Product Description

Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 ofers you greater flexibility and more options, when creating those great digital projects. The Service Pack is filled with updates that make XP even better!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #301 in Software
• Color: 1-user
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: n09-00985
• Released on: 2004-09-28
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.60 pounds

Features

• Eligibility for upgrade consists of current users of Windows 98/Windows 98 SE and Windows ME only
• Create and enjoy home movies with the built-in Video support
• Share your video project with the easy E-mail attachment & mass-mailing features
• Go Mobile with the ability to Communicate anytime, anywhere
• Discover and Download online music, with the easy-to-use Internet features

Amazon Product Description
With Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2, you get safer browsing and communication, powerful security tools, and improved experiences. Packed with multimedia features, Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 aims to unlock the full potential of your personal computer. It also looks great, with rounded window corners, larger and more detailed icons, and a clean-look desktop.

For Web browsing, XP Home comes with Internet Explorer 6.0 and MSN Explorer. The most significant new feature for Internet users is the built-in firewall. A firewall protects against one of the most disturbing security risks, in which other users unknown to you might connect to your computer while it is online, reading private files or causing other damage. XP's built-in firewall is a simple affair, but it does prevent most types of unauthorized connections.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Features

Customer Reviews

This is a must-have upgrade! It is way good
If you're reading this. You want to upgrade, your old computer to Windows XP home edition here are a few things to keep in mind.

256 MB of RAM. I have found is adequate more equals better.
500 MHz or higher will do.

If you're running Windows millennium edition, or 98 upgrade now the stability is vastly improved. Gone are the blue screens of death.

Frequently asked question: is Windows XP Pro better than home edition?

Windows XP Pro has a more high-end networking features that most home users will never miss or would even know were missing. So for most users Windows home edition is fine. They both are based on the same code and are almost identical.

If you're thinking of upgrading from Windows 2000, I did, because I like the GUI interface better. But Windows XP is as stable as Windows 2000. So it's your call.

The plug-and-play ability of Windows XP is totally great! Windows XP will by default find most drivers for video card sound cards, network cards, etc. that is such a bonus gone in the days of having to search for CDs with drivers.

That's about all I can think of this is a recommended upgrade for me

Have some fun and get it done

Its time to upgrade from older Windows!
I have been running Windows XP since 2001 and to tell you the honest truth it has been stable ever since. With the introduction of SP2 in this minor update of Windows XP, Microsoft has decided to make the product "secure", than it was thought to be in the beginning. But the past few years have been rough on Microsoft, with consistency in attacks on the product with such vulnerabilities as Trojans, buffer overflows, viruses and the most memorable of the all Blaster (August 2003).


Ever since its debut, Windows XP has been causing a lot of headaches and wreaking havoc on corporate networks because of its susceptibility vulnerabilities that were not fixed in its initial release or Service Pack 1. So Microsoft decided to go back to the drawing board and decided to rethink what Windows XP should mean in terms of Security. At first Service Pack 2 was thought out to only be a minor Service Pack update with usual bug fixes, but because of the aforementioned problems Microsoft took new direction and after 1 year of testing we have finally reached a conclusion.

SP2 is really apparent, based on my experience of installing the update, users displayed a welcome screen recommending Automatic Updates be turned on (and I would recommend too), after which the user is presented with the Security Center where you can configure the new and improved Firewall settings, such as which programs can access your PC. You also have the option of configuring your Anti-Virus program, unfortunately I have not been able to do so because my Anti-virus is not supported, although it seems (Norton Anti-virus Corporate Edition 7.6). Security Center is really the big change here and should have been implemented from beginning, but better late than never.

Other great features which I and many users are undoubtedly thankful for include the Pop-Blocker which should have been included in IE 6 from the beginning (better late than never), its not 100 % percent effective