In preparation for moving to my university hall I've transferred this blog to the new mvps.org server so hopefully the page should be loading a bit quicker and you should no longer come across 'HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too Many Users Are Connected' errors J

Over the past few days Microsoft have also placed a few more knowledge base articles online regarding application compatibility and SP2

Some programs seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 because of the Windows Firewall

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=842242

Programs that may behave differently in Windows XP Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2

I did see some comments regarding these articles in the Windows XP Public newsgroups which said that based on these lists SP2 was a disaster. Considering how much has been tightened up in Windows it's good that so few applications require a change, but really at the end of the day isn't having to download the latest version of Nero worth it to have a much more secure base operating system? I'd rather this to a repeat performance of the RPC/MSBLAST debacle. Certainly for quite a number of the security products on that list its not that they wouldn't work, just that they would not interact with the new security center properly. It's worth checking the list before you install Service Pack 2 so you are aware of any problems if your using any of the applications listed. Service Pack 1 is still supported for 12 months after the release of Service Pack 2 so if an application you need does not have an update available yet it’s possible to stay on SP1 for a while and continue to get updates.

Another interesting article I came across this weekend was in David Massy's Blog who works on the Internet Explorer team regarding Transparent PNGs, or the lack alpha channel support in Internet Explorer 6.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive/2004/08/05/209428.aspx