Windows XP - SP2 is out

Long live the Microsoft Gods, XP SP 2 is out!

With Windows XP Service Pack 1 coming out on September 9, 2002, the GODS of Microsoft managed to squeak in under the wire of a 2 year window for the 2nd Service Pack. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather see them treat every service pack as they have this one, with the extensive testing and such. However, when you look at what this service pack entails, you are talking about a monster 266 MB that is 278,927,592 bytes!!!

They did put together a very nice page for IT Professionals though which has a link to the full network install. I don't know what all the stuff on the page references yet but the biggest thing is definatly the firewall and workarounds to help allow an IT Pro work around the firewall. The best way to work around this firewall is to modify the %windir%\Inf\Netfw.inf file and deploy this file via Active Directory Group Policy. There is an entire guide on working on this .inf file in a managed environment. This guide will really save your behind if you are an IT Pro, otherwise you will be visiting every workstation to open ports on the firewall, then when the end user decides to restore the original configuration, you will be going back again!!

Got to go, restarting my PC... Later all!