My normal policy is not to review beta releases of any software. But because Windows XP SP2 is so important I decided to break away from the norm. Readers should be aware that a release candidate is not a final release and this in should no way be construed as a review of the final product.
![Click for a larger view]()
Microsoft has made great strides in improving the user experience and to help protect from the worms and viruses that inhabit the net. From the most part I have had no problems with this service pack besides a couple of annoyances that accompany beta software.
Installation
This is nothing unusual about the installation, it is the average Service Pack installer script. But the RC1 installer will not let you choose not to archive the files because before you install the final build you will have to uninstall the beta build. There was no unusual occurences during the install and of course after you install you will have to restart the machine.
Security Center
![Click for a larger view]()
The neatest part of SP2 is the new security center. This feature adds a friendly user interface to the normal security components of Windows, Automatic Updates, Anti-Virus and Firewall. Some Anti-Virus programs like the one that yours truly has, are not picked up by the security center. To increase your chances of Microsoft including your Anti-Virus program notify Microsoft about this and they should include support in the final release. Updates are a necessary evil in all Operating Systems so this should be turned on anyway whether you use Linux, Windows, Solaris, JDS whatever you use make sure you have the updates. From the security center you can also enable your IE internet zones and also take advantage of the firewall configuration utility and manage the security settings for the system. There are some improvements that can be made to the Security Center. I think they need to add a shortcut to the Security Center to the My Computer Taskpane or add a short cut to the cointext right click menu of My Computer to make it more accessible to users. I also had no weird experiences with the Security Center.
The New Windows Firewall
![Click for a larger view]()
The new firewall is much improved and actually works like a firewall now. It includes a neat little configuration utility. The firewall is shipped turned on and it allows you to allow access for programs and other incoming and outgoing traffic. It finally acts like a real firewall should instead of acting like it knows whats better for you. You can also choose exceptions for the firewall, exceptions are basically Firewall Rules. You can enable programs to access the internet and if you change you mind later, remove them from the exceptions list. I did have a problem with the firewall, it will sometimes ask you if you want to unblock a program and if you take awhile to answer the dialog it will go ahead and allow access for the program anyway. Microsoft needs to change this behavior really quickly and make the dialog box WAIT for an answer before automatically assuming the answer is a yes. My suggestion is that if you decide to run the Release Candidate use another software firewall alongside the Windows firewall. On one of my test machines tho I have run the Firewall by itself for over 2 weeks and have not had a compromise and on that specific machine I was getting a lot of TCP port scans before SP2 and they have since ceased.
Internet Explorer and Outlook Express
![Click for a larger view]()
Internet Explorer and Outlook Express have undergone some changes. A built in pop-up blocker for IE and stronger mail handling for Outlook Express. The pop-up blocker for IE works very well and blocks many of the pop-ups that the Google and MSN toolbar do. The only thing I would do different is add Tabbed browsing but considering how long it took Microsoft to put in a pop-up blocker, I wont hold my breath and wait for tabbed browsing. Outlook Express has undergone several changes that makes it not such a virus ally. Outlook Express will no longer automatically launch file attachments and has a different handling for HTML e-mail. Windows itself has safegaurds when you are launching downloaded attachments. Unfortunately the only ones who will be able to take advantage of these new features are Windows XP and Longhorn users. Internet Explorer and Outlook Express will no longer be developed as a standalone product for previous versions of Windows such as 9x/Me/NT 4/2000. We will soon see how this works out for Microsoft.
