea of Micro$&% accessing you PC whenever they feel like it, then DO NOT install SP2. If you had asked me the same question yesterday, I would have said that anybody who hesitates to instal SP2 is a wimp. But today… #(*7(&(*
Every time since I installed SP2 that I booted up, my firewall program (Norton Internet Security) said that someone remote was trying to access my system… so I said to monitor it. Well finally today I got fed up and said, I don’t want anyone accessing my PC without my permission – whoever the #*$& it is, block them! So guess what, I decided to order a bunch of 1-click books via Amazon, with the intent of later editing my 1-click order, and guess what happened!!! I couldn’t access my 1-click orders! And then I couldn’t access any other website (e.g. www.nytimes.com). So I tried restoring Norton to its defaults. That did not help. So I finally had to uninstall XP SP2.
DO NOT INSTALL SP2 unless you want all kinds of (&#%(& happening to your machine without your permission or knowledge!!!
I believe that “feature” can be turned off.
I’ve given it two chances and it did me wrong both times.
I installed it first thing when it came out, but then I had problems. I couldn’t get my wireless internet to work and had to figure that out. I’m not smart at that so it is frustrating. Then I realized it was screwing up Bit Torrent and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I also couldn’t figure out how to open my email attachments which is pretty important! So I uninstalled it. Then I had remorse and re-installed it and Windows wouldn’t even start. I had to do a system restore.
So now I just ignore that “updates are ready for your computer” message.
I ordered the CD in the mail and it came in about 10 days. I didn’t have any trouble with SP2 until today when I clicked on one thing with my wireless connection settings and everything went to hell.
Turns out I needed a new driver for my adapter, which I downloaded off my Mac, then copied on to a CD and then installed it.
So that seems to be fixed. But you never know.
I’ve had all sorts of problems with my wirless connection with my PC and I am about to fully become a member of the Mac People.
I downloaded it using automatic updates, but haven’t yet installed it. How do I delete it from my computer?
Please advise exactly how to order an update cd by mail. MS advised me 10 days ago that they wanted to download Servce Pack 3 to my dial-up connection. They must not like that my Norton blocks them (and I don’t receive a lot of pictures attached to emails.) They advised that it would take 350 minute, yes, 6 hours. Plus more time for other stuff. Thanks in advance.
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- I just downloaded and installed it yesterday. Nothing horrible happened except that I used my own regular WinXP user-profile to download and run it, and afterwards, all the favorites in my Internet Explorer profile were gone (-the one other person’s IE favorites on this PC are still intact, just mine got lost). That could be really as bummer for someone who only uses IE for surfing, but because I have been using Mozilla for a long time now, I’m not too concerned about anything that was lost–the favorites in my IE profile wer left from a long time ago. I very rarely went into it looking for an old favorite, and only use IE when Mozilla cannot display a page properly, or when I have to go on the MS site for anything. I find it rather telling that they can’t update their own browser without bombing profile data.
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The first three things I did was turn off all the features they openly say that it turns on. That didn’t fix everything however, as they turn off some other things that are controlled elsewhere, outside of the idiot “security bar” thing. It took me a couple hours at a casual pace to find them. I leave IE as the default browser because I have had problems with programs not working right with alternates. My particular problem was that IE would refuse to automatically load and run the Flash pages I create on my own computer. The calling HTML page would load but then IE would first pop up the idiot-yellow-bar, and then when you click that and select “run content”, it pops up another alert box, basically asking you the same thing again. Even though you just said you wanted to “run content”, they feel the need to ask you again. Fucking idiots. It took me a while to find that there’s a checkbox in the internet options for “running active content in local files” or something like that.
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pulehoopo, downloaded updates and the controls for Windows Update reside in a folder titled Software Distribution in your WINDOWS or WINNT32 directory.
I am a week into SP2 so far with no serious trouble (XP Home Edition; Toshiba S1805-s254, 1G Pent.III, 512M RAM). Got it off CD, as my connection is dial-up (still waiting to have broadband available to this address). Before dealing with it did the complete running of every cleanup/safety tool at hand (NortonAV and CleanSweep; BCWipe; GhostSurf; AdAware; SpyBot S&D). Also, visited the sites for all the makers of my software and HW – Symantec, PalmOne, ScanSoft, Toshiba, Tenebril, etc. – to find out what surprises awaited. (That step was very important. My previous Tosh almost died while trying a Windows upgrade, turned out you had to do a whole lot of proprietary pre-upgrade prep to the unit)
So far, so good. It does reset a whole bunch of security settings not only in itself but even in other things so first thing was to go thru the various menus and put things back to where they were before.