I have had the 'Updates are ready for your computer' - SP2 - since yesterday.

Having had serious problems with various 'Updates' and SP1 on more than one occassion I think I will watch an old video of the original Muppets before trusting the latest updates.

Denny, Let me know when it is safe?

Matt35.

UK.

It is available but MS is slowly updating machines.  They are limiting the number of machines they do each day so it could take some time until you (and I) receive it.

 Microsoft is having problems in getting out sp2  so the only you be able to get SP2 is thur Automatic update.   They will be releasing the other ways later in the year.

Here is manual  download   if you don't get via auto update. I ask Msn support to help me out...

Here the direct link the download is for those have DSL/Cable the download is 266MB

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/5/165b076b-aaa9-443d-84f0-73cf11fdcdf8/WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe

I assume when AutoUpdate came up, said SP2 was readty, and I clicked on 'Download' that it put me in a que somewhere that's counting down until it's 'my turn'.  Anyone know if that's true?  It's been four days now and nothing.  But I assume it could be months with a zillion updates to do...  ON EDIT:  Also, I don't have my box on 24/7, anyone know if that'll make a difference?

Message Edited by Bob11 on 08-21-2004 08:55 AM

Denny, Let me know when it is safe?

Whether or not you will have any problems installing SP2 does not depend on the weather, neither does it depend on the phase of the moon or the constellation of the planets.

So, purely out of curiosity, what is it you think you are waiting for?

Dietmar,

I am at a loss to understand your comments regarding the phases of the moon or the weather - or the Constellations of the planets.

My post reflected the experience of many thousands of people who have suffered problems after installing so called upgrades which have not been properly thought out .

This BB exists, and is a great source of help, to people like me who are neither computer experts, or, as your reply implies, lunatics - look it up on Google?

What I am waiting for, as are many others, is advice from very helpful contributors to this website, such as Denny Denham, as to when the SP2 has sorted the (already reported) bugs and who can let us amateurs know, without sarcasm, when it is safe to download it.

Matt.

Matt35,

I don't think that anybody (not even Denny :-) can advise definitively on whether you will or won't have problems on your PC after installing SP2.

All I can tell you is that it installed and runs without problems on my PC.

The new security features may require setting up a little, depending on your system and set up, but there is quite a lot of information available. Many of the people complaining that this or that no longer works blame SP2, whereas they have not bothered to find out how to use the new features properly.

You will find some useful information on

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=windowsxpsp2

and the links in there.

Edited to address the right person.

Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 08-22-2004 12:07 AM

My post reflected the experience of many thousands of people who have suffered problems after installing so called upgrades which have not been properly thought out .

Do you know of any example of such problems that have been reported on this board? Mind you, we are talking about problems that are due to an upgrade that "has not been properly thought out". You are correct enough that many people have experienced problems, but at least in this forum I have never seen a single report of a problem that reproducibly demonstrated a problem with one of MS' upgrades. Moreover, I have upgraded many, many computers running various flavors of Windows NT continuously over the last decade, and I have not experienced serious problems with any of them, and only minor issues in a very small number of cases that were so specialized that they would never come up in a board such as this.

What I am waiting for, as are many others, is advice from very helpful contributors to this website, such as Denny Denham, as to when the SP2 has sorted the (already reported) bugs

Would you be able to describe, or provide a link to any of those alleged "already reported bugs"?

More importantly, though, you need to understand that there is and will be only one, and exactly one, Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Whatever alleged shortcomings that service pack may have (and again, I would be quite interested in learning about them) will not be corrected by releasing a different SP2, which should explain why I responded to your post the way I did. You have the option to either install or not install SP2, but no matter how long you wait, the piece of software that MS offers under this name right now will not be changed. There certainly will be further updates and fixes later on, but those will presume the existence of Windows XP SP2. Thus, it will never be any "safer" to download SP2 than it is now. I might add that in my experience, after having upgraded a bunch of machines to SP2 without any issues whatsoever, it is indeed perfectly "safe" to install this service pack.

I hope this clears things up for you.

P.S. (added after seeing JR's post): I fully agree with JR.

Message Edited by Dietmar on 08-21-2004 06:22 PM

Dietmar,

I do understand and take your point in your final paragraph...my experiences with SP1 on 2 occassions that I tried to instal it were disastrous - on the second try I spent more than $100 between Dell and MS to get back online after 3 days - not including $40 telephone charges.

I eventually asked MS if I should pay for repairing a problem caused exclusively by their download and, to their credit, both MS and Dell refunded my credit card charges - Dell on the basis that their tech had advised me that the only cure was a re-install, which was nonsense.

You will understand my hesitance at attempting SP2 - I appreciate your clarification that the initial pack is what we get and that any updates will be applied to this base...this had not occured to me.

Matt35.