Pet peeves
![Click for a larger view]()
Ok this is my section where I get to tear into Microsoft for bugs and other things that they got wrong. Being as this is a beta I will not be as brutal as I normally would be. First, the beta of Windows Installer 3 does not work with older programs. I was unable to Install Adobe Acrobat 6, CDBurnerXP Pro, Easy CD/DVD Creator. The installer kept telling me I was trying to install in Safe Mode which I wasnt, after further testing anything with a .msi extention was not going to cooperate. My Netgear wireless router quit working and I couldnt bring it back up, uninstall the service pack it worked just fine. My CD Burner would not work at all with Microsofts internal CD Burning software it would not detect the disk. Uninstalled Service Pack 2 and it worked again. On my Dell Inspiron that I used as a test laptop my D-Link wirless PCMCIA card kept telling me I had to reinstall the drivers everytime I would boot up the computer, uninstalled Service Pack 2 and it worked fine again. I also like the Microsoft Dialog that asks you what you want to do when you insert removable media and that has been taken out in Service Pack 2 (or it just wasnt working). I did report everythng that went wrong to Microsoft and the respective companies so there should be no reason why it will not work in the final SP2
Highlights
![Click for a larger view]()
The much improved firewall and the Security Center are very big highlights, both are easy to use and configure. Pop up blocking in Internet Explorer is definitely a plus. As for application compatibility all of my installed applications worked very well even my Open Source applications such as The GIMP, OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird worked and did not have any ill effects because of the update. Speed of the systems tested also seemed to be better.
Conclusion
For the most part besides a few problems I did enjoy testing Service Pack 2. Microsoft has really focused on the security side of things in this service pack but they need to improve functionality. As always in regards to beta software, my advice is if you have the time and the patience as well as an extra computer, help beta test and be sure to send feedback to Microsoft. There are a hundred different computer configurations out there and the more people that help beta test helps ensure that Microsoft “gets it right”. Do not use this Release Candadite on a production main machine otherwise you are just inviting disaster into your life. Furthermore, even when the final version comes out be sure you test everything before you upgrade your machines just to make sure all your major apps still run, or install. I will revisit XP Service Pack 2 when the final version comes out to let everyone know what has been fixed.
About The Author
Roberto J Dohnert is a Unix/Linux and Windows Consultant and software developer. His first introduction to Unix based systems dates back to NeXTStep. He is a member of the GNU Darwin Distribution and has made several contributions to that and other projects. His personal webpage is here.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
after i installed SP2 beta ( last one ) i lost my network connection, even if i disabled firwall and other security things . so uninstalled it, hope final version won’t do that
Firewall does not detect GAIM/Indiatimes/Trillian connections for me. It just allows them without asking for blocking them.
Internet explorer hangs at times. It does not respond for few seconds. VMware does not work with my machine atleast. It just reboots.
let me get this straight: he installed beta sp2 and his wireless router, a device that has nothing to do with his computer or windows at all and may or may not be only connected as another device on a network, wireless or otherwise, STOPPED WORKING.
if i had a device on my network that caused other devices on my network to stop working i’d be worried. not only is that bad for his computer running sp2, but its affective disrupting services of things that having nothing to do with sp2 or windows or microsoft even.
to me that’s impressive. when an OS can not only crash itself, but crash other unrelated devices without user intervention, you know you have power.
Check out the massive quantity of desktop icons, quick launch shortcuts, and resident system tray applications on this guy’s system. Notice the little “show me more” button by the system tray inidicating he’s got a lot more running.
The last time I saw a mess like this I was helping a newbie bring his system back from the dead. Even with 512MB of memory the system was thrashing under the load of twenty+ system tray apps and saddled with a swollen windows registry.
If you’re running a similar bloated and unorgnized system the new features of SP2 mentioned my Roberto will be a welcome addition to help protect your system against your own folley. Not to mention the addition of yet even more resident applications! – Enjoy.
how anyone is allowed the right to “complain” about anything (software related) that is considered beta.
“this is where I tear into…”
No, this is where you NOTE problems with SP2 and inform (as you said) MS of your problems. Don’t beta test angry
In the pics I could see that Roberto is using a program to switch between 4 sessions in XP, like in Linux.
Which is the name of that app?
Thanks
haha running firefox . . .
😛
Does IE finally support PNG alpha blending and position:fixed?
” In the pics I could see that Roberto is using a program to switch between 4 sessions in XP, like in Linux.
Which is the name of that app?
Thanks”
Deskman Powertoy, you can either download if from Microsoft or from my site. http://www.geocities.com/rjdohnert/computer.htm
That is microsoft’s “official” power toy for XP.
