review of SP2

http://reviews.cnet.com/Microsoft_Wi...2.html?tag=top

CNET advices to wait untill MS
"have had enough time to work out the kinks."

By now we all realize this is not just a simple service pack,
but a major core system update.

I quote from CNET:
" Toll-free phone support is available from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. (PT) on
weekdays and from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. We called the phone line
with our problem of dropped wireless connections and spent nearly two hours
getting nowhere. The support technician we spoke with chalked it up to a
driver conflict and stressed that SP2 was essentially a new operating system
and that driver problems were to be expected."

I live in Belgium,
MS offers toll-only support overhere. No 800 numbers available outside the
US.

I'll wait before I jump, what will you do?

This is being talked about as the biggest code update outside of a whole
release of windows. I only run XP at work and not at home. My company is
advising employees not to upgrade until they have had time to check
compatability with all applications we use.

Personally for home use, I would hold off for now. Many of the security
updates provides by SP2 can be achieved through manual configuration of IE
and the installation of a good firewall/AV.

MGS


Dutch User shared with us the following:
>
http://reviews.cnet.com/Microsoft_Wi...2.html?tag=top
>
> CNET advices to wait untill MS
> "have had enough time to work out the kinks."
>
> By now we all realize this is not just a simple service pack,
> but a major core system update.
>
> I quote from CNET:
> " Toll-free phone support is available from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. (PT) on
> weekdays and from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. We called the phone
> line
> with our problem of dropped wireless connections and spent nearly two
> hours
> getting nowhere. The support technician we spoke with chalked it up
> to a
> driver conflict and stressed that SP2 was essentially a new operating
> system
> and that driver problems were to be expected."
>
> I live in Belgium,
> MS offers toll-only support overhere. No 800 numbers available
> outside the
> US.
>
> I'll wait before I jump, what will you do?

Dutch User,
I agree with your post but I have been preparing for the change, in line
with MS recommendation, by contacting all my hardware/software providers to
enquire if there are alternative drivers/updates etc. However, one
manufacturer (Adaptec) is proving to be very elusive, nowhere can I find XP
S2 information on their SCSI Controller Card. I have tried to call Adaptec's
European telephone number in Germany but can't get past their automated
answering service, eventually I e-mailed their webmaster but I don't have
much hope of a reply.
Derek Nicholson


"Dutch User" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
http://reviews.cnet.com/Microsoft_Wi...2.html?tag=top
>
> CNET advices to wait untill MS
> "have had enough time to work out the kinks."
>
> By now we all realize this is not just a simple service pack,
> but a major core system update.
>
> I quote from CNET:
> " Toll-free phone support is available from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. (PT) on
> weekdays and from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. We called the phone line
> with our problem of dropped wireless connections and spent nearly two
hours
> getting nowhere. The support technician we spoke with chalked it up to a
> driver conflict and stressed that SP2 was essentially a new operating
system
> and that driver problems were to be expected."
>
> I live in Belgium,
> MS offers toll-only support overhere. No 800 numbers available outside the
> US.
>
> I'll wait before I jump, what will you do?
>
>
>
>
>

I installed SP2 and my PC was working fine. Then I installed Office 2003 SP1
(Hate that they didn't include Frontpage with it - now I have to keep my
Office XP installation too...) and that's when my system went all screwy on
me - when I try to delete a file or right click on one of the shortcuts in
the Quick Lanch taskbar I get Explorer.exe error messages that give me a
number like 0x0193415b. So I uninstalled both updates with System Restore and
tried installing Office 2003 SP1 first, then SP2 - same problem again. So I
restored and installed only SP2 and this time I had the same problem except
this time I got different numbers like 0x00c3415b, 0x0204415b, 0x02af415b and
0x0213415b, amongst others. So basically I restored again to SP1 and now I'm
considering on holding back installing SP2 until it magically pops up in
Windows Update (I downloaded the executable package from Microsoft through
Softpedia.com). But I honestly hate that it will require me to enable the
Windows Update and Background Intelligent Transfer services so that they'll
run 24/7 - hate these resource hogs running all the time...

Another problem I came up with was my MSN Messenger refusing to sign into my
Hotmail account - it will sign into any other account but my own and won't
even give an error message or number. This has forced me to switch to another
email (Walla.com with 1GB of space although I will switch to Gmail when it
goes public) and I'm not too happy about the whole situation but there's not
much I could do and MSN Support was apparently clueless too. I doubt this
would happen to everyone (I always seem to land into bad luck with Microsoft
products) but I was hoping someone might know what my problem was and come up
with a solution to it.

My advice is to hold back on SP2 - there are probably many glitches in it
and I feel like MS rushed it at the last minute - I was getting quite
impatient for it too but I'd rather they fix all the kinks in the system than
to create more problems than they set out to fix. At least they made an
attempt though, right?

I am currently discussing about my problem with Microsoft's Support Team but
I doubt they'd be able to find the solution.