Do your or your company intend to implement Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)?

Running RC2 at home and at work and both installs went flawlessly...have had no issues since installation a couple weeks ago. We plan on updating our WinXP boxes to SP2 when available.

 

Thanks!

Newt, Arie - thank you for excellent and quick answers, and additional valuable information!

 

Thanks Pete C and Arie for your quick response. I’ll update as soon as it is released.

mopar

 

Wiser to wait for a period of time actually - say a month. This wiil give you a chance to see how this SP fares on a large number of systems and give MS a chance to correct any glithes.

You will also get a chance to see what to expect with it - how the new firewall and the optional AV monitoring work for example.

Regards - Charles

 

Charles

I'll do that, I'll wait for a month or so.

Thanks

mopar

 

okay, this is probably the stupidest poll question I've read today. Sorry, couldn't resist.

I've been a beta tester of SP2 the last couple months, in fact RC2 was quite usable. Get the final asap

 

Good advice - for some users. Horrible advice for others.

If you have only a few PCs to worry with, no problems if one or two go completely nuts with SP2, and have a good way to get rid of it in case of major problems, it's good advice because the SP is a good one.

If you aren't really happy or confident dealing with major issues, probably best as suggested above to wait since no matter how good and stable the SP is, there will be configurations it doesn't like and probably a few quick patches from Microsoft in the early release days to fix those.

If you have a large network and can't afford downtime either on workstations running XP or servers that may be impacted by pieces of SP2 running on the network, then 3-6 months testing is an absolute minimum for safety.

 

I am looking forward to the new Service Pack if only for the cumulative patch side of things. It will make bringing new PC online much easier - for a short while anyway.

I understand where Sparrowhawk is coming from: I think up to date Anti-virus and a good firewall are more important than keeping patches up to date - especially if you can avoid using IE. However, the number of viruses and malware just keeps getting more and more. It's war! and as in the real thing the winners are those who use all the weapons at their disposal and use them well in combination. You can't win a war with strategic bombing, infantry alone, fast tanks or artillary barrages. You need all four working together. Same with defeating malware - use all the weapons you have in concert. One day something will come along that will bypass your firewall and hit you before your AV can get updated and you'll wish you patched the underlying vulnarability it targets.

As a last point it is worth noting that some of the cleverest viruses are using combations of attacks - that requires combined defence.