Langa Letter: Real-Life Experiences With XP's SP2

(note from Stoat: This article goes on for eleven pages and so I'm only going to post an excerpt. Please be sure to go to the original article and read more than what I've posted here because there's a tremendous amount of real-world information that I would consider essential reading if you're considering the XP-2 patch either for your PC or for your enterprise)

Forget the ivory-tower pundits--here are first-hand reports from the trenches, relayed by your peers who've already installed the new Service Pack.

By Fred Langa, InformationWeek Sept. 6, 2004 URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=46200911

You've heard a lot about Windows XP's new "Service Pack 2" (SP2) lately here on InformationWeek.com, on TechWeb, and elsewhere on the Web. (See, for example, Patch as Patch Can, Microsoft Makes XP Service Pack 2 Available Via Update And CD, IE Flaw Affects Windows XP SP2 Systems and more.

I've also covered the huge new patch on my site and in my newsletter. In fact, in a recent issue I asked readers to share their first-hand experiences with SP2. After all, punditry and prognostication only go so far: At some point, it's better to hear about real-life experiences in real production environments and on real desktops.

Within days, I'd gotten hundreds of user reports, ranging from simple one-line "thumbs up/down" messages to detailed analyses of what went right and wrong. It made for fascinating reading--a wealth of hard-won, first-hand information.

At first, I started to boil down the E-mails, trying to develop statistics. But I soon realized that was unwise: Although I could perform simple counts and ratios, boiling down the E-mails lost their essence and removed the most-important information, which was in the detail.

So, I decided on a "Plan B." Yes, I'd do the rough counts and ratios, but I'd also present to you a broad sampling of the reader letters in their original form and in each writer's own voice so you could gain not only the raw "pass/fail" information on SP2, but also see exactly what kind of problems cropped up and what kinds of systems had no trouble at all.

Note that many of the reader reports I got were not 100% clear-cut. Often, a reader reporting overall satisfaction with SP2 would still cite several minor glitches and snags; or someone reporting unhappiness with the patch might still say, in essence, "everything worked fine except for this problem...."

So I categorized the reader mail into two large groups: general satisfaction, and general dissatisfaction. Where possible, I used each reader's own assessment, even if I might have judged a given problem to be more or less severe than did the reader: My thought was to let the reader's voice sound through, uncolored by me.

Although this is primarily an anecdotal (nonstatistical) exercise, it's still interesting to note that, overall, readers reported more SP2 successes than failures by about a two to one margin. But a number of the reports of successes with SP2 involved multiple machine installations (in some cases, hundreds of PCs), so the actual success/failure ratio is even higher. SP2 does seem to work, more often than not.

But there were still enough problems to suggest that SP2 should be approached with caution. While some of the reported problems are relatively minor, others are true show-stoppers that require either uninstalling SP2, or totally reinstalling XP from scratch.

You've successfully completed a pilot roll-out in your environment and You have a full backup (preferably a disk image) of each system you'll be upgrading. Although the overall reader experiences are encouraging--more positives than negatives--there clearly are enough rough edges to warrant great caution before opening the floodgates to SP2 in your enterprise.

But you can make up your own mind: Here's a sampling from the first 100 or so of the reader E-mails I got from early adopters of SP2. In these notes, you'll hear your peers, fellow professionals, end users--users of all stripes--say in their own words what worked and what didn't with SP2.

Later, after you've read these, please add your voice: Click over to the discussion area and tell us your SP2 experience! Sample SP2 Problem Reports Hi, Fred... I thought I would drop you a quick note on the first operational problem I have come across with XP SP2. I operate a small computer consultancy as well as manage network security for a federal government agency and one of the ways I customize XP installations is to alter the Start button with custom names. One of the sites that has these instructions is theeldergeek.com (great site) and the process renames EXPLORER.EXE after alteration and edits the registry to cause the renamed explorer to be called during boot. Unfortunately, XP SP2 apparently installs a new explorer.exe without changing the registry call. The old, edited, renamed explorer.exe isn't compatible with the new service pack code base and hangs the PC ... prior to any GUI load. This has made it very difficult to correct once XP SP2 has been installed. Users of this particular tweak will need to edit the registry to call the original, unaltered explorer prior to installing XP SP2 and then go through the modification process again if they still desire a customized button. Hope this helps some folks avoid this pitfall.

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Hi, Fred: I'd like to pass this along--Win SP2 doesn't play nice with any system that uses L2TP (Level 2 Tunnel Protocol) VPN to connect to a NAT-T fixed server or host. SP2 hoses the NAT-T fix and renders connection next to impossible; you might want to pass this along. Good luck to those brave readers who install SP2 without waiting until at least November for all the bug fixes. Please, everyone: Turn auto update off for a few months.

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Hi, Fred, You ask for users' input about SP2. Well, as a consultant, I have to keep on the "Cutting Edge", so I took the big jump and installed it.

Now, quick info about the system: 3.0c GHz, 1 gig of ram, 256 MB DDR 400, G-force 5700 home built system. I installed SP2 almost two weeks ago. The system seemed to be fine, everything seemed to work. But I started noticing things. Windows Media player: If I click on a video file to run, it may start, or it may just hang and have to be eventually killed in the process list. If I kill the process and then try to restart by clicking on the video, it will lock up again. I have to wait for up to 5 minutes for it to "Clear out". I also found that if I triple click it's better, about 50/50 for program starts.

