Mary Jo Foley points out that support for Windows XP SP1 ends October 10.
SP2 has been out for more than two years. It’s been installed on hundreds of millions of computers. If there’s an issue that’s keeping you from installing it, there’s undoubtedly a solution.
Frankly, I can’t imagine why someone would insist on running an outdated, demonstrably insecure version of Windows. If you’re still resisting SP2, please tell me why. (And “I tried to install it and it crashed my system” isn’t good enough. If that’s true, there’s almost certainly a specific incompatibility that you can troubleshoot and fix.)
Ed Bott 
Ever since some number of months after SP2 was released, I have been in favor of it, and now argue against people who worry about the network/non-interactive worms, etc.
So, this doesn’t really answer your question, but our IT department doesn’t trust windows updates, and so disables it on every machine. They have relented where if you ask them about installing it, they will let you do it, but then say that you are responsible for whatever happens to your machine – so some people know enough to go ahead and install it, and other people want IT to maintain control.
PS. this is the same IT department that actually sends out emails that say click on this link to run this .exe. I almost didn’t believe it was a real email, and not a virus. (note the exe was shared over the network with full permissions to everyone…)
In summary, they don’t have a clue, but they exist.
So XPSP2 will go out of support in Oct 2008?
Ha. The most favoured company to work in, General Electric, with their hundreds of thousands of employees, runs XP SP1 on all their employee computers.
The problem is simple, severly infected machines will cause the SP2 installation to fail catastrophically. And the only way to recover is using these instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=875355&product=windowsxpsp2
I’ve seen it fail on a few machines I attempted to upgrade when it first came out and on clients who brought their PC to me. I always install SP2 but only after I am 100% positive it is not infected with anything.
And there are some legitimate capatibility issues:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2
Almost all simply require the latest update or version but if you are a corporation that could get expensive. Certain specific applications like the game “Freedom Force” simply had no solution initially until the developers release a patch for SP2: http://www.freedomfans.com//news.php?id=37
Corporations also have to deal with the enhanced security aspects, since things like the Firewall are enabled by default as well as Windows Updates. Great for the home user but they can cause issues for an IT Department.
I fully agree on installing it and always do, I am simply providing legitimate concerns people have and I have heard.
I haven’t installed SP2, nor will I because of the licensing changes instituted in SP2, which are tilted in Microsoft’s favor. I’m not giving up more control of my machine to anyone !
Uh, boB? What licensing changes? Some significant changes to the activation process were introduced in SP1. But you’ll have to provide more details and a link before I accept your objection.
During the last years I’ve upgraded maybe 50+ PCs running Windows XP with or without SP1 to SP2. I can remember only one time a crappy laptop didn’t come up again. And that wasn’t mainly because of SP2 but of the owner installing a lot of funny crap and spyware (heck his taskbar icons spanned half of the screen). After I erased the harddrive and did a proper reinstall, Windows XP SP2 came up like a charm.