SP2 is released

The official notice: Microsoft Releases Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies to Computer Manufacturers:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing of Windows® XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies. This free service pack delivers the latest security updates and innovations from Microsoft, establishes strong default security settings, and adds new proactive protection features that will help better safeguard computers from hackers, viruses and other security risks.

If you have Automatic Updats turned on, the service pack bits will download automatically to your computer beginning in a few days. This download will consume between 75 and 95 MB of disk space, depending on your Windows version.. When the download is complete, it will launch automatically, although it won’t do so in the background.

At some point before the end of this month, you’ll be able to download a full SP2 package that you can burn to CD. This download will be significantly larger–probably in the 270MB range. You can also order a CD from Microsoft.

As before, if you have any questions, send me a note. I’ll answer as many questions as I can here.

PS: Microsoft says they expect to deliver 100 million copies of SP2 through Automatic Updates in the next few months. Wow.