My wireless mouse and keyboard unit started flashing constantly, and this kills the batteries in the devices within days. This occurs constantly now. At first, it was just a little thing, I noticed that the unit that is plugged in was flashing... I then noticed that my mouse was flashing back. All this while I wasn't touching it and it had been sitting for a good 15 minutes. Usually, if left that long, I have to click on the mouse to re-activate it. But it was instantly responsive. So, I removed the batteries from the units, and still the box kept on flashing. I also run a 4 port Kvm switch, and thought this might be the culprit, so I took it out of the mix, but the unit still flashes, and the mouse and keyboard's batteries die within 48 hours. Funny thing, if I switched the KVM from that system to the other XP or one of the 2 Linux systems, it stopped flashing. I've used the KVM and the Wireless mouse for well over 6 months now, so, I didn't think they were the problem.

My Internet speed has dropped drastically to that system. I have the Extreme DSL package. I have 2 XP systems, and I can view Web sites in half the time on the system without SP2. It's also half the machine. P4 1.5. I have run every conceivable adware/spyware program to keep it clean. I run Diskeeper to keep the drive unfragmented, but now after two weeks the system is jerky, gets unresponsive, kind of freezes, and then suddenly everything I clicked on pops up. This continues to occur and gets worse to the point where I just have to reboot it. Again, this only occurred since the SP2 install. Prior, my machine was tested and was as smooth as you could want. I have no idea why it's acting jerky... I've run through the process list and can't find any service that's using any time up... the system idle is always at or around 98%. My CPU usage is a bit higher now, normally averaged around 6% to 8%, and now is averaging around 10% to 12%.

MS Office products... Now this is interesting, as I have a mismatch of Office. Primary is Office XP, but I have recently upgraded to Outlook 2003 and FrontPage 2003, which were quite a bit different, so, of course I had to get them to keep up with my clients. After about 2-3 months of running these programs with no incidents at all, after the SP2 install, I suddenly had to reload the CD, as the programs said they had files 'missing'. It has done this now 4 times with Outlook 2003 and FrontPage 2003, and three times with the Office XP CD. Each time was an individual case. I haven't installed anything new, or made any changes, but when I start Outlook or FrontPage, it will randomly ask for the CDs to be put in so it can "Copy" some missing files. What's deleting these files? At first I thought it was something MS did to check on possibly pirated software, but this is a little beyond...I mean, I think after the first time, I proved I had the originals. I've rebooted my computer now more in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 3 months. I have currently 15 incidents open with Microsoft.

For those that haven't loaded it, don't. I'm very careful with my computers. I run Adaware, Spybot, Diskeeper, Norton AV Corporate and AVG. Right now, I'm looking to wiping this computer out and re-installing it. Thank goodness it's my test machine and not used for anything else at the moment. Sorry, you asked. ;)

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Fred -- I installed SP2 and had to remove it almost immediately. It let me access OE and that was it. I could open most of my programs but couldn't open IE 6, at all, so I couldn't surf the Web from there. I should have listened to you and waited. Luckily, I had a back up to restore to my original configuration.

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Fred, I just wanted to let you know of my experience with Windows XP SP2. I installed it on three of my machines, two desktops and a laptop. It installed OK on all three machines and at first seemed to work OK on all of them. But on one of the desktops I started having problems when I tried to access any Web pages using Internet Explorer. I compared the security settings between the three systems and they all were set exactly the same, as was the firewall and other settings. After some time, I decided to uninstall SP2 using the uninstall in the add/remove folder. I was completely surprised that after about 45 minutes and a reboot that I was sitting right back at the system as it was before I began the upgrade. I don't know what might have been the problem, but once I was back at SP1, all Web browsing worked just as expected.

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Fred, Well, I was one of those who went ahead and installed SP2. And naturally had a problem. It appeared all was fine. The auto-update screen came up, checked that, went to the next screen where it lists your firewall, antivirus, etc., read through that, looked, and didn't see anything saying next or exit, so I clicked the x in upper right corner, then nothing. All I had was my desktop wallpaper, no taskbar or anything! I pulled up task manager and it showed all my processes running as normal. Needless to say, I had to boot in safe mode and un-install SP2.

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Hi, Fred! Just a note about XP SP2. I repair and troubleshoot PCs for a living, so I see all sorts of strange things. Had a PC which keeps rebooting--turns out it was "updated" with SP2. Managed to get to the Windows Desktop and discovered that it was riddled with 27 different Trojans and 79 spyware/malware issues. It also sported a cracked, but disabled, copy of Norton AV 2003/2004 (don't know if the Trojans had disabled it--that happens!--or whether SP2 had). Pretty certain these issues were why SP2 failed--couldn't reinstall SP2 at all and, after an 8-hour stint, was informed that I couldn't uninstall it, either! Had to install a parallel copy of the operating system, upgrade that straight away to SP2, copy all the user's documents over, and delete the old installation. Seems to me that the best way to install SP2 is to install it on a virgin installation, then install software, etc. I'm dreading installing SP2 on my production PC (never had a virus or intrusion--router, firewall, AV & Spybot S&D). Only got 120 days or so left before I have to bite the bullet :(

Kind regards, Nigel Perels More Sample Problem Reports Fred, I was one of the brave few, as you so appropriately put it. I removed it just today after having had it in operation for about 3 weeks. I didn't have any major problems, but I did have some aggravating issues pop up that made me feel as if it were at fault. Outlook 2003 has been doing funny things and my wireless network has been a disaster for several days. Mostly the SP2 on the XP machine would cause the W98se machine to lock in the IP and it wouldn't release or could not be renewed.

