Despite allegations that downloads of the upgrade were way behind schedule at 20 million copies by mid-September, the company said on Monday that this meant it was on course for its distribution target.
"We're on track to get 100 million copies out there and it's been going well," said Paul Randle, Windows XP product manager. "We've seen around 500,000 downloads every day, but that will go up as more languages come on board. We're going to up the throttle for auto-updates."
Microsoft released SP2 in August to combat the plethora of holes and vulnerabilities that hackers were exploiting in Windows XP. The firm said that most installations had happened via automatic updates and Windows updates.
Many larger businesses are still testing SP2 for fear that could bring their networks to a halt. In anticipation of this, Microsoft has provided businesses with an SP2 blocker – a tool that allows desktops to download updates without installing SP2.
"Smaller businesses and home users have done very well with deployment," said Randle. "But we've advised larger businesses to table a more structured deployment. We've advised them to do thorough testing."
But not everyone is convinced that the SP2 is so easy. Some firms are treating it as an entirely new operating system.
"My concern is that firms will see this as an operating system upgrade rather than a patch," said Richard Starnes, president of the Information Systems Security Association, UK. "This is worrying because it will take time to test and this will give malware writers more time to exploit the code Microsoft is trying to patch.
"Consumers do not have the Q&A option with Microsoft," he added. "So I wonder how much support will be available for them if their systems are broken." Last week, Microsoft said that it would only offer the latest version of Internet Explorer as part of SP2.
Talkback
I did an automatic download of SP2 over the weekend and after the install it immediately caused problems.
First, it did not recognize that Norton Antivirus was active/enabled. Second the firewall started going up and down. Third, my system started to act as if a background app was frozen. Fourth, I could not activate the firewall. Fifth, I had no access to the net via cable. And there were other problems as well.
I called MS and they were NO HELP.
After considerable effort I was able to uninstall SP2 and my system returned to good working order.
Makes me wonder if MS has heard of "system testing"? I know it's probably a radical idea for them, but I do know other companies do test before launch.
SP2 was no problem as long as you understood the implications beforehand. Software packages needed to be evaluated and existing firewalls needed to be disabled if necessary. The problem with Symantec Anti Virus products were easily dealt with by following simple advice and downloading a patch. No problems encountered at all.
Mike