Author: Peter Skinner
Date: 09:36:36 08/09/04
As some of you know Windows XP Service Pack 2 is now final. I have had it installed for two days, and here are somethings I have noticed: 1. On average chess programs are running around 10% slower on my machine then they were with SP1. 2. SP2 limits the connections to networks and the internet, thus closing the wide open access to raw sockets that most exploits are taking advantage of. While this is a great thing, it does limit the number of connections one can maintain to the internet. 3. RAM usage is a tad higher with the new "Security Center". This checks to make sure a firewall, anti-virus program, and automatic updates are currently enabled. While it serves a purpose, I find it more of an annoyance. I just disabled the task in the services menu and poof.. it is gone. Good riddence. 4. If you are one of the lucky/unlucky people who use the uxtheme.dll patch to run themes, there is a glitch where the task bar does not change with your theme. While I am sure this will be fixed, it is another annoyance. StyleXP also has the same problem as it is using the same patched dll. 5. I _had_ to upgrade Nero 5.5 to the latest Nero as when trying to run the older Nero, I would get an error that there are "Known issues" with that version, and once I upgraded, there was no error. What a surprise. 6. FTP/Web servers due to problem #2 have issues with PASV, and multiple connections. I simply created a patch to raise the number of half connections to an acceptable, yet safe limit and have not had to many problems. Cerebus FTPd, and Gene6 FTPd seem to have the most problems. RaidenFTPd, and Serv-U FTPd seem to have little to no problem. 7. If you download Linux distros via Bittorrent (as I do), of course #2 is going to cause problems. Hopefully this is fixed with a patch from MS, or I will make mine available. I am sure there are more problems, but I have only had it two days and simply have not had enough time to go through it as much as I would have liked. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them (if I can), or I will obtain the information. Peter
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