The weird thing was that both machines would access the Web, but the W98 could not see the XP and the XP could see the shared folders on the W98 but could not see the machine itself. There were a few shut downs to BSOD, but the machine would reboot OK. I had heard that the wireless networking component and Linksys were at odds. I believe this because of the network problems I had. My AVG antivirus shut down several times and didn't perform its nightly scan but was fully functional. These are some of the types of madness I had, so now I'll try without it for a period and see how it goes.

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Hi, Fred! I must have installed SP2 without realizing it, and immediately had no sound. I went to control panel to uninstall most of the SP2 update, but one packet remains, and I don't know how to remove it. Luckily for me, my Santa Cruz is once again producing sound. My Dell computer has a Pentium 4 chip at 1.7 GHz, about 640 Mb of RAM, and was shipped with Windows ME. I had difficulty with the XP drivers for the sound card when I switched to XP. I'm not surprised to be having problems again....

At Add/Remove Programs within Control Panel, the last remaining element of SP2 is labeled: Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) [ See KB810243 for more informationÓ underneath is the phrase "click here for support information." If I click on the link another window pops up with the same message, and a little more detail. What's missing is the option to add or remove the program. Is this one of Microsoft's "once it is installed, it cannot be removed" deals? If I have a functioning sound card now, should I worry about removing the remainder of SP2? And finally, it seems that I might expect problems from this since it no longer has the rest of SP2 to interact with.

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Fred, Microsoft has this date issued a release of programs that have issues with SP2. Check here I agree that you are right in saying DO NOT RUSH INTO DOWNLOADING SP2.

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Fred -- This rather long list below should serve as a warning about installing WIN-XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) prematurely...

