With the huge variety of hardware in use, and the assortment of software that breaks for some and doesn't break for others, it appears that SP2 never goes on the same way twice.
Thanks, that's a interesting site. Had I seen it before trying, I probably would've waited a month or two before trying SP2. But since my daughter was "going remote" on a college LAN, I thought it was worth the risk.
After being up almost all night, I finally got her machine working after a fashion but it seems to be some sort of update hybrid - a frankinmachine of sorts. Still not sure what exactly what's updated and what isn't.
Too much fun for one (36 hr) day - I'm going to take a nap...