What is MS gonna do? Force us to update to service pack 2? I have heard this and have seen it a few places online. I hope as long as I have " automatic update off " it wont update, but you never know :O.

I believe they're simply removing the option to automatically install all updates excluding SP2-it'll be treated the same as any other update afterwards as companies should have had chance to test compatability.

You can't do any updates unless you have SP2. That is all!

Well I've only had an XP install for 2 weeks and haven't even had a win98SE install for months, but I downloaded the multiple install SP2 (basically just fully offline install) and transfered it over so I never had to put this pc online to get it updated.

SP2 is not bad... until it is.

Basically, for most people, SP2 is a good thing. The problems arise when you have software which will not work and you can't replace. Or, like with my mother's computer (now sans Windows with this as one of the many reasons) SP2 would prevent the computer from booting. Actually, that is misleading... it would boot A LOT... it would just get about half way there and decide booting was so much fun it would do it again, and again, and again. Nothing short of a fresh install would fix it... and then I installed SP2 on this pristine system (assuming it must have been caused by adware or something I missed) and it repeated it over again. There was nothing I could do to make SP2 work on the machine and I have no idea what caused it.

That could suck for some people. But it's probably a rare condition... and it should work fine for most people. I think home users should be installing the service pack unless they have a reason to know it isn't going to work for them. I certainly don't think it is a "bad" thing for MS to push this patch... I know I, for one, wouldn't want to run an unpatched machine if I could avoid it... regardless of operating system.

Yes, resistance is futile. I does not matter where you want to go today.
One more reason to use an OS that is free, as in freedom

the only thing i have seen regarding SP2 also includes SP1 stating that updates will soon only be available for winXP if it is SP1 OR SP2. i just had to rebuild a winXP Pro system for a customer last night and had zero problems with getting SP1 installed, also when reading the update page, there was no notice of madate for SP2 coming soon, just the standard if you are not running SP1 or SP2, you will soon not have access to updates.

that really pisses me off as my corp. edition XP CD is the one from BEFORE SP1 release. this means i will have to keep SP1 on CD and install that way before i can apply any patches to systems that i build as i am not buying an other MS OS again. at least not as far as i can tell right now.