Star Trek StarFleet Command III v1.0 Activision Medieval Total War 1 Activision Pagemaker 7 Adobe PageMaker (German) 6.5 Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 Adobe Ad-Shield 3 Ad-sheild ERDisk for AD 6.7.128.0 Aelita Nero 6 Ultra 6 Ahead Nero Bruning ROM 5.5.6 Ahead Al Mawrad (Arabic) 2003 Al Ariss PhotoClick --- Al Maalin AOL 9 AOL AOL Toolkit 1.13.2 AOL Uno 1 Aris Buenaventura Dead Man's Hand 1 Atari MotoRacer 3 Atari Scrabble v3.0 Atari Unreal II 1 Atari Unreal Tournament 2003 1 Atari Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition 1 Atari Extra Enterprise 2000 2000 --- Attachmate Extra Personal Client 6.5 --- Attachmate Extra! Bundle for TCP/IP 6.6 --- Attachmate KEA! 340 v5.1 --- Attachmate Command Antivirus 4.9 authentium AutoCAD 2004 2004 --- Autodesk bv-Admin Mobile 7 --- Bind View StarCraft 1.05 Blizzard BitDefender 7.2 Blizzard Starcraft v1.11 Blizzard Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Collector's Edition v 1.0 Blizzard Patrol for Windows 2000 3.4.0.11 --- BMC Word Perfect Family Pack 5 - Encyclopedia Britannica Ready Reference 2003 Britannica WISO Sparbuch 2004 Buhl InnoculateIT --- CA MpegCraft DVD x Caropus Citrix ICA client 7.1 Citrix FileMaker Pro (German) 5 Claris ArcServe 6.61 Computer Associates ArcServe 7.0 --- Computer Associates BrightStor ArcServe Backup 9.0 --- Computer Associates eTrust 7 Computer Associates eTrust 6.0.100 --- Computer Associates Etrust EZArmor AE Test Computer Associates Corel Draw 9 - PhotoPaint (German) 9 Corel WordPerfect Office 11 Corel 1st and 2nd Grade Excelerator Curious George Studio 1 --- Countertop Software Serious Sam: The Second Encounter 1 Croteam Retrospect Client x Dantz Dave's Quick Search Toolbar 3.16 Dave Bau http://notesbydave.com/toolbar/doc.htm Diet KaZaa 2.52 Diet KaZaa The Lion King Animated Storybook 1 Disney DivxPlayer 2.5.3 Divx Command & Conquer Generals --- EA Games Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour --- EA Games Earth & Beyond v.1 EA Games Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 1 EA Games SimCity 4 v1.0 EA Games Freedom Force 1 Electronic Arts NBA Live 2000 1 Electronic Arts CheckSoft Home and Business 2004 Eliibrium EDM File System Agent 3.1 --- EMC Chess Advantage III: Lego Chess --- Encore High School Advantage 2003 --- Encore Software Encyclopedia Britannica 2000 Deluxe 1 Encyclopedia Britannica SmarTerm Office 10 --- Esker.com SmarTerm Office 11 --- Esker.com Diskeeper 8 Executive Software Der Brockhaus Multimedia (German) 2004 F.A. Brockhaus JAWS 5.0 5 Freedom Scientific F-Secure 5.52 F-Secure Drivers & Utilities CD --- Fujitsu-Siemmens Cute FTP 5.0 --- GlobalScape Conflict: Desert Storm --- Gothamgames Window-Eyes Professional 4.2 GW Micro HP Quick Launch Buttons --- HP HP SJ 6350 --- HP HPSetup 42NAheBLU1 SW build --- HP Exceed 8 --- Hummingbird Host Explorer 8 --- Hummingbird Rational's Clearcase 2003 IBM ViaVoice for Windows Personal Edition 10 10 IBM SmartSuite Millennium Edition ScreenCam (German) 9.5 IBM Lotus ICQ Pro 3916 ICQ iMesh 3.1 iMesh TurboCAD Professional 9 IMSI Installshield 8 Installshield Quicken 2003 Premier Home and Business 2003 Intuit Quicken Deluxe 2001 2001 Intuit Kazaa 2.52 Kazaa Kerio Personal Firewall 4 Kerio WinRoute 4.25 Kerio Playzone Preschool - Kindergarten - Jump Start Spelling 1 Knowledge Adventure Live Journal Semagic 1.3.9.6 Live Journal SmartSuite Millennium Edition - Fast Site --- Lotus Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic --- Lucas Arts Merriam Webster's Reference Library 2003 - Journey to the Planets 2003 M-2K ColdFusion MX for J2EE 6 --- Macromedia Freehand 8 (German) 8 Macromedia MapSend Direct Route --- Magellan McAfee Internet Security Suite 2004 6 McAfee McAfee Parental Controls 1 McAfee McAfee VirusScan 4.51 McAfee NetShield 4.5 --- McAfee VirusScan 7 McAfee Encarta Encyclopdia 2002 Microsoft Age of Empires II: Age of Kings --- Microsoft Application Center 2000 SP2 --- Microsoft BizTalk 2004 --- Microsoft CMS 2001 Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3 1 Microsoft Excel 2003 Microsoft Halo Combat Evolved (Arabic and Hebrew) Trial Microsoft MapPoint Europe 2004 Microsoft Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 SP1 Microsoft MS License 3.7 Microsoft MSBN --- Microsoft MSN 7.02 Microsoft MSN 9 QFE1 and 9.1 beta 9 Microsoft Office 11 Microsoft Office - Power Point 2002 (German) 2002 Microsoft Office Access 2002 2002 Microsoft Office System - Power Point 2003 Microsoft Office XP Access 10 Microsoft Office XP Professional Excel 10.0 SP2 --- Microsoft Office XP SP2 - PowerPoint 11 Microsoft Office XP Standard 10 Microsoft Outlook 2000 9 Microsoft Outlook 2002 10 Microsoft Outlook 2003 11 Microsoft Outlook Web Access x Microsoft Revenge of Arcade v1.0 Microsoft Server Administrator Tools --- Microsoft SMS 2.0 SP5 Microsoft SMS 2.0 SP5 Microsoft SMS 2003 RC2 Microsoft SMS 2003 RTM Microsoft SMS --- Microsoft SNA Server 4.0 SP4 --- Microsoft SQL --- Microsoft SQL 7 Microsoft SQL 2000a 2000a SP3 --- Microsoft TaxSaver 1999 Microsoft Virutal PC 2004 Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Microsoft Visual C++ (16-bit) 2 Microsoft Visual Studio 7 Microsoft Visual Studio 97 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Enterprise 2003 --- Microsoft Visual Studio 98 6 Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 2 Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services --- Microsoft Word XP Microsoft Works Suite 2004 2004 Microsoft WSS 2 Microsoft Musicmatch Jukebox 8.20.0107 Musicmatch StyleSelector x NEC Veritas --- NEC AppManager 5.01 NetIQ End2End 4.1 --- NetIQ File and Storage Administrator 2.1 (191067) --- NetIQ VewNow 1.05 1.05 NetManage.com View Now 1.0 1 NetManage.com ViewNow 1.05 1.05 NetManage.com McAfee Remote Desktop 32 --- Network Associates ESET NOD32 for windows --- Nod32 Norman Personal Firewall 1.40 AETEST Norman Norman Personla Firewall 4 Norman Becky 12.09.01 KaZaa Media Desktop 2.6.3 PhotoImpact 7 (Traditional Chinese) 7 Sony: PCV-W510G 510G Super Collapse (Demo Only) 2 UX Theme MultiPatcher 1.5.1 PhotoExplosion Deluxe 1 Nova Development NovaNet Web 3.6 NovaStor Pinnacle Studio Beta NX - Pinnacle Studio 9 cause data execution prevention errors Instant CD/DVD 7 Pinnacle Real Player (free version) 10 Real Networks Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield 1 Red Storm Action Request System x Redmedy Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne 1 RockStar Games NASCAR Racing 2003 Season v2003 --- Sierra Tribes 2 1 Sierra Harvard Graphics 3 Software Publishing Corp SonicWALL Virus Scan --- SonicWall Sony: PCV-V200G: --- Sony VirusSecurity 2004 2004 Sourcenext BootSkin x Stardock Ghost Corporate Edition 7.5 --- Symantec Norton Antivirus 2003 2003 Symantec Norton Systemworks 2003 - GoBack Personal Edition Other MS Symantec Norton Systemworks 2003 Professional Edition 2003 Symantec Norton Systemworks 2004 - GoBack32 Beta Symantec PCAnywhere 11 --- Symantec Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition 8 Symantec Talkworks Pro x Symantec Winfax Pro 10 Symantec Roboword Pro (JAPANESE) 6 Technocraft Style XP 2 tgtsoft Eclipse 3 Unknown Midnight Outlaw: Illegal Street Drag 1 Valuesoft Roller Coaster Factory v3.0 Valuesoft Elite Forces Vietnam: Special Assignment 2 ver 1 ver 1 Valusoft Midnight Outlaw Illegal Street Drug v1.0 ValuSoft Backup Exec 9 Veritas Backup Exec 9.1.4691 Veritas Backup Exec 8.6.1 --- Veritas Backup Exec 9.1 --- Veritas BackupExec 9.1 Veritas BackupExec 8.6.1 Veritas Bakcup Exec 9.1 --- Veritas Volume Manager 3.1 3.1 Veritas Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 v1.0 Westwood Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 1 Westwood Windgate 5.2.3 WinGate Reflection 9 WRQ Reflection 9.03 WRQ Reflection 10 WRQ Reflection X 10 WRQ Reflection X 11 WRQ Reflection X 10 --- WRQ Xoreax Incredibuild --- Xoreax Yahoo x Yahoo Yahoo instant Messenger x Yahoo Yahoo Messenger 6.0.0.167 Yahoo PC Magazine Business Winstone Benchmark 2004 Ziff Davis ZoneAlarm 5.0.590 ZoneLabs

