Windows Service Pack 2... necesary? unnecesary?

[Procyon]

I want to know if I relly should install the SP2. What extras does it have? Are necesary?

Does this not allow me to play some games?

[Desert_Eagle25]

It mainly fills up alot of pot holes in the WinXP system and adds a little more sense of security.  Other than that....it's total crap.

[Andrew]

Yep, total crap ;)

It will take some getting used to.

But if you don't get it you will end up downloading little parts of it from windows update anyways.

Hehe last week some guy said don't get it, it's crap when the subject came up. Guess someone felt the same way as me.

But I think the same might have been said about service pack 1.

So inevitably you will end up getting it before longhorn is released.

If you have easy access to formatting your computer or removing SP2, then go ahead and try it. But you have to give it time, becuase at first you will be like WTF is all this crap? And why did it change my settings? How do I turn this thing off that keeps popping up (which I learned how to turn off from help from helpful forum members)

[rigel6669]

I will not install it because it gives problems with some games

Its better to wait untill they fixed the bugs if you really want to install it

http://www.dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=15426.msg253733#msg253733

[Cyborg]

I must say I love Service Pack 2.

I've good experience with it.

Nothing ever went bad.

[erjin999]

Its like "can you be bothered to deal with the possibility that something might go wrong ?"

If you can be, and there

[Cyborg]

What you notice at first is how good the built-in Windows XP firewall is. My advice is to use it.

I've heard that some games will not work anymore when you install Service Pack 2, but my attempts at making any of my games crash have been futile.

[d3m0nger]

How about de-activating windows update?

[gryphon]

you still have the same features and functions with activating and de-activating windows components as you would have had before SP2...

[Cyborg]

Not entirely true, I believe.

The firewall in Windows has been upgraded noticeably.

[gryphon]

The firewall in Windows has been upgraded noticeably.

it is, but you can just as simple disable it... although it has the tendancy to turn itself on from time to time.. .. ;)

[erjin999]

I havent had it come back on after turning it off. What could be happening to make it come back on by itself ? That would be a major wierd thing. Overall I havent had any real problem with SP2, in fact its been nice trying to spot where the changes were...sad huh ?  ???

[Andrew]

Did it create a new account on your computer?

It did for me. I have no reason why it would do that. This caused my computer to start different and go to the login screen when there was only one user to login to, and no password was required. Thus I deleted the newly made account.

I think it also reset my visual effects for windows.

[gryphon]

Did it create a new account on your computer?

I just have the default admin account, gast account . . the support and Helpassistant on WinXP with SP2.

[erjin999]

It didnt as far as I am aware.

[Andrew]

I don't know if it is service pack 2, but Age of Empires Rise of Rome keeps crashing while playing a game. I am not happy. I have it patched too.

[erjin999]

<Ahem> all the more reason to play emperor, which doesnt seem to have anyproblems with SP2...</ahem>

[Andrew]

Actually I reinstalled it without patch and it worked fine. But I installed the patch again to see if that is the problem.

And in the map editor I cant seem to find the resources (gold, stone food) to put on the map. no matter what version.

EDIT - Played a game with patch with no glitch. Now I am guessing it was because I had "high" path finding set. As I played without high pathfinding (default) and it didn't crash.

[erjin999]

Oh well, your success is my failure at recruiting another player  :'( Hehehe, just kidding.

So thats another "SP2 doesnt mess up this game" we can add to the list. So far it reads:

Confimed:

Emperor: Battle for Dune.

Age of Empires Rise of Rome.

;D

[Nyarlathotep]

So far, I haven't seen the need to upgrade to Service Pack 2 and I have no intentions to do so.

[erjin999]

But isnt the fact that it is said to do a lot of "under the bonnet" stuff, i.e. not seen things, the reason for downloading it.

What I mean to say is you may not notice too much difference but it is meant to fiddle with the internals, improving security amongst other things.

Thats what they told me anyway  ;)