WinXP sp2- RC1 available.

[Hannu]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx

There is a link on that page for release notes as well.

I've installed it. the new Firewall is great, its like zonealarm pro, and it integrates itself with popular antivirus software. Nice and easy to allow ports.

Also the problems I was having with my stuttering effect with HT seems to be resolved!!

There was a known issue with XP sp1 and HT, there was some performance degradation, now, so far, with sp2 it seems to be better. Programs react a little faster, even when doing lots of multitasking. So far it looks really good. Hefty download tho. 262MB. but its worth it IMO.

There is a known issue, and I've just found it to be true.
Norton Autoprotect stops working after sp2 installed and restarted. Reinstalling it now to see if that fixes it. will update.

[Skull]

hhmmm interesting these Service packs are mostly crap but i'll be trying this one.

[Hannu]

OK, Big warning!

Uninstall Norton Products before installing this sp2-RC1. Caused big headaches when I installed over it, it stopped it from working and wouldnt even let me uninstall it. So I did system restore and uninstalled Norton Sysworks first, then re-added xpsp2 and its working better than ever! lots of little hesitations that sp1 had are no longer there with HT. I am happy camper. and the firewall works perfect.

[Buho]

Or create a rollback point before installing?

Sounds good. Yeah, I usually ignore service packs, but I'll install this one.

[Salvage]

I'm still waiting for it to come out of beta.

[modetwo]

It's a Release Candidate for a reason. I wouldn't touch it until it get's on windowsupdate.com

[Hannu]

I'm still waiting for it to come out of beta.

I think RC is post-beta, but still, unless you are having problems with your HT like I was, its best to wait for final.

[Salvage]

Anything that's RC(release candidate) most likely has a few bugs. I expect this to go through two more release candidates before it gets a supported release and even then it will have a few bugs.

Release Candidates are always public betas albeit public betas having already gone through internal betas.

[Anarchtica]

I downloaded it, and I love it. It fixed a few things that didn't work in windows before. For example, the network wizard would crash, so I wasn't able to network my two xp computers together. Now it works. And before, the firewall would crash for some odd reason, so I couldn't use windows firewall, I used another program. Now windows firewall works, and I still have my old firewall. So for me, it fixed some issues I had before. I can't wait to see the final product so that I can see what else it fixed.