Before you post a new Win XP SP2 Thread please read!

[spyordie007]

I?ve seen the same handful of questions get repeated over and over again about SP2, to help answer these questions and keep new threads about old questions to a minimum I?ve written up this thread in FAQ style and will continue to update it if there are any new questions.

If you have any suggested additions please post them or PM me and I will update my original post.

Q. Where can I download SP2 now?
A. The Network Install of SP2 is available for download off Microsoft's Website The download size is 266 MB (278,927,592 bytes).

Q. What is the ?build number??
A. The final build number of SP2 is 2180.

Q. Why does my build number say ?2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158? when I go to winver?
A. ?SP2_RTM? means it is the RTM release of SP2. ?040803-2158? is not the build number; it is the date and time of the build (Aug 3,2004 9:58pm).

Take a look at start, programs, accessories, system tools, system information. The HAL version should be 5.1.2600.2180

(Thanks Stash)

Q. What is the ?Network Install??
A. The network install is a collection of all the SP2 components. The idea is that an IT Professional can use the network install to update any XP client to SP2 without the need for running Windows Update on every machine.

Q. Why is the Network Install so big?
A. As was stated the network install contains all the SP2 components for all versions of XP (Professional, Home, Tablet PC, Embedded, MCE, etc.). Between the different versions of XP there is a lot of code that needs updating. The Windows Update install will be much less (probably around 100MB).

Q. When will it be available on Windows Update?
A. It should be available on Windows Update very soon, Microsoft had delated the automatic update release at the request of some of their enterprise partners. AFAIK it will be available within days.

Q. Why did SP2 Change my splash (startup) screen?
A. In this release Microsoft removed the version specific information from the splash screen. Rather than saying the specific version of Windows XP (Professional, Home, Tablet, Embedded, MCE, etc.) it now simply says ?Windows XP.? I haven?t seen any official statement from Microsoft as to why they have done this.

Q. How do I prevent the automatic update client from installing SP2?
A. See MS article regarding temporarily preventing the install of this update

Q. Can I disable the security center alerts?
A. If you go to the security center and click on the little link on the left "Change the way Security Center alerts me" you can turn off the things it will nag you about.

Q. How do I create a Windows install CD that already has SP2 on it?
A. You can slipstream Service Pack 2 into an existing Windows install. For directions on how to slipstream SP2 please visit Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 2

 

[cw42]

i second for a sticky.

 

[Mareg]

Interesting note for P2P users :

One of the security features in SP2 is intended to help slow down the spread of Sasser type malicious programs, and SP2's stack apparently only allows 10 simultaneous connections per port, compared to the previously unlimited connections

P2P = RIP.

 

[spyordie007]

P2P = RIP

10 connections is hardly enough to signal the "end of P2P". Besides I wouldnt be surprised if there is a way to alter this connection limit.

 

[suklee]

Great idea... this should be stickied.

 

[Mareg]

Originally posted by: spyordie007

P2P = RIP

10 connections is hardly enough to signal the "end of P2P". Besides I wouldnt be surprised if there is a way to alter this connection limit.

Mmmmh, I wonder. When you think about P2P, you think about many more connection per port then 10. For exemple, BT will usually take 30-40 connection for a semi-popular download. It can go easily in the 100 for a huge release. Now, there may be a way to alter this but I highly doubt the casual user will go to that extent, let alone understand why is favorite P2P client is slower.

But if you take it to a higher level. Think that a vast majority of casual P2P user are limited to 10 connections... wouldn't that bring all the network to a crawl. I cannot say, but it deems a reflection IMO.

 

[spyordie007]

You know now that I think about it I know I've pulled down bittorent ISOs while running the RCs and havent had problems.

You sure that 10 connection limit isnt inbound? It would make sense anyways since that is where it would benefit you in sasser types of attacks.

 

[mldeveloper]

Do I have to do anything to enable NX for my amd64 cpu? I don't know how to tell if it's on.

 

[Mareg]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
You know now that I think about it I know I've pulled down bittorent ISOs while running the RCs and havent had problems.

You sure that 10 connection limit isnt inbound? It would make sense anyways since that is where it would benefit you in sasser types of attacks.

You may be right. If that's the case, it would be bad for leechers, wich is a good thing !!!