Wait at least a month or two until the dust settles and all the *bugs* (features?) get worked out!

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Hi, Fred -- I think waiting 120 days is a "real good" idea, but that's just my opinion.... Microsoft's toolkit or this toolkit for those of us that heed your newsletters suggestions) blocks XP's SP2 from downloading for 120 days. Dan Fred, I installed SP2 this last weekend and lost my NetDefense Firewall (VCOM System Suite 5). Before installing SP2 I did a total backup using Acronis, then did a System Restore, and a Recovery Commander checkpoint, then I disabled my NetDefense Firewall so that there would not be a possible conflict with SP2 when it did the install. After the installation I went in and disabled the Windows firewall but I could not get NetDefense to load properly. I rebooted and the NetDefense splash screen appeared, so it seemed to be loading, but when I checked NetDefense it was not activated. Whenever I tried to activate NetDefense I got an error message. I contacted VCOM and they suggested that I uninstall System Suite and then re-install the program. I plan on doing that this weekend (when I have some time). Meanwhile, I turned the Windows firewall back on just so that I would have some protection.

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Fred, I'm running Win XP Home (fat 32) on one of my computers and since it's a system that I use to experiment with various freeware programs, I decided to install the full SP2 download. The installation went well; however, upon reboot, the system hung. This repeated itself until I removed Norton's Antivirus 2004. I suspected the problem was either Zone Alarm or Norton's and since I had been having problems with Norton's installing a recent program update, I removed it. It worked fine for a while thereafter. I installed Nod32 Antivirus without difficulty. Zone Alarm ver 5.1.0011 works fine. Recently, I have been experiencing "hangs" when I shut down or reboot. Today I am reinstalling an image of my SP1 system using Acronis True Image. I will wait before I install SP2 on any of my XP computers.

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Hi, Fred: You asked for feedback on SP2. In my case, SP2 fixed 1 problem and caused 3 problems, none serious. I installed the network version (260 mb) on my Pentium 4 3 GHz for which I have an older machine as backup on a LAN. The Pentium runs XP Home version; the older computer runs well on ME, with an occasional system restore!! The Pentium was giving problems of not shutting down and SP2 fixed that. Problem 1: The computer would not print to a Canon MPC190 printer/scanner and slowed the computer down when I clicked on My Computer--there was no response to that request for 70 seconds+ . The fix was found online where Scott Woodward and others write... "edit the file MPNETIPC.INI, change 127.0.0.2 in this file to 127.0.0.1, this will fix your problems. The file should be located in \windows\system32" This worked, but I had to go to safe mode to change it by Notepad to edit the file. The info was not on the Canon website when I looked a few days ago. The company I bought the computer from did not respond to my E-mail request for help.

Problem 2: Nero Burning ROM required a new version--it identified that fact and directed me to the Nero new version, which installed with no problems.

Problem 3: The Pentium would not access Internet through my router until I allowed it as an exception in the Security Centre in XP SP2, as designed. Overall, SP2 has worked well to date. But I would not install SP2 on any machine used in business applications where there is no other computer as backup.

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Fred, While I respect your advice, I went ahead and installed SP2 on my XP Home system. Actually, it proceeded flawlessly and I've disabled its firewall as I use Norton's, but so far I've seen only two problems that I think I can attribute to it.

1) On certain Web sites that use Java applets (www.speakeasy.com, www.broadbandreports.com), automatic/manual links within those applets that should advance to a results page do not work. I've checked IE's security settings and don't see anything that has been changed or added. I also updated to the latest version of Java. Others report no problems on these specific sites, so maybe it's something else, but they were working before SP2.

2) More troubling, my upload ability via FireWire to my NOMAD player is broken (I can download to my PC and do editing on the NOMAD, so the connection is established OK). I've written to Creative TS about this and the answer, so far, is to do a cleanup maintenance with NOMAD and, as a last resort, update FireWire and format, in which case I'll lose 13GBs of MP3s. And, of course, no guarantees that the format will solve the problem. Yikes! Other than that, everything's cool. Shoulda listened to you, though. Damn!

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I doubt anyone will read about SP2 breaking explorer.exe in the MSKB ever. It did on my system.

