Before you go through this process ask yourself how many times you reinstall windows? That is the only benefit touted as the reason to make up this monster CD. For most of you, it won't be worth the trouble.
I updated my sister's XP system two weeks ago and it took almost 3 hours even though I was connected to high speed cable. This is due to the sloooooow download from Microsoft. I updated my father-in-law's laptop yesterday using a CD. It took between 35 and 45 minutes. Definitely download SP2 and cut a CD! (1) The install is faster and (2) you have the software on your own media in case you can't get it from Microsoft later.
I checked both systems for firewall safety before and after the install of SP2. Both were found to be totally "stealthy" by Gibson Research [www.grc.com]. They were actually better protected than either my DLINK or Netgear router firewalls without further hand tuning!
I updated my father-in-law's laptop yesterday using a CD. It took between 35 and 45 minutes. Definitely download SP2 and cut a CD! (1) The install is faster and (2) you have the software on your own media in case you can't get it from Microsoft later.
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http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=323166