XP Service Pack 2, recensione della RC2

Information Week recensisce la RC2 di XP SP2

Su Information Week un lunghissimo articolo sulla RC2 del Service Pack per XP:

... the free update, which will probably ship some time in September, does in fact make Windows XP far more secure.

... Mainstream Web sites that employ unsigned ActiveX applets, downloads, pop-up windows, browser helper objects, and other code- or scripting-based functions may encounter difficulty with SP2 version IE 6. Most of these activities are prevented by default, and until thousands of Web sites and Web-based applications are upgraded to more gracefully deal with the new IE's many security precautions, a lot of Web stuff is going to be broken--or, at least, temporarily halted.

One of the best new features of SP2's Internet Explorer is the Add-On Manager, available from the Internet Control Panel's Programs tab. It gives you a way to enable, disable, and configure ActiveX controls, browser help objects, and browser extensions. The primary purpose of this tool is to provide a user interface for controlling things that have already been added to your Internet Explorer installation. When, for example, you have already said yes to an ActiveX program Information Bar query and later decide you don't want that program on your computer, the Add-On Manager is the tool that solves that problem.

E per chi ha un sito "ottimizzato per Internet Explorer":

Download RC2 now and test all your internal applications, as well as your intranet and your public Web site. That's the only way to be sure that you won't have significant problems later on when a lot more people are running this new version of Internet Explorer.

Altre chicche interessanti del SP2:

Service Pack 2 automatically installs patches in certain conditions when you power down your computer.

The way it works is this: When you have pending critical updates for Windows that haven't been installed, when you shut down (not restart) Windows, the operating system installs the patches before it powers off. If patches are already downloaded, it usually takes only a few minutes to install them. But in my tests of SP2 RC1, I found that it could take more than half an hour for your computer to turn off because of this feature...