Microsoft is deploying SP2 via Windows Update. Get the facts before it gets you.
[Quoted from Network World]
IT executives inundated Microsoft with complaints about the automatic upgrades, which forced Microsoft to create an ad hoc team that worked five days to devise a solution. The team came up with a registry key, which prevents Automatic Updates from downloading XP SP2, and a group of three mechanisms for delivering the key to desktops.
Now users have load the registry key onto desktops before Automatic Updates kicks off this week and begins deploying XP SP2.
Microsoft will configure its Windows Update Web site, the online patch repository used by Automatic Updates, to recognize the registry key for 120 days. After that, Windows Update will be configured to deliver the service pack to all Automatic Updates-enabled machines.
"When you think about it, it really is insane for Microsoft to put something the magnitude of XP SP2 out as an automatic update," says John Kretz, president of Enlightened Point Consulting Group, a systems integrator in Phoenix. "Companies should always be in control of something of this magnitude."
