MS dismisses SP2 blow
p2pnet.net News:- Microsoft says it isn’t worried that most of the companies approached in a recent survey say they’ll take no chances with XP Service Pack 2.
“To date, we have observed that 40% of companies using Windows XP have actively avoided upgrading to SP2, and only 7% have actively accepted it,” said managing director Steve O’Halloran of Canada’s AssetMetrix Research Labs.
“The other 52% of the companies showed no direction or policy towards SP2, and may find themselves having support issues by allowing multiple editions of Windows XP to exist in their infrastructure.”
However, Computer Business Review Online quotes Bill and the Boyz as saying, in effect, no problem – that AssetMetrix’s findings were in line with Microsoft’s expectations for the SP2 update and:
"After the recommended testing and evaluation period, Microsoft is seeing an up-tick in enterprise customers that are either deploying, or committing to deploy.”
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
take no chances - Most corporations avoid SP2, p2pnet, April 4, 2005
Computer Business Review Online – Microsoft confident on Windows XP SP2 despite user caution, April 5, 2005





April 5th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Most corporations avoid SP2
Can anyone comment about the value and/or harmlessness of MS pack? All we hear is that companies do not take kindly to it. But, after one ingnores MS’ past record, why is this service pack o doomed?
I appreciate any light shed on the strenghts and/or weaknesses of the pack.
April 5th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
Most corporations avoid SP2
Can anyone comment about the value and/or harmlessness of MS pack? All we hear is that companies do not take kindly to it. But, after one ingnores MS’ past record, why is this service pack o doomed?
I appreciate any light shed on the strenghts and/or weaknesses of the pack.
April 5th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
Whilst I cannot offer any technical information, I can give you first hand experience with it. I have 4 PCs running xp which are used to operate a small business, two of these have the SP2 update. Those two computers no longer run photoshop and Internet Explorer is much more sluggish when 4 or 5 windows are open. On some occasions when I run programs the computer will hang for about 10 seconds before continuing. My third party antivirus software (mcafee) also will not run.
If you have a hardware firewall and your own antivirus, I would not reccomend the update. I plan to format the two that have it and reinstall a clean copy of the original. I will do everything possible to stop the automatic update from installing SP2.
-Dalton notladstyle.com
April 6th, 2005 at 5:13 am
Well I know from my experiences that I have ran into trouble with it causeing a BSOD and such. I also used to get lags. I don’t use it anymore. I switched to WinXP x64(with service pack one) it runs a lot better for me than the normal 32 bit edition of XP. But when using SP2 i never ran into trouble with software not running. Everything I used worked.
April 6th, 2005 at 5:48 am
Basically because companies should already have firewalls and internet security all set up. They don’t need it in the OS. SP2 is primarily aimed at home users who have no idea what a firewall is let alone that they really should have one.
Besides, how long would it take you to install SP2 and then make sure all your programs worked? To do it properly you’d have to format your pc, install windows, then SP1 then SP2 and then all your programs. Do you know how long that would take for one pc let alone 500 or so? Ok we’d create an image for each different pc type that we have, but that would still require time to copy the image to the pc, then start the pc up once to ensure it all works.
To say nothing of the time involved in saving the favourites and other settings of those ppl who have net access and putting them back on the newly reimaged pc’s then ensuring their browser settings are correct, their login works ok, their email is configured properly, etc etc etc. It would take at least an hour per pc to do it properly including all that “polishing”. For 300 pc’s? We’re only a small company, would you want to do it for 2000 pc’s? Across multiple sites, in multiple countries perhaps?
No way. No how. 2k works fine for us.