Mark's MCE Blog - Windows XP Service Pack 2 Final now Available!

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Final now Available!

The big day has finally arrived; the final version of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2180) is now available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2 after many months of testing and over 1 million downloads by beta testers through Technical Previews, External Beta programs and MSDN customers. This package can also be ordered free on CD-Rom (See bottom of entry for details).

Microsoft continually works to improve its software. As part of this effort, they develop updates and fixes to recognized issues and release them for use by customers. On a regular basis, they combine many of these fixes into a single package and make the package available for customers to install on their computers. These packages are called Service Packs. SP2 will bring users the latest security updates and innovations from Microsoft to help protect your machine with increased network protection, memory protection, email handling, and enhanced browser security. It will establish stronger security settings that help defend against viruses, hackers, and worms and will provide unique new security features designed to make it easier for you to protect your PC.

In terms of Media Center this will update any previous version of Windows XP Media Center 2002 or 2004 (including beta versions of SP2 v2096 & 2138-2179) to Media Center 2004 build 5.1.2600.2180. This is handy if your OEM is no longer providing the upgrade to Media Center 2004; however this release is mainly a bug fix/performance update rather than adding new features (unless you’re upgrading from Media Center 2002 of course). All updates made available so far for MCE2004 such as the Critical Update Q830786 (http://www.salloway.org.uk/mceblog/default.aspx?date=2004-06-01#a17812051-53c0-4ec9-ad9d-2d75ef489e58) are included in SP2. In addition to this SP2 fixes issues with elevated processor usage when viewing TV after installing Q830786, and updates for DVB-T channel scan reliability.

Service Pack 2 is a release everyone running XP should install, particularly those who use it on the internet open to the kind of attack prevented by SP2. People that use Wireless networking will also be pleased to see that that connecting to a network and distributing network keys is much simpler under SP2. Service Pack 2 also includes updated versions of Windows Media Player 9, DirectX 9.0c, Windows Installer 3.0, Windows Messenger (4.7), Windows Movie Maker 2.1 and Internet Explorer 6.0/Outlook Express SP2.

The release schedule will go like this

8/6 Release to manufacturing
8/9 Release to Microsoft Download Center (network installation package)

Network installer download :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

8/9 Release to MSDN subscription site (CD ISO image)
8/10 Release to Automatic Updates (for machines running pre-release versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2 only)
8/16 Release to Automatic Updates (for machines NOT running pre-releases versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2)
8/16 Release to Software Update Services
Later in August Release to Windows Update for interactive user installations

Microsoft have also taken the decision not to block any more product keys beyond those already black listed by service pack 1.

‘We expect that nearly all Windows XP users, running genuine or pirated
Windows, will have access to the security technologies in SP2. The same
users that were blocked from installing SP1 - those that have used a small
set of legacy pirated product keys - will be blocked from installing
SP2. We
believe that there are very few systems in use today that use these keys
--
in other words, the pirates have moved on to other keys which we are not
blocking.

So how do we characterize our policy?

We want to make sure that the broadest number of people can install SP2.
The nature of malicious attacks on computer users is constantly changing
and we will continue to evaluate how we deal with security updates for pirated
versions of Windows to best protect our genuine Windows customers.’