How big is SP2?

Samson Joe sends along an excellent question:

How big is the SP2 file and how long will it take for me to install it using a dial up connection? When I downloaded SP1, it took me about 2 hrs. If I have my PC set to auto updates and the SP2 starts to download in background while I’m doing other stuff, when I get off the PC and the downloading is not complete, does the download start all over from the beginning when I get back on my PC? or does it continue where the downloading got left off?

The SP2 file you get through Automatic Updates will be roughly 70MB in size (maybe a bit more, depending on your Windows version). That’s significantly less than the full network installation of 266MB. If you already had the RC2 beta of SP2 installed, the download will be about 30MB.

The download uses the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), which takes advantage of unused bandwidth on your Internet connection. It’s been a long time since I used a dial-up connection for any serious file downloads. But as I recall, a 56K connection at full speed can typically pull down a 1MB file in about 10 minutes. Extrapolating from that, I would expect it to take at least 12-15 hours for SP2 to appear via Automatic Downloads. You can decrease your wait by leaving your dial-up connection on when you’re not using your computer and by avoiding other high-bandwidth tasks when you see that Automatic Updates is downloading the file (there should be an icon in your Notification Area, aka the system tray, that alerts you to this).

Although I haven’t seen it in operation, I have been told that Automatic Updates does indeed cache the files as it goes. So if you shut down your system or disconnect from the Internet partway through, the download will resume at the point where you left off when you return.