Larry Seltzer of eWeek is one of my favorite columnists. His column this week is another gem: So Now Will You Install SP2?
Whatever excuses you had just aren’t good enough anymore. The problems without SP2 far exceed those from installing it. …
For a very long, long time now, long before SP2 was released, it’s been known that as a direct result of solving security problems in Windows it would cause application problems. Microsoft released several test versions of the service packand large customers get access to more than just the milestone betas and release candidatesto help developers and users adopt to the new platform. …
This has been going on for over a year now. … And yet people are still resisting installing it, and generally for the same reason: They are worried that their programs won’t work.
A study by SupportSoft, a software vendor, shows that IT managers are still worried about the impact to their applications. Seventy-three percent of them say this is their biggest concern about SP2. Fifty percent of them expect problems that will disrupt their businesses as a result of the migration.
Sorry buddy, but if your program won’t work it’s probably because there was a problem in it. Most of the application problems I’ve seen are as a result of shady window management techniques in Web applications. There are lots of other reasons a program might fail, and for most of them the proper response is to change the behavior of the application. There were reports early on of large numbers of machines crashing after installing SP2, but it turned out that this typically happened to systems already infected with spyware or adware.
Exactly. I have stopped being amused by people who complain that they have to clean spyware off their computers several times a week but refuse to install SP2 because it might cause some unspecified problem. The significant problems with SP2 are well documented and easy to fix. If your system crashes or hangs when you install SP2, the problem is with your computer, and you should fix it.
Ed Bott 
I did better than that … I installed OS X.
😀
Damm Right!
There is no valid reason not to install it!
All the people who are complaining that there machine is broken after installing SP2 weren’t in control of their machine prior to the install of SP2, usually thanks to so many dodgy applications including adware and spyware installed on the machine.
Obviously people dont value the information on their computer as its more of a security risk not to install SP2!
My sister installed it and after the installation her Hard Drive failed.. it happened after installation and then she rebooted.. she sent me the drive and sure enough it was toasted.. A Western Digital WD800JB 80GB 8mb cache. She then got a new Hard Drive, insatalled Windows XP Pro and then tried to install SP2 and again it froze just before completing installation..
If her hard drive failed, that’s just bad luck. There is no earthly way that installing SP2 is going to cause the HD to fail.
If the system hung just prior to competing installation of SP2, she needs to update the BIOS or install the appropriate patch. Check out my SP2 page (category list along the right) for more details.
yeah figured it was her BIOS.. she’s got a Old KT333 MSI KT4 Ultra motherboard.
If nothing else, WinXP-SP2 is a solid OS right now, and if you’re not planning on jumping to Longhorn early, then you’ll be safe with SP2. The ONLY problem I had among four computers on which I installed, two of which were four and five years old respectively, was that on one computer, it dropped the IP address. Simple fix, and her computer is better than ever.
Big problem I have with SP2 is since installing it, and even reformating and install it, I have connection issues with just about all my IM programs, ICQ will shut down.. never use to till SP2, same with MSN Messenger, it’ll just disconnect for no apparent reason. I use Zonealarm and Notorn AV 2005 with SP2 firewall turned off.