I took a leap of faith and installed the new Service Pack 2 for Windows XP Pro. No GUI change at all, save for a new Wireless Networks icon. No instability. One minor bug – one of the XP PowerToys that I installed (Image Resizer) doesn’t work now, but I’ll try to re-install it.
One good thing that came of SP2 installation: Centrino stays logged on!
Centrino and XP SP1 had an awful time – in fact, many newspaper articles were written about how Microsoft screwed up drivers for Centrino wireless, causing good, solid network connection to just die – sudden deaths – with no logic. This happened to me at least 3-4 times per day since January. I had to turn off “Wireless Zero” service just to get the connection to stay live – but even that was feeble. Anyway, with SP2, my connection is live and good – no dropped connection, no psychotic switching over to non-preferred networks, etc. Thanks SP2 authors!
Here are a few screen shots. I’ll post more on my SP2 findings in the next day or two.
