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Reactions to WinXP SP2

August 12, 2004

A Few Bumps on the Road to Windows XP SP2
By Mary Jo Foley
Redmond's readying customers for its big SP2 'push,' which will commence Aug. 16.

Since Microsoft began its staged rollout of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) late last week, there have been a few bumps—but, at least so far, no major potholes—on the road to deployment.

Microsoft has characterized SP2 as a "critical" must-have update. The company's overriding message is that all Windows XP users should deploy as soon as possible the SP2 collection of security updates and other new features and fixes.

Users Give XP SP2 Mixed Marks

Users have reported everything from unproblematic installs to complete system failures. In between, difficulties varied from confusing user interface changes to broken applications to performance slowdowns. Many said SP2's features improved their confidence in the platform's security; others said they continue to be surprised by minor issues.

Users Give XP SP2 Mixed Marks

Among other quibbles were the lack of improvements to Internet Explorer, with support for PNG graphics, Cascading Style Sheets, tabbed browsing and page rendering speed "at a standstill," according to one user.

In isolated cases, users found SP2 caused serious problems for some machines, slowing down performance, making a machine unusable or failing to install at all; one user claimed to have tried installing SP2 using four different methods, but had to uninstall it each time.

Most users, however, have said they had a positive experience overall with the update, with particular favorites being the popup blocker in Internet Explorer, the Security Center and improved integration of wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. "One thing that I haven't heard anyone mention is the new wireless networking interface," said one user. "That has impressed me the most."