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Fred, Installed SP2 in two PCs at home ... I could no longer launch the scanner and camera wizard after the update. I could no longer transfer pics from my camera to the PC. I uninstalled it.

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Dear Fred, Last week I was honored by Microsoft by the auto-update icon in my system tray telling me I could download SP2. Because I had decided to follow your and other people's advice to wait updating to SP2 until others have served as the guinea pigs, I unchecked the check mark in the "Choose updates to download" window and clicked Close. This has never caused problems in the past with some security updates that weren't relevant for me. But now the auto-update icon keeps reappearing. When in Task Manager I end the process: wuaudt.exe, the icon disappears for a second then re-appears. In Task Manager there are now 2 instances of wuaudt.exe, one with my name, the other with System. So Bill Gates is force-feeding me SP2 by pestering me with his icon.

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Fred, I downloaded and installed XP SP2, and it "broke" my homepage, which is an html page of my favorites generated by a program called Create Favorites Homepage (v 2.6), freeware that I found about from the LangaList. Now IE 6 is getting all worried about this "dangerous script" and won't load it unless I specifically tell it to "allow blocked content" by clicking on the information bar. All the settings I tried to tweak didn't seem to have an effect, and at the same time I don't want to leave the door wide open for stuff I do not want in. How do I let IE know that this file is just fine, thank you very much?

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Hi, Fred, I downloaded the full admin install and tried to build a fresh, new system from scratch with SP2. The results were terminally frustrating. I installed XP-SP1 from CD plus the Intel motherboard drivers for the NIC. I brought the operating system up to date with Windows update (rebooting more frequently than probably necessary to make sure that each update was fully incorporated). I then installed SP2 from the downloaded file and rebooted. The story ends here every time. The systems seem to normally boot until sometime during the screen with the MS Logo and progress bar. There it stops. I tried this with a broad variety of hardware (discs, memory, power supplies, video cards) from my stash. The constant was the motherboard. I tried more than one of the Intel boards. Same result. My conclusion is to suspect a fundamental incompatability with the Intel boards that I have. I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else so I am not confident in my results but very concerned. BTW, the upgrade was tried on one of our IBM T30s and went off without a hitch (well, except for a continuous stream of comments from the user about it being in his face in one way or another all the time. I'm not sure that means anything, however. Just thought I'd share my experience, thank you for asking.

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Hi Fred, My XP tester PC had SP2-RC1 on it with no problem, so I allowed the installation of the final version of SP2. Just a minor problem or 2 so far, the scroll wheel feature of the cheapo Genica mouse quit working and the PC seems to have slowed just a bit, which is to be expected, I suppose.

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I took SP2 for a new PC I am building so that this will be my stable image. So far problems are in your face reminders that I am sure I will find how to tweak out. For instance, the icon in the systray that keeps telling me I am not secure drives me nuts . I switched off the default junk it turns on as I do other things to protect my PC. As for applicat8ions nothing so far but I have yet to get to Outlook IE is locked down and Active X disabled which prevents myPlaceware (bought by Microsoft and Softiesed) from working unless you turn it back on . Otherwise, so far it seems OK.

Nick Hi Fred, I installed SP2 on a brand new Dell Inspiron 1150, 2.4GHz Celeron. This machine was only going to be used for Word, Outlook Express & IE, so I figured it would be safe. After SP2 (the 'full' 272-Mb version), the machine was very slow. System Properties showed Celeron(R) CPU 2.40-GHz 287 MHz, which seemed to indicate it was running at 287 MHz. It certainly behaved like it. To cut a long story short, it turned out that rolling back the processor driver restored the speed. This was solved with the help of members of the Dell Community Forums, not Dell themselves who just referred me to Microsoft. This particular problem only seemed to affect Inspiron 1150's.

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Fred: I downloaded SP2 and regardless of what I tried, I couldn't access the Windows Firewall settings. Nor did the Windows Firewall service appear on my services listing. Because I couldn't turn it off, my laptop could not communicate with my desktop (the one one with SP2). I could access the laptop, but not vice versa. Microsoft tech help has not been able to solve this problem with me yet.

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Correct Fred! Install SP2 and down goes several programs. I had my computer serviced at a well respected tech house. As a "gift" they installed SP2. Could not access Internet. Worked hours trying to troubleshoot why I could contact my ATT dial up then get the screen...Page Cannot Be Displayed. Even called ATT and spoke with a sweet woman in India who read a Microsoft Tech Page I had downloaded months ago and used in my troubleshoot. (Let's get Tech back OnShore!! I meant no disrespect to the lady but I did get tired of asking her to repeat what she had just said.)

Problem solved without help from ATT offshore tech: I did a total Uninstall of Norton FireWall. Did a quick connect without FireWall. Connected! Reinstalled Norton FireWall. Connected to Net and redownloaded Symantec Security updates. After four days I am back on the Web.

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Hi, Fred -- About a week ago I turned on my PC and found a different icon on my task bar! Held my mouse arrow on it and read approx.[Microsoft would like to install SP2 do you wish to continue or start later] I clicked OK or whatever, and away it went for about 40 minutes, then a restart took about 5 minutes. First thing that bugged me was an E-mail from a friend had a line in yellow saying that OE wouldn't let me open it. Incensed, I E-mailed Microsoft saying I objected and would like to make my own decisions. Got a nice reply by a gal named Jayne telling me how to disable that feature. Great. The only other thing I noticed was my auto-virus scan I do each Friday took 2 hours and 5 minutes instead of the usual 57 minutes. Just remembered one other thing--after the long reboot, it would not restart and I had to physically shut it off and then power up again.