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Mareg

Originally posted by: spyordie007

P2P = RIP

10 connections is hardly enough to signal the "end of P2P". Besides I wouldnt be surprised if there is a way to alter this connection limit.

Mmmmh, I wonder. When you think about P2P, you think about many more connection per port then 10. For exemple, BT will usually take 30-40 connection for a semi-popular download. It can go easily in the 100 for a huge release. Now, there may be a way to alter this but I highly doubt the casual user will go to that extent, let alone understand why is favorite P2P client is slower.

But if you take it to a higher level. Think that a vast majority of casual P2P user are limited to 10 connections... wouldn't that bring all the network to a crawl. I cannot say, but it deems a reflection IMO.

But BT uses as many ports within a specified range as it can.

So in reality, if you are using 10 ports..that's 100 connections. Which wont be a problem

 

[Mareg]

Originally posted by: MCrusty

Originally posted by: Mareg

Originally posted by: spyordie007

P2P = RIP

10 connections is hardly enough to signal the "end of P2P". Besides I wouldnt be surprised if there is a way to alter this connection limit.

Mmmmh, I wonder. When you think about P2P, you think about many more connection per port then 10. For exemple, BT will usually take 30-40 connection for a semi-popular download. It can go easily in the 100 for a huge release. Now, there may be a way to alter this but I highly doubt the casual user will go to that extent, let alone understand why is favorite P2P client is slower.

But if you take it to a higher level. Think that a vast majority of casual P2P user are limited to 10 connections... wouldn't that bring all the network to a crawl. I cannot say, but it deems a reflection IMO.

But BT uses as many ports within a specified range as it can.

So in reality, if you are using 10 ports..that's 100 connections. Which wont be a problem

Nope, it use one port per download (torrent). It use many connections on that port. Yes you can specify many ports in any range you want and even tell BT to select the port randomly but it will only open one port per torrent shared. Anyhow, thats my personnal experiance with one client... it could differ and I would be happy to find this BT client.

 

[jamesbond007]

Wow, that BitTorrent thing stinks. Can anyone with SP2 already installed confirm if this is accurate? Personally, I use BitTornado, so I can see immediately if the torrent is well-seeded or not.

http://www.bittornado.com/

If you use the original/Official client, please try out BitTornado and see if it is able to work more than 10 connections per Torrent.

Wait, I forgot I have my laptop...I'll test SP2 on there and give BitTorrents a try. Will update soon...

EDIT: Make sure your laptop has AC power while installing SP2 or it will not install...lol.

 

[stash]

Good thread spy, thanks for trying to stop the insanity

Also be aware that SP2 will be coming via Automatic Updates if enabled.

 

[jamesbond007]

Well, I've connected to 24 people via BitTorrent so far on a single torrent. (21 seeds, 3 peers) Right now I'm pulling 167KB/sec with 1KB/sec upstream.

I'll try more torrent files later to see if I can connect to more peers than just 24. Perhaps the writer of BitTorrent can allow a single torrent to use more than one port to enable a higher number of connected peers.

As I am writing this, it has gone up and I'm breaching 300KB/sec with 15KB/sec upstream and a total of 29 total connects on one torrent.

 

[Budman]

Q. How do slipstream SP2 into a bootable cdr?

A. First you need service pack 2.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

then you need to download autostreamer. http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337&st=0&#entry2453585

direct link to program here ---> http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autostreamer/AutoStreamer.zip

it's pretty easy,use auto streamer & it will make a nice ISO with sp2 for you to burn . couldnt be easier.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Budman
Q. How do slipstream SP2 into a bootable cdr?

A. First you need service pack 2.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

then you need to download autostreamer. http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337&st=0&#entry2453585

direct link to program here ---> http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autostreamer/AutoStreamer.zip

it's pretty easy,use auto streamer & it will make a nice ISO with sp2 for you to burn . couldnt be easier.

I dont know how I feel about using a 3rd party tool to do something you can do nativly (decompress, update and burning doesnt require 3rd party applications).

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: Budman
Q. How do slipstream SP2 into a bootable cdr?

