Windows XP SP2: A No-Brainer Upgrade? Security Enhancements Here, There, Everywhere Joseph Moran
If there's one phrase to sum up the raison d'etre of Windows XP's long-awaited Service Pack 2, we would submit (with apologies to James Carville) that it should be, "It's the security, stupid." Almost all the features of SP2, and certainly all of the most important ones, concern security in some way, shape, or form.
After months of tweaking and testing as well as several well-publicized delays, XP SP2 is finally here, and, following a long standing Microsoft tradition, it adds features and capabilities that would at first glance seem to obviate the need for many independent utilities. However, as has been the case with previous updates, the operating system enhancements raise the baseline functionality without necessarily providing all the capabilities of third-party software.
No matter how you slice it, SP2 is a substantial download that will have even broadband connections working overtime. The size of the complete soup-to-nuts installation is a whopping 266MB and will munch through over 900MB of space (you read that right — a stone's throw from 1GB) during the installation process.
Thankfully, SP2 also happens to be cumulative, including everything in SP1 (issued nearly two years ago) as well as all of the standalone updates and hotfixes that have been issued since. Therefore, if you've been in the habit of downloading and installing XP updates on a regular basis, the SP2 download may only be in the range of 80 to 100 MB. Suffice it to say that if you're using a dial-up connection, downloading the update will be untenable.
Most dial-up users will be better served installing the upgrade from a CD, which Microsoft is pledging to provide free of charge to all comers later this summer. (How quickly the company will get that CD to your doorstep, on the other hand, isn't clear.) Alternatively, you can run down to your local Best Buy or Circuit City and grab a free copy of the CD there.