It’s the Microsoft Vitual Desktop Manager Power Toy. Available from Microsoft(Free Unsupported Download). It has a few quirks that I don’t like about it, but overall it’s kinda cool.
is anyone else not fooled by the hype surrounding this nonsense? any idiot can secure their windows (any version) box up in less than 5 minutes. how about some actual bugfixes? maybe the tooltips in the taskbar actually staying ABOVE the taskbar like they’re supposed to?
Good article Roberto. Do you have test the possibility to use two Remote Desktop connections at the same time?
I would say anything that turns on the firewall by default and tames Internet Explorer ActiveX hell a bit is a good thing.
IMHO http://img.osnews.com/img/7304/xp3.jpg – shows a flaw in the windows sp2 firewall… everybody will click: YES – Unblock this program, since it’s the default option.
I repeat: This wont help windows security. Only ppl who understand what’s going on will examine the situation…
As far as I read, this is JUST a bug fixes release. Nothing more, nothing less. Why being so exited by this is something i don’t understand.
But in a microsoft world, what is a blind man ?
I wish the disclaimer stated here of being beta software was applied to ALL beta software, including RC versions of linux. It would help all the whining about what doesn’t work be applied to the bug reports rather than this site. Did anyone actually think that everything was going to work on beta software being windows or linux or any other software? If it all worked, it would be called “FINAL”.
Well firstly, I’m not quite sure why the reviewer chose to try such an old build of SP2… RC1 is build 2096, and they’re already at 2142 officially (running it now).
The majority of the bugs he mentioned have been fixed, including some particularly nasty ones that cropped up since RC1. Also, a few of the other “annoyances” he mentioned aren’t present in SP2 at all, and I assume are an IBK issue on his machine, not SP2.
To clarify about the default function of the firewall; outgoings are allowed, but incomings are blocked, hence “Unblock.”
I did not test the remote desktop with XPSP2, I will do so tho when I do the review of the final build. @ Yann LE COROLLER , This update is so important because its more than just a bug fix release. This improves IE and OE security, Windows security overall by including NX support and shutting of most of the doors. Also, the core binaries were recompiled using a new GS flag which helps improve protection against Memory and buffer overflows *** The information of the new GSflag can be aquired from Channel 9 ****. OE will no longer automatically execute scripts and or attachements so this improves the chances of use avoiding all the cyber Typhoid Mary’s as I like to call them.
—–snip—
To clarify about the default function of the firewall; outgoings are allowed
—–snip—–
isn’t this the same stuipd befavor of old built-in XP firewall??
” Well firstly, I’m not quite sure why the reviewer chose to try such an old build of SP2… RC1 is build 2096, and they’re already at 2142 officially (running it now). ”
build 2096 is what Microsoft has on their site available for download.
” The majority of the bugs he mentioned have been fixed, including some particularly nasty ones that cropped up since RC1. Also, a few of the other “annoyances” he mentioned aren’t present in SP2 at all, and I assume are an IBK issue on his machine, not SP2. ”
If you can provide me with a download Link I would appreciate it for build 2142 I would appreciate it.
BTW
—–snip—-
SP2 changes the way future updates are installed by simply downloading only the parts that have changed
—-snip—-
from here http://www.xatrix.org/article3641.html
this is realy cool thing IMHO, i also hope they fixed that My_XP_is_Damn_Slow_After_Applaying_Patches/SP problem
Drop me an e-mail ([email protected]), and I’ll sort you out with a copy.
I can’t believe all of the apps that SP2 borked. I mean come on, he could no longer install several apps and he kept getting prompted to reinstall his NIC drivers?? This sounds like pre-Alpha stuff. Considering how long SP2 has been in the works its more than a bit worrying.
SP1 caused a few well known problems but nothing like he described. I’m going to stay far away from this Service Pack for as long as I can.
” Did anyone actually think that everything was going to work on beta software being windows or linux or any other software?”
Yes, but this is a Windows deal, so its automatically not ok for even a beta to work 100%. On the other hand, many people on here have no problems with something Linux related that may not work perfectly, whether its in beta stage, or even a final release!
