Windows XP Service Pack 2

Hi all, hope everyone is well?.

The UK weather (for the last five minutes at least -   ) is FAIRLY nice, and I'm reasonably pleased and relaxed as I have several days off due to the bank holiday.

As many of you will know - Microsoft have issued their second service pack for Windows XP.

 Now, as there are people (a lot smarter than I) out there , with a better perspective on the actual implications of the patches, alterations and the like, I'll leave the "technical" arguments to them. But I thought that I would share with you the experience of what Service Pack 2 means to an ordinary joe like me.

Firstly the download time,even with a 1MB DSL link, was still substantial (and the thought of even trying it with a Dial-up 56K modem gives me the shivers-    ). Once uploaded the install time was equally restrictive. The whole thing from start to finish involved several HOURS of my time. However, one other thing to bare in mind is, that although the whole thing is supposed to be delivered by the Auto Windows Update system (if you have XP setup to do that sort of thing) - but, on the basis of "if I get it I control the way things happen" ( I wish - ) - I actually went after the update. The logic behind that decision (if logic is the correct term) was that what has to done, has been done.

Now I think I must be cracked.

If all that wasn't bad enough, but I have only just realized the major cost - to me at least.

I checked, as is my want, how much disc space I have left on my C: drive. My "paranoid" over the disc space is that the machine I'm on at the moment (soon to be replaced) is our main access to the internet (although our original "Old" computer is in our lads bedroom - however, as things have progressed, it now has the storage space and processing power of a small washing machine), that said, it is our main computer for everything.

The thing is, that our present computer is now coming upto four years old, so the spec involved is "minimal" compared to what you can get now. We have upgraded and updated various things, but a bigger hard disc - well we never got round to that. Hence the "concern" about how much disc space.

Anyway , back to the service pack. Before I started (and, to be fair the last time I looked) I had, give or take, about 2.5 - 2.8 GB of disc space.

     Have a guess how much I have now??????? -   

The system is telling me 1.9GB. The service pack, apparently, has cost me 500MB in disc space - give or take.

So, if you are thinking of applying Service Pack Two to your machine (not that you will have much choice in reality -  ), just bare in mind what you get for your "money". On the face of it you get several "new" wizards, including a wireless setup wizard which may prove at least useful to me in the near further. You get an "enhanced" Windows Firewall (which, until I hear any different I still will not use as I already have, and like ZoneAlarm Pro) , you can now pick whether to look at, or more accurately, list the Windows and Office Updates that you have downloaded in the Add/Remove Programs view. And you also get a "Security Central" Link that develops a page telling you you have a Firewall, Virus Guard and Windows Update set up ( which I already knew?).

The whole process is not a five minute job and you may have to give up some disc space that you wanted (or needed???) for something else.