XP SP2 Is Released

I've been away for a few days, taking a spur of the minute break in the north of England. When I got back this afternoon, the first hint that SP2 had shipped was in an article in The Innquirer's entitled How Microsoft will eke out Windows XP SP2. As an MSDN Universal customer, I'm downloading the full ISO image as I compose this entry. The SP2 ISO is coming down at around 60KB/sec - which is not outstanding for Microsoft but given how hard the servers must be being pounded, not bad at all. I hope for Microsoft's sake, they can sustain this level of speed once SP2 hits Windows update and becomes a 'critical update'! Microsoft's home page for Windows XP still says SP2 is "Coming Soon". The Inquirer is probably right about the trickle out effect. Certaily the first thing I'll be doing is to put the ISO onto one of our corporate servers for our IT boys to play with tomorrow morning when they get in! The next month will be interesting. Micrososft has a lot riding on this service pack - and I certainly hope it all goes smoothly as customers start to deploy it. We shall see...