Isn't a good firewall, good AV, firefox (instead of IE), etc enough?

[fitzm]

It seems to me that if I have all the security I mentioned in the title above coupled with a router thats locked down tight that this will protect me as well as any "extra" security measures SP2 would provide. no?

 

[tk11]

Yes. The firewall alone, and a little common sence will prove more effective than any software protection. If you want the bug fixes in sp2 without all the crap you can just disable it all (firewall, security center, windows file protection, system restore, etc...)

 

[fitzm]

gracias, I thought so.

 

[ValuedCustomer]

there are 254,908(+/-) other good reasons to install SP2 -- security features or not, XP SP2 is MUCH more stable than XP SP1

 

[Slikkster]

The real question is, why would you NOT want to install it? I know that people with the so-called "Corporate" version of XP pre-XP2 wouldn't want to, but other than that, I don't get why the hesitation? It's certainly been through its growing pains, and like the other poster said, it's stable. So?

 

[fitzm]

Well one reason is that every time I install SP2 my lappy external wireless card (Netgear pcmcia card) stops working-won't connect. And windows keeps trying to configure the card settings using XP's built in drivers I guess instead of letting Netgear's software handle it.

It also seems that SP2 makes my system slow down a bit also - even after tweaking it as best that I can.

My latest install has been w/o SP2 for about 2 months now so I'll keep my fingers crossed until it becomes un-stable. What are the biggest stability issues associated with SP1?

 

[Slikkster]

I can't get into the security issues. Sounds like you've already made your mind up, so it would all fall on deaf ears, anyway. But if it were me, I'd figure out what the deal was with the Netgear card. It's certainly not Microsoft's fault it isn't working. It sounds like a Netgear software/driver issue. I'm sure there's a fix for it. Good luck.

 

[klrjoe]

xp sp2 wireless client is much better than the netgear