XP SP2 to RTM very very soon / Some SP2 gotchas
UPDATE:
XP SP2 Release Schedule
5th August RTM Announcement
10th August RTW (release to web)
24th August Windows Update/Automatic Updates release
[via NeoWin]
Kent reports that Windows XP SP2 will Released To Manufacturing today (8/4/04) soon - see update above.
Release Candidate 2 has been removed from the Microsoft website, but is still available elsewhere on the web[1]. Microsoft recommends not installing RC2 and waiting for the official release, but if you develop or maintain internet, intranet, or HTML applications you may want to get a look at how IE6 XP SP2 will affect your applications before your users do.
Microsoft XP SP2 resources [for IT professionals] [for developers] [for web developers]
The main things I've noticed:
- Many users already have a popup blocker installed - the Google Toolbar, for instance. I expect some user confusion as these users will now have two popup blockers installed. Support information or help desks will talk them through allowing the popup through the IE popup blocker, but the other popup blocker will still block it.
- The IE6 popup blocker is different than others I've used. It's a little more confusing as far as allowing popups for a certain site.
- If a page or popup gets blocked due to security restrictions and you choose to allow the page, you lose your information on the page and have to reenter it. This may confuse users.
- The firewall is very user friendly. It prompted me when an application tried to communicate through a blocked port and allowed me to open it in the prompt. I very much hope that help desks talk users through this process instead of telling them to disable the firewall!
- Local internet security restrictions are going to be a big deal. I bet this will be one of the biggest surprises of XP SP2 - look for HTML based software that runs off CD's or using embeded browser controls to stop working. More here: http://www.phdcc.com/xpsp2.htm
- I've been using Notepad2 as a replacement for Notepad, and XPSP2 undid my notepad2 replacement - other folks have hit this, too.. Replacer worked for a while, but Notepad seems to have come back.
- ISORecorder doesn't work with SP2. I use ISORecorder pretty often - it's a freeware app that allows you to right click on an ISO file and burn it to a CD using the built in XP CD writer. Alex posted that there will be an update to ISORecorder by the RTM date, but it's not there yet. Until he updates it, you can use CDBurn (incuded in the "Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools" download - see Benjamin Zamora's post).
[1] If you do install RC2, I've been told to install the 2149 build rather than 2162, since the final release of SP2 should install cleanly over 2149.