A. First you need service pack 2.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

then you need to download autostreamer. http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337&st=0&#entry2453585

direct link to program here ---> http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autostreamer/AutoStreamer.zip

it's pretty easy,use auto streamer & it will make a nice ISO with sp2 for you to burn . couldnt be easier.

I dont know how I feel about using a 3rd party tool to do something you can do nativly (decompress, update and burning doesnt require 3rd party applications).

give it a try,it's so easy that any noob can do it.
it's so easy that's why i suggested this program,I can do a slipstream the old way myself but many users just don't have the knowledge or skills to do it,that's why i suggest this program.

 

[spyordie007]

but many users just don't have the knowledge or skills to do it,that's why i suggest this program.

If they dont have the knowledge or skills to do this perhaps they shouldnt be building a CD used for OS deployment...

I guess if the concensus is that it does a good job and it's from a reputable source than I'll add it. I'm out of here for now but I'll take a look at it either tonight or tomorrow.

 

[stash]

Here is another piece of info that I had alluded to before. If you want to be able to prevent SP2 from being downloaded through automatic updates, check out this link.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2aumng.mspx

This is helpful to admins who may have large groups of machines with AU enabled. You will be able to block SP2 from being downloaded for up to 120 days from Aug 16th, which will give time to test the update.

The rest of the release schedule for SP2 is also availabe at the above link.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Budman
Q. How do slipstream SP2 into a bootable cdr?

A. First you need service pack 2.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

then you need to download autostreamer. http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337&st=0&#entry2453585

direct link to program here ---> http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autostreamer/AutoStreamer.zip

it's pretty easy,use auto streamer & it will make a nice ISO with sp2 for you to burn . couldnt be easier.

Thanks for the suggestion; I thought it over and I dont think I'm going to recommend this. Yes I agree it's a nice easy to use tool. The problem is the inherit legal concerns for an application that creates redistributable updates (just like their AutoPatcher tool). Suggesting a close-sourced project without a solid entity to back it up to create a redistributable OS install is just too "gray" for me. Example:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1620812,00.asp

I'm going to continue to reccomend to people that they do it the supported and EULA-safe way (even if it is harder).

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: Budman
Q. How do slipstream SP2 into a bootable cdr?

A. First you need service pack 2.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

then you need to download autostreamer. http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337&st=0&#entry2453585

direct link to program here ---> http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autostreamer/AutoStreamer.zip

it's pretty easy,use auto streamer & it will make a nice ISO with sp2 for you to burn . couldnt be easier.

Thanks for the suggestion; I thought it over and I dont think I'm going to recommend this. Yes I agree it's a nice easy to use tool. The problem is the inherit legal concerns for an application that creates redistributable updates (just like their AutoPatcher tool). Suggesting a close-sourced project without a solid entity to back it up to create a redistributable OS install is just too "gray" for me. Example:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1620812,00.asp

I'm going to continue to reccomend to people that they do it the supported and EULA-safe way (even if it is harder).

I agree with spyordie here. While the tool does make it easy it's not like the supported way of slipstreaming is difficult to accomplish.

 

[Underclocked]

Recommended or not, Autostreamer works very well.

I've wondered why MS had not put out such a tool. Should be part of the download.

 

[substance12]

Originally posted by: Mareg
Interesting note for P2P users :

One of the security features in SP2 is intended to help slow down the spread of Sasser type malicious programs, and SP2's stack apparently only allows 10 simultaneous connections per port, compared to the previously unlimited connections

P2P = RIP.

1) is there a way to disable that feature?

2) is there a way to disable that security manager or whatever it's called that tells you your firewall is on/off and if you have programs that are out of date?

 

[NightCrawler]

If your a noob use this app: http://slipstreamer.screemer.nu/slipstreamer_xp_2.0/v2/Flexbeta_Slipstreamer_XP_Version_2_Beta_2/SlipStreamer2Beta2.exe

Here is the site: http://slipstreamer.screemer.nu/

Let's you add your cd key, can setup a unattended install and will even burn the cd for you.

Screenshots: http://slipstreamer.screemer.nu/slipstreamer_xp_2.0/v2/screenshots.html

 

[NightCrawler]

Unattended installs can be loaded from a floppy or burn directly to the cd.

Instructions: http://www.hytekcomputer.com/Articles/XPInstall/1.shtml