Windows SP2 is RTM!

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You mustn't be a gamer of any relative hardcore nature because Fileplanet is *the* place for a majority of all patches, game updates, promos, etc

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I am a very hardcore gamer, but AO is not a gaming site. In fact, SP2 has nothing to do with gaming, and thus why I call it an oddball site to get security patches from. I wouldn't wander over to Windows Update to find a patch for Doom 3, now would I?

I also refuse to register for fileplanet transfers, as I don't support FP in the least. Massive ad marketing and spam of email that register with them means company ethics that I don't agree with. If I want game patches, I'll go to the main site of the game. To each their own though.

While FP has a download speed of 25-75k, I'll stick the the MS official site and nail it at 400k.

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Does anyone know if MS added the planned "feature" to prevent certain XP keys

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Various cd keys will be disabled, but only ones reported as being heavily used by piracy. However, SP2 was released with the base plan of "If sp1 is already installed, allow sp2 to be installed as well". Otherwise, yes, there are quite a few pirated cd keys that are rejected both by SP2 and windows update version 5. Not that I'm worried :) Normal home users (corp don't count because they won't have that problem AFAIR) will be using their own personal cd keys anyways.

unless of course there are many (and reports are that yes, there are) home users using pirated versions.... I`m not sure if this is a wise decision by MS, but then they have to make money, so why not prevent piracy however they can.

Of course the danger is that all those pirated systems become targets for all the nasty people out there who know that those boxes aren`t safe from the problems fixed by SP2, and yes, it is the fault of the people using pirated keys, but in some ways I would rather have those peoples security risks reduced the same as all the legal users out there.

Whether or not you have a legit key or not, xp pro with sp2 included has been available to download for over a week now via p2p. Both a standard version with activation crack and a corp version with a list of working keys.

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but in some ways I would rather have those peoples security risks reduced the same as all the legal users out there.

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I completely agree. There was quite the outrage about it during Beta testing of SP2, because people knew that pirated or not, they didn't want Windows XP unpatched boxes being host to DDoS or zombine machines. So the plan of allowing SP2 to be installed if SP1 was already installed passed and is implimented as we speak, that and the number of banned cd keys went down signifigantly (only the one's that are being very very heavily pirated, talking about in the thousands of thousands) so that people with illegal cd keys can still install SP2 manually, but be blocked from future Windows Update version 5.

We need to help even the pirates so we all won't be under attack, just a matter of finding that balanced line of copyright protection and common sense lol

Just a little heads up on sp2 , if you use nmap , you will not be able to anymore as sp2 dissallows/disables raw sockets (fyodor just expressed this on the nmap list)

Actualy if you read microsofts pages the say they are the only authorized outlet for it and asks that anybody finding it elsewhere let microsoft know. Fileplanet has it posted illegaly. As far as getting it from anyplace otehr than MS i wouldnt because i KNOW for a fact coming from MS its untampered with. As far as not installing on pirated copys who gives a rats ass. If you have a hacked copy of XP you dont deserve the updates enough said.

I have SP2 RC2 and for the last 2 days I have been plagued with the update function to download and install the new service pack.
Now you are wondering why I haven't, simply because the download comes in on the background at a very reduced rate and I have not been charged (laptop power) enough to get the whole thing. In fact I attempted to once and had to turn off my laptop so it could recharge. I am curious to see if it will resume where it left off or start completely new again (one of the upgrades of SP2 updates is suppose to be intellegent updates and to resume a broken download) but I will wait untill tonight when I can keep my wife off the computer and it can get a full charge.
Note> at this time they are not allowing direct downloading, just the autoupdate, so i can not take advantage of my high speed connection.

{edit} I am also curious if I will have to redo my configuration again, or if it will transfer over.