10% is a pretty steep number, esp considering the number of people who use windows. Not a real surpise tho, it seems with ever SP they break something along the way. The word is even floating around the IT department of my college to hold off on SP2 for a good while untill others suffer through and document most of the potential problems.

this doesn't surprise me really... when i restarted the computer after installing it crashed... it has to be worse for businesses though.

I can attest that SP2 broke a few boxes in my organization

So far the only reason I uninstalled it on a machine, it's at home because of an online game. It seemed to work well with all our networks applications in the office and at our various customers offices.

But I've heard lots of horror stories too from others...

I have not installed SP2 on my machine yet. I only have XP at home, we use 2k at work. I have worked for software devlopers before and I know that in the squeaky clean environs of a software testing lab things always run well. Get it out into the gritty real world and things fall apart. When you have to start trying to be compatible with all the things a user will do to their machine it's really quite difficult.

Once bitten twice shy. I have had MS headaches before. Now I let others do the hard work, and learn from their troubles. I will be waiting a good couple of months before I install SP2

Windows XP Service Pack 2 SUCKS real bad!

Nothing catastrophic on my system, but it did reconfigure a lot of my Outlook and Office settings which is annoying. Every day I find something new that it has screwed up...

xp2 screwed up my windows media player.

sometimes the music stops playing after 2 minutes
sometimes after 30 minutes
sometimes after 8 seconds

i have tried everything from reinstalling drivers to countless virusscans.
and i am soo happy to know that now it is just the service pack lol

Well then i'm glad that i was with that 90%.

(translation: mine worked)

Originally posted by junior_smith
xp2 screwed up my windows media player.

sometimes the music stops playing after 2 minutes
sometimes after 30 minutes
sometimes after 8 seconds

i have tried everything from reinstalling drivers to countless virusscans.
and i am soo happy to know that now it is just the service pack lol

Maybe it does not like the musics...

I stopped the install, because it was messing up before it was done. Then I had to reboot from the last good settings.

I installed SP2 a few days ago, and it seems fine to me. It seemed to change a few settings for Networking... But that's easily fixed.

I haven't noticed any other differences/problems so far, touch wood.
The Download & Install took me about 2/3 hours overall, but I will not be installing it on my other machines for a while yet. Not until I have fully tested it anyways.

Sorry to hear a lot of people are having problems.

I cant install SP2....
SP1 goes and makes my cable ethernet adapter lose it's ability to be detected by windows. It comes up saying unknown divice. I try to install the drivers that it should have it it comes up saying they aren't the right ones...

so then my interenet connection is down and i dont know any other way to fix it apart from formatting.... Evne going back in time, etc doesn't help.

I've installed XP SP 2 on three boxes at home so far, two of them XP Pro and the other XP Home. The installs were clean and no problems as of yet. However, Windows Media Player 10 is another story entirely, it doesn't like a lot of codecs I'm using.

just one question do I have to install the SP2? I have all the software to protect my computer and is working fine.

If aint broken why fix it. Right?

Originally posted by marg6043
just one question do I have to install the SP2? I have all the software to protect my computer and is working fine.

If aint broken why fix it. Right?

Well it is broke Marg. That's why MS put out the Service Pack. Their are major security lapses in XP, Outlook & IE that this release is meant to fix.

Do you have to install it? Nope. But I suspect that at some point in the future Microsoft will no longer support version of the operating system that do not have Service Pack 2 installed.

Again, my recommendation is to wait until others have done they hard work and debugged this release. Eventually minor code changes will be made that will resolve some of the compatibility issues. Other software vendors will make changes to their products so that they will work with SP2.

I'd wait until you see companies like Symantec and Roxio, and others releasing updates to their applications for XP SP2.

[edit on 9/3/2004 by phreak_of_nature]

Originally posted by marg6043
just one question do I have to install the SP2? I have all the software to protect my computer and is working fine.

If aint broken why fix it. Right?

Don't bother installing it, your version of Windows will be supported at the least untill Longhorns successor.

The day SP2 was released so were many SP2 exploits, so in effect SP2 is "broke" already.

Just keep using your security software and the average user has nothing to worry about.



[edit on 3-9-2004 by Kriz_4]

I installed it at home. The new features are wonderful. I have installed it in a 2000+ (client systems) environment. No problems. You people will not have many problems if you ACTUALLY READ the system requirements and do a little research before you install. Not EVERY system or software in the world can be supported. These things take time. You must research before just blindly installing an upgrade from any manufacturer. Anyone installing in a business environment especially needs to use a test lab to ensure a successful deployment. Now, which businesses with need the most problems? They are the ones that do not employ strict standards in machines and software. The employees always complain that they want dell, compaq, sony, HP etc etc etc... and complain when you only give them one choice. Here is a wonderful reason why standards are needed.

If you have standards, then a simple test lab and knowing your systems will end most problems with upgrades.

To ensure a successful upgrade:

Check for hardware compatibility issues
Check with the software manufacturers to any fixes or compatibility issues with their software.
Test this on your baseline system in your test lab.
Create reports on your network to ensure which machines meet or do not meet the standards or minnimum requirements.
Upgrade the systems that do not meet the standards or create another project to upgrade them slowly over time.
Install the SP on the machines that meet the standards.

Once you have followed this standard test, then you will not have any problems. In a business, documentation, testing and research is important in any IT task. Too many administrators are more than happy to just upgrade without doing any test or research, then they blame the manufacturer. I upgrade Mac, UNIX, Windows and LINUX machines in my environment. There are compatibility issues with any SP upgrade. RESEARCH is the key.

That is the same thing as buying a cup of coffee from McDonalds, taking the lid off the cup, putting it between your legs, then going for a drive. Then spilling it on you and burning yourself, then blaming McDonalds.

If on your home computer, follow the same steps above, you just do not have a test lab to test it on. But, the test lab is only there to PROVE to clients, management, executives or other folks, that you HAVE done your research. If research is done properly, the there will be no problems. For the home users... This is YOUR HOME Machine, your family stuff on there. If you are like me you have thousands of Digital pics of your family friends or many important documents for finances etc. Unless you are like me and back up your system to a few dvds every week..... Why would you not research, especially when you could lose all those memories or important documents?

Just my thoughts.......

[edit on 3-9-2004 by JCMinJapan]

phew... looks like i read this just in time. was in the middle of downloading it. as far as i am concerned, when i think about it, sp1 is working just fine for me. i suppose i'll do as some others here and wait a few months.

I lost my hard drive to that damned thing... Bill Gates, you owe me about $2500 worth of illegally pirated CDs