I have no issues with SP2… why the hell must you people persist in being so fucking biased without experience?
but i didn’t want to chip in, i’m a mac user now so my time is better spent USING the system rather than complaining about it.
“As far as I read, this is JUST a bug fixes release. Nothing more, nothing less. Why being so exited by this is something i don’t understand.
But in a microsoft world, what is a blind man ?”
It’s not just bugfixes, their are several added features. Also they have recompiled a major chunk of Windows, supposedly with the wonderful Intel compilers. We’re supposed to see a slight speed increase.
Only morons reinstall every 6months. The only reason i have had to reinstall is when I bork something up, like format the wrong partition when installing debian. I have this servicepack , it seems to be ok. firewalls should only be on network devices, but I know some people just have single computers. I have a crufty laptop works great except for games. Its only 800mhz with 384meg of ram and it boots faster than some of my friends laptops with twice the mhz and 1gb of ram. It has slowed down with sp2 tho.
Using SP2 RC1 2096 and have not experienced any problems whatsoever.
2096 here also, I actually like the new firewall, add-on manager, popup-blocker, firewall etc. that has been added to windows. SP2 is great for people that surf porn and warez sites and need to avoid the resulting assault of persistant popups and annoying javascrips.
when to format is totally depends on how you use the windows. If you are installing/uinstalling alot of programs for trying and things like that , you will need to format it after a couple of weeks. Also the more programs you install to tweak the system(popupblocking, optimizations), the worse it gets.
It actually depends on how you use the system. If you are only browsing the net and writing some word documents you can use it for years. If you are a power user and doing things like developing software,doing 3d graphics, you will need to format it often to keep it fast.
Wrong again. I spend all my time doing 3D work, web design, professional graphics, as well as playing a fair few games like Far Cry, Painkiller, and the classics like Quake 3, Jedi Knight 2/Jedi Academy, Elite Force 1/2 and Alice.
And I don’t experience any slowdowns. The key to keeping your Windows box running fast is to defragment often, and make sure you use a defragger which can defrag the MFT and “reserved system space.”
i’ve been running 2096 since rc1 was released and i’ve had no problems with it either. i’m anal retentive when it comes to keeping my drive and registry spotless, so that may have something to do with it. however, i don’t know why they are calling this a service pack. it’s a patch at best. a patch with some pretty intrusive “features” that you have to spend extra time turning off. i hope the final actually introduces a few things that may be of use to myself and others who know what we’re doing instead of just a bunch of bloaty crap of marginal importance.
the one thing i DO look forward to are the compiler optimizations that may increase the snappiness of the os. intel’s compiler is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
I don’t think they have png support, or position:fixed support, but you can get support in IE here:
http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
“Wrong again. I spend all my time doing 3D work, web design, professional graphics, as well as playing a fair few games like Far Cry, Painkiller, and the classics like Quake 3, Jedi Knight 2/Jedi Academy, Elite Force 1/2 and Alice.
And I don’t experience any slowdowns. The key to keeping your Windows box running fast is to defragment often, and make sure you use a defragger which can defrag the MFT and “reserved system space.””
3d work = word processing
web design = word processing
professional graphics (adobe?) = word processing
I know that’s not really true. But the point is those are user level functions. You do not need administrative priviledges to do it (unless there is something strange going on). If you do, please inform me of why.
The games are also fairly clean. Their biggest trouble is that some games use the game directory for temp files and such so they require you to be an administrator (or change the permissions I suppose).
I believe when he said power user he meant Power User (it’s a type of user on Windows). It’s installing random free packages, and neat little toys. Or writing programs and messing up a few times on how it writes it’s registry keys. These are the things that cause constant problems.
I use Windows XP for games, and I must say the only problem in 18 months has been a corrupted ip stack. After digging on google, one simple command fixed it. I was getting close to reinstalling, but I really didn’t wanna go through it all.
DISCLAIMER: I meant no disrespect to people who do 3d and graphics work. I am aware of the technical difficulties of it. My only purpose in the statement was that it’s a user level function, not an administrative function.
