Windows XP SP1 vs. SP2

I notice that some people stick to SP1 regardless of the security problems and vulnerabilities, I was just wondering what the advantages are of staying with SP1.

I have noticed that SP2 takes considerably more memory usage and slows computer and connection speed down slightly, can anyone confirm this?

Thanks

 

Actually SP2 slowing down the computer, taking more memory, and connection speed is a false. SP2 actually patched quite a few programs in XP that had vulnerbilities.

 

Maybe you need a motherboard BIOS upgrade or rollback the processor driver:

Specific Issue - Prescott Processors and XP-SP2
xp service pack 2 slow down

 

That's not exactly correct.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2netwk.mspx#EIAA

 

Believe Halo is correct. SP2 introduces limit the amount of half-open TCP connections to 10. A TCP connection is half-open during the connection-phase. This means you can only have 10 simultaneous TCP connection attempts after installing SP2.

This is to prevent worms similar to Sasser and Blaster to spread so quickly like they did.

P2P opens and closes TCP connections frequently because it is expensive to have more than a 1000 open TCP connections simultaneous. Therefore they meet the limit of 10 very quickly.

 

When a TCP Connection goes from half-open(attempted) to open(connected), then it no longer counts as a half-open connection.

The limit of 10 only affects software that put an "extreme" pressure on the attempted TCP connections. (User initiated web browsing and downloading with HTTP/FTP doesn't get near the limit).

Don't recall a limit being mentioned before SP2 unless having enabled SYN-Attack-Protection. MS KB Q142641, besides the max limit for concurrent TCP connections

 

I'm doing this from memory, but apart from security improvements, SP2 also gives XP native bluetooth support.

Prior to that, XP only officially supported Micro$$oft mice and keyboards.

 

First off, thanks for replies.

I am running Norton 2006, fully updated, and have not had any problems installing or booting with SP2.

I'm not exactly sure if its SP2 in particular, as I was putting alot of stuff on my comp the last couple weeks (I just got a new HDD and noticed this during staging). The stuff I downloaded in between SP1 and SP2 was coming at me at about 1.2mbps, and post-Sp2 downloads have been around 250Kbps.

 

Tweak the settings, Defrag, clean up Temp and cache. Could also be that your line stat's have gotten worst. But also it could just be your habits have changed and you could be seeing the lag due to you may be online playing a game, or the such. I doubt SP2 has anything to do with your stats changing.

I can tell you from my history that a machine that had SP1 on it before SP2 will still show the same line stats when comparing from the same site doing speedtests, and Ping tests for latency.

 

"Actually SP2 slowing down the computer, taking more memory, and connection speed is a false"

Well, I am tweaked out on Sp1 still. I tried Sp 2, and immediately noticed performance was hurting. Deleted Sp2 and all was good again. So I myself won`t ever update to Sp2 any time soon.

 

Depends on what programs that you are running. As all of us have pointed out, P2P sharing, along with hosting a game server on a machine running SP2 will show a slowdown. Normal web browsing and other things will not have side effects.

Personnaly the plus's overwhelm the negatives why to install SP2.