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Hi, Fred -- I'm a subscriber to your newsletter and think it's great. I learn things or about great sites and products/programs in every edition. The reason I'm writing is that I let MS install SP2 on my Gateway 700XL automatically, in spite of your recommendation to not do so.

So far, I've encountered only one problem. As part of a special incentive package when I got my computer, it came with Money 2002 installed. After updating to SP2, whenever I use Windows Explorer or go to browse my "C" drive, the Windows installer starts and it attempts to install updates for Money 2002. It gets so far and then requests the original CD from which the program was installed because it needs a file not already on my system--it doesn't indicate which one. I can't locate the CD, so I cancel the install, but it comes back immediately. I must cancel out of it 3-4 times before it stops regenerating itself. However, if I'm still in Windows Explorer or the browser window for the "C" drive and select any program or file, it triggers the installation process all over again. I opened the Windows Security Center and de-selected the automatic update in favor of "Notify me, but don't automatically download and install them", restarted my PC, but it didn't help. I haven't gone to MS support or to any of the online user support sites to see if anyone knows how to address this problem. I guess my other option is to try and locate the CD, assuming I received one in the first place. Anyway, that's the only bugaboo I've experienced to date.

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Dear Fred, The XP SP2 did download on my computer automatically and I thought I would give it a try. Well, it crashed my PC and Windows would not start; only got a black screen with white letters. I was able to go into safe mode and do a system restore, which put my computer back into working order. I have turned off automatic updating and will wait to reinstall the SP2, if ever.

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Fred, Literally two hours before your newsletter recommending against it, I'd already downloaded (about 3 hours) the 266 MB Windows XP SP2. ...Two major glitches. #1 DSL (PPOE type) slowed to a trickle. A call-in to the local BellSouth tech reached no resolution. After going in circles for about an hour, I asked for and got a supervisor. He proved to be "super." The primary issue resolved with a Safe Mode reboot, uninstallation of the onboard Ethernet card on a Compaq Armada E500, followed by a reboot to normal mode where the system recognized and reinstalled its card. Now we're back up to speed.

The "information bar" in IE Explorer went "bye-bye" quickly after it refused to allow me to load My Favorites Homepage, an older software program recommended in LangaList long ago and much enjoyed. Seems ActiveX is automatically rejected now. I went back to security in IE and checked off those areas. No problems there now.

Best, Michael Talley Sample SP2 Success Reports So far I've done two SP2 updates--very recently, so no long-term observations. But, they did go on quicker then other service packs. No glitches, no problems with the install. Quick and easy. Had to turn off the virus and firewall warnings. It wasn't satisfied with Symantec Antivirus and kept warning me, and I have not tested the firewall yet although I have hopes that it will be good enough to use. I did Ghost it first since I will have a couple problem machines if 15% of the installs fail [as has been reported elsewhere].

Dave Bower, Joint Warfighting Center, Joint Training, Analysis, & Simulation Center, JW900 Systems Engineering

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I work as head of user tech support for a local hospital, and the one small headache that the Service Pack has caused is in regards to the new firewall. Since the hospital itself is heavily firewalled off, I COULD just disable the firewall completely, but that would be no fun (GRIN). I need to be able to access my office system from any of our four sub-nets; however, the default setting is to allow access to only your own subnet. With the service pack being so new, there's not a lot of information to be found on Google yet. However, about 10 minutes of playing around trying to get the proper syntax to allow access from all four sub-nets seems to have resolved even this minor problem. Wildcards do not seem to be supported (unfortunately!) and I don't want to have to list all 400+ IP Address' that may be in use at any one time... Note that I AM taking your's and Microsoft's advice and am NOT rolling this out yet to all our systems--I'm not quite THAT Brave !! mark me as a happy camper (GRIN)

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Fred, I've had nothing but GREAT success from installing SP2 on my XP Pro Machine office system. I first installed the Service pack back in release candidate 2, prior to installing this, I had been experiencing 2 to 3 HARD lock-ups per day where updating chipset drivers, Video drivers Etc did not help, however since the installation of the Service Pack, I have not experienced a single lock-up...I'm happy!

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Fred, we maintain a handful of servers / workstations, about 60 from several different clients. One client got the SP2 updates via Windows updates, obviously prior to it being pulled. The only issues we had was one computer didn't have enough free disk space, but the other nine installed fine. However, we do our maintenance remotely, and the auto-enabled feature of the firewall caused some issues with connecting to these machines, but we were able to work around that by stopping the service. All in all, no known issues for this update. The update does in fact block some known vulnerabilities, and we are anal about applying these type patches as soon as they are released. We're also aware that these updates have caused issues where systems had to be completely reloaded (mostly NT4), but feel it's worth the risk of reload versus intrusion. This being said, I will agree a 233 meg download (compressed) service pack does scare the heck out of us.

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Used auto-download, auto-install... Noticed download taking place, so closed my firewall/antivirus programs... Whole process took about 45 min. No problems, everything still works :) It did leave a lot of junk files in its wake, so cleaned them out after a couple days.