Well as far as I see you only mentioned the games. I guess you do web design using notepad. Let’s say for medium web projects you will be using php,mysql,apache. For editor you can use eclipse or similar to that. Let’s come to 3D, ou will probably install 3dStudio max, Maya… And add the .Net development. I’m not even mentioning Dreamweaver and all this stuff. So when you do all this, come and tell me that windows doesn’t slow down. Besides I’m talking about the overall performance, of course when you are playing far cry you wont see much difference, since you are only running that at that time.
@Chris: I can only assume that your post was purely written to insult me, so I’ll ignore it. If you actually know who I was, you wouldn’t talk such utter shit about my daily activities.
@Emre: Notepad? Why would I be so stupid? I use Studio MX mainly, FireWorks for graphics and DreamWeaver for design. In terms of 3D I use Terragen, SolidWorks, and occasionally Bryce, but I do have 3DS installed to load up models every now and again when playing around with the hidden resources from LH.
I also use the DX9 SDK a fair bit, again for the same reason as 3DS; testing the DX effects when applied to DirectX skeletons and textures, etc.
I wouldn’t touch Apache, MySQL, or PHP with a barge pole; mainly I use IIS6 and SQL Server 2005 (Yukon), and do all my coding in ASP (not ASP .NET). I keep the server stuff on a dedicated box though, so I can leave it running 24/7.
I do have VS .NET 2005 (Whidbey) installed, however, for coding XAML and Avalon apps, again for my work on Longhorn.
What else? Hmm… Virtual PC, need to keep a couple of VMs running simultaneously when testing out my apps, usually have Longhorn and Server 2k3 running at the same time, although occasionally I install Windows XP again within a VM to test out various things like Live Communications Server 2005 Beta.
Not sure what else there is to say… Um… Oh yeah, I run iTunes constantly in the background, as well as BPFTP Server and PingPong-ABC BitTorrent Client, as well as all of the crap that VMWare and Virtual PC load as services. Also StyleXP (although I have a patched UXTheme and it doens’t work on SP2, not sure why I’m still running that :), and CuteFTP Pro Transfer Engine. Just a couple of things, but drains on resources nonetheless.
Just in case you think this is impossible, the specs of this box are Dual Xeon 2.4, 1Gb DDR266 ECC Registered (should be 2GB, but hey), 1x 120GB Seagate Barracuda, 1x 200GB Western Digital (Caviar? Not sure), PNY nVidia Quadro FX 2000, and a few other bits and pieces.
Current uptime is 6 days 5 hours, and everything’s still working fine. Oh, and the Sims is on in the background, and I’m watching a live Big Brother feed. If you doubt me, buy a plane ticket to the UK and I’ll invite you over to show you.
My machine runs just fine withe sp2. As a matter of fact I have installed it on all of the windows machines in my house and no one has had a single problem that has resulted from sp2. Then secondly sp2 has not even affected any of my applications or the built in cd burning, trust me I use a wide array of applications including: Maya, Photoshop, Acrobat, Auto-Cad,then Adobe Premiere. Plus I would like to know what your settings were because your computer computer shouldn’t even have have had any safemiode issues.
Let me quote from the comments above:
“2096 here also, I actually like the new firewall, add-on manager, popup-blocker, firewall etc. that has been added to windows. SP2 is great for people that surf porn and warez sites and need to avoid the resulting assault of persistant popups and annoying javascrips.”
Apple got it right when they started from a good clean slate built on top of proven software. Microsoft will learn this lesson the hard way.
Anyone know how the author got the “MSVDM” label to go away next to the green button?
Ofcourse it is, after 2 years of development in fixing bugs that should not have been there in the first place, it is important to know that the microsoft $$’s you are spending on your microsoft tax is going towards something worthwhile: a tethered service pack.
They’ll change something so that all the support workers around the globe have to memorize yet another different way to do the same thing…
” Anyone know how the author got the “MSVDM” label to go away next to the green button? ”
Rightr click on the desktop manager and uncheck show title.
”
Rightr click on the desktop manager and uncheck show title.”
I dont have that option.
