windows xp service pack 2 rtm

As just about everybody knows by now, SP2 has been released to manufacturing.  For those of you who are IT professionals and developers, you can download the full SP2 install here.  Or if you are one of those bleeding-edge types who just cannot wait for a Windows update package. 

For awhile I thought I had the honor of having made the last check-in, but in the end there were at least two fixes that went in after mine. 

There has been a lot of press coverage.  Slashdot has linked to articles discussing IBM's hesitation, why SP2 makes a case for the benefits of P2P, and why hospitals have trouble patching systems.  We all worked long hours to build a product that has just the right balance of security, compatability and usability.  I understand IBM's hesitation, however.  As I found out during development, there are a lot of web apps out there that do strange things.  SP2 even caused issues with some of Microsoft's own internal web sites; controls had to be signed, pop-up windows had to be re-thought, etc.  To help in this transition, we have published a guide.  If you have a problem with IE that is not address by the guide, feel free to ask me or the IE bloggers.  I will be most effective in answering questions about Pop-up Blocker, download blocking and other browser UI related changes.

A lot of the feedback in the forums has been very postitive and that makes me feel good.  From time to time I get a question I did not put on the list--that question is “Why do you do it?  How can you work for them?”  Well, this is why I do what I do.  When IE ships, I have a direct effect on tens--if not hundreds--of millions of people.  I always wanted to write software that would be used by real people and IE is about as real as it gets.  I do not always get my way and sometimes things take longer then I want, but that is the nature of corporations.  You can sit around and complain, you can start a competing project, or you can do something about it.  Circumstances led me to try to make things better from the inside.  Currently I have removed about as much code from the Longhorn tree as I have added, and I have plans to get rid of more.  Did you notice the Media bar is no longer in IE in SP2?

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 09, 2004
  As far as I can tell from:
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2brows.mspx#XSLTsection134121120120
  
  ...you have fixed the Content-Type handling. however, there's still a little ambiguity. It states:
  
  "One of the backup criteria for determining a file type is the result of the MIME sniff. By examining (or sniffing) a file, Internet Explorer can recognize the bit signatures of certain types of files. In Windows XP Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer MIME sniffing will not promote files of type textplain to more dangerous file types in the restricted sites zone. For example, files that are received as plain text but that include HTML code will not be promoted to the HTML type, which could contain active content."
  
  That's great, thank you! But why single out text/plain for this description? Can you confirm that sniffing never overrides the server-supplied Content-Type header - as per RFC 2616 - no matter what the Content-Type?
  
  It seems to me that the bit beforehand about renaming files as they are placed into the cache would cover this, but if I'm reading that right, the bit about text/plain handling would be redundant, so I'm a little confused.
  
  
  

• Anonymous
  August 09, 2004
  I heard some rumors a while ago that SP 2 wouldn't have the check for a stolen product key that SP 1 had, with the goal of reducing the number of unpatched systems out there. Is that the case?

• Anonymous
  August 09, 2004
  Jacques- I do not know. I would be surprised to learn that SP2 did not require a valid product key.
  
  Jim- I asked a Dev who worked on this area and he said, "The default mime sniff algorithm has not been changed, it is still there for compatability reasons. The reason for the text/plain change was primarily to accommodate server that may be deliberately sending text/plain as an indication to not interpret scrip that may be in the content."

• Anonymous
  August 09, 2004
  I think most people will not even realise the media bar had even gone - I certainly didn't. SP2 is a good release and introduces some much needed improvements - give everyone a pat on the back from me :)

• Anonymous
  August 09, 2004
  What's the recommended course of action if you already have RC2 installed? Install the RTM over RC2 or first uninstall RC2 ?
  
  I've been running RC2 for a while and I hadn't noticed that media bar was removed. I doubt it will be missed.

• Anonymous
  August 10, 2004
  You can install RTM XPSP2 over RC2. It's one of the supported upgrades. That's what I plan to do on my home machine too.
  
  Tony Chor
  Group Program Manager, IE

• Anonymous
  August 11, 2004
  The install program was a little rough (long delays on reboot without progress bars), but it's running great on both of my machines here at home.
  
  One thing I was REALLY looking forward to was multiple RDP logins so I can stay logged into our main machine using my 802.11g-enabled laptop while my wife checks email, browses the web, etc. The registry key change reported for the betas doesn't seem to have an effect, what's the secret to getting this enabled so we can both access our stuff at the same time?

• Anonymous
  August 12, 2004
  Media bar gone for good

• Anonymous
  August 26, 2004
  >>Did you notice the Media bar is no longer in IE in SP2?
  
  The what? ;-)
  

• Anonymous
  August 28, 2004
  whenever calling the Navigate(url), Internet explorer ask for content blocking , and open the url in the IE windows not the application webbrowser, Thus all the browsers event cannot be handled.
  
  The web browser is as of .Net 1.1

• Anonymous
  December 30, 2007
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• Anonymous
  January 04, 2008
  PingBack from http://dragonspeed.wordpress.com/2004/08/09/theres-a-good-post-from-one-of-the-ie-dev-team-on-msdn-blogs-regarding-xpsp2/

• Anonymous
  March 19, 2008
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• Anonymous
  April 03, 2008
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