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Fred, Regarding your request for feedback from those who have installed SP2, I've done so on about a dozen systems of various configurations and ages in the past two weeks (desktops and laptops). There were absolutely no problems with any of them -- either during or after upgrade. In each case I "patched" an existing SP1 installation rather than formatting and slipstreaming. The only issues noticed were that in a couple of cases the new Security Center did not recognize that Norton Anti-Virus was active, even after downloading the new NAV updates (the most important being the Norton WMI Update). Obviously, this is just a cosmetic issue since NAV is actually active and running in the background. The two options at this point are to either simply ignore the message or to reinstall NAV and then download the update again. At our site (tweakxp.com forums) I am recommending that all home users download the update. So many of the problems reported to us over the years by less sophisticated users (and even some power users for that matter) are a result of spyware and viruses that I'd much rather see a forced implementation of the new security measures incorporated into sp2 than worry about some program incompatibilities or other minor issues we can address later. Note I said "home users". Businesses clearly have to decide for themselves. We have had very few, if any, reports of serious problems after sp2 installation at our site. And Fred, in my visits to other forums it is clear to me that a vast majority of the problems reported by users were either avoidable, foreseeable, correctable or trivial. I hate to disagree with your "wait and see" recommendation, but it is my considered opinion SP2 should be implemented by most of your readers as soon as possible.

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Hi Fred, I have a network with about 125 machines that are a mix of W2K and WXP with about 11 W98 thrown in for good measure. I upgraded the 51 XP machines to SP2. 50 had no problems at all. 1 machine Asus P4C800 mb (identical hardware to 1 other machine, same MB as 5 others) made it through the install, shut down but would not boot. I tried to get to safe mode command prompt, but it hangs in the same spot each time (not sure exactly where, but right when it gets to the bottom of the screen listing the drivers it is installing MUP.sys maybe?). Tried a fresh install of WXP and had the same result after installing SP2. Tried an image of a working machine with compatible hardware drivers that already had SP2 installed, and it hangs in same spot. I tried switching memory, to no effect. I ended up leaving that machine at SP1 until I find a solution.

I recently switched from Win2000 to WinXP SP2 and have had an excellent experience. My homebuilt Athlon 64 system is rock-solid with it, and is not slower than with Win2000, which was my biggest fear.

The author should have differentiated between the early Beta's and the current SP2.

I just installed SP2 on my sister's machine in order to get the firewall capabilities. I tested it using the Shield's Up facility from www.grc.com.

My first observation was the default popup blocking kept me from configuring the router. I entered the router as a trusted domain AND put it on the exclusion list for popup blocking. (The web page resolution was still a little odd, but it worked.)

The new Shield's Up forced me to reconfigure the firewall on my router to get full "stealth" mode. However, NOTHING was open to direct access using the Microsoft defaults.

I worried that my sister might not be able to set up the router when she got home, so I plugged her system directly into my Cox modem. It was FULL STEALTH with no changes.

Given that the neither of my routers is full stealth without twiddling, I suggested that she forget the router and plug directly into her DSL modem. She was given instructions to test the setup using Shield's Up.

I saw no problems with the look and feel of SP2. I was impressed. It's going on my Dad's machine next!

Mindful of all the problems users have reported wih the early versons of SP2, I waitted until last weekend to do the big all-at-once install on my IBM ThinkPad R50 (1.7 GHz Centrino, 1300M RAM). No prblems!

Most of the funnies people are getting with SP2 seem to be caused by spyware. Before doing the install, run both Ad-Aware 6 and Spybot S&D. And...always back up! If your bakup program can't do spanned CD or DVD sets, use WinZip 9 to do that part of the job.

The most interesting comment by the author of the article IMO is, "SP2 does seem to work, more often than not."

I read that and thought, "Gee, that's nice. It is successfully installed about half the time." (HTML needs a real sarcasm tag.)

Uh, shouldn't it work properly a great deal more than half the time? It also shouldn't require an experienced systems analyst to patch what is supposed to be consumer-grade software.

I wish I could run a business where people would think my company was doing o.k. if my product worked "more often than not".

I use a HP with XP hm. HP wants me to go and upgrade something like 20 drivers before sp2 installation. Un freak'n believable. Then their is a bunch of other instructions. What a mess. The guy at HP service suggested, in a non direct way, to not download it. Unlike me, most people don't go and check the computer (HP, Dell etc) website before download. The result is a giant black screen that won't work because all their drivers are uncompatable. Microsoft screwed this one up big time.

Microsoft screwed this one up big time.

The biggest problem is (IMO), that since the patch causes damage to so many people, many more will be afraid to load it. This will leave people even more succeptable to viruses as time passes. The number of zombie windows boxes out there is frightening. The masses will keep eating it up though, and when MS comes out with the next "upgrade" that is really nothing but a bug fix, people will be shelling out the bucks for it because they just don't know any better.

Sometimes the herd mentality in this country drives me crazy.

"I wish I could run a business where people would think my company was doing o.k. if my product worked "more often than not"."

You can, but med school, internship, and a residency take years so just learn to write software.

"You guys on this thread are scaring the crap outta me!"

If you haven't yet installed SP2 and don't HAVE to, you may wish to consider Fred Langa's advice:

1. Wait awhile until the bugs are worked out

2. Before installing, image your drive so that a rollback will be relatively painless if necessary.

Not installing SP2 will not place you in a position of profound, immediate jeopardy or risk, particularly if you've been pretty up-to-date with previous patches and updates from Microsoft.

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