Hey man, thanks for the information, I believe you
. I want one of that computer actually 
.
Bottom line for me is: Whenever you install many program everything gets messed up in windows. I’m not saying this is a Windows’ fault. Besides I’m a windows fan but I’m tired of reinstalling. Yes I do many stuff, I probably check every program that comes out and this kills the system but I would appreciate If I would not need to reinstall. Even that’s why I use Vmware to developep web applications on virtual machine so my machine works ok
whitout installing those iis/apache/sql stuff.
Anyway thanks for the information .
hi,
i have a couple of questions hopefully someone who knows will kindly answer
1- are there non-security bug fixes relating to stability?
it’s not clear to me that security is an issue as a home user.
2- how much of a slowdown does sp2 inflict?
3- if you just use dial-in modem 56k, is security/firewall really necessary?
4- does sp2 support mount rainier/easywrite specs?
thanks
-dan
You need to unlock the taskbar by right clicking it and unchecking “Lock the taskbar”. After that the “Show title” option should appear on the toolbar’s context menu. Once you’ve disabled that you can lock the taskbar again if you wish.
Worked! Thank you!
1) There are no stability issues with Windows XP, non-SP2 along with SP2. Any “stability issues” you are experiencing are caused by user error, driver error, or hardware failure. Suggest upgrading your PSU and defragging regularly (every week or so).
2) None, it introduces significant performance INcreases, not decreases.
3) Of course; your files can still be viewed and modified by potential hackers.
4) No idea.
My take:
>1- are there non-security bug fixes relating to stability?
There could be. No software is 100% bug free, almost any bug either affects stability or security, or both.
In general, BOFH is right- XP is really stable. If you use your computer for general purpose tasks and do not tweak it or do not Add/Remove software daily- you don’t even need to defrag. Forget about defrag- I have 2 years old XP and never even defragged hard drive.
NTFS- it just works.
>it’s not clear to me that security is an issue as a home user.
It is an issue because a Windows worm managed to hit 5-10 million home computers that could have been protected if default XP firewall were enabled. It is just 5% of Windows user base, but nevertheless.
I can tell you, I believe it were one of the greatest mistakes made by the Microsoft not to enable firewall by default.
Sure they had some marketing and compatibility reasons, not forgetting “convicted monopolist should not add features to the OS and those added should either be removed or very well hidden” mantra.
So, I, for one is very glad that Microsoft added firewall and antivirus reminder to SP2.
>2- how much of a slowdown does sp2 inflict?
Haven’t seen any.
> 3- if you just use dial-in modem 56k, is security/firewall really necessary?
Yes, with dial-up you are connected to the network the same way as broadband users, only slower. 56k is a download speed of 5 KB/second, or 300 KB/minute.
Worms are often less than 300 KB, which means that you will be infected in less than one minute after someone finds you connected.
Unless, of course, you were bright enough to enable Windows XP firewall (don’t wait for SP2 to tell you that)- before you connect to the Internet.
>4- does sp2 support mount rainier/easywrite specs?
Not familiar with that.
from me, dan.
easywrite is a spec to make writing to cd’s as easy as a floppy. its older name is “mount rainier”. type it in google search, you should get hits.
however, for this to work well, it needs to be supported by the OS
i do have programs hanging or crashing. so 200+ mb mostly just security fixes? impressive.
“Mount Rainier” also must be supported by the burner itself. Most burners don’t support it.
Anyone know if an optimal refresh rate setting will ever be included in a Windows update?
1) There are no stability issues with Windows XP, non-SP2 along with SP2. Any “stability issues” you are experiencing are caused by user error, driver error, or hardware failure. Suggest upgrading your PSU and defragging regularly (every week or so).
Of course its ALWAYS the end user or bad hardware. Look linux can work with bad hardware and no the end user doesn’t have the same bull that windows produces
2) None, it introduces significant performance INcreases, not decreases.
I’ve tried SP2 for XP and i find still that an unpached xp box WILL out perform a patched one.
3) Of course; your files can still be viewed and modified by potential hackers.
Yep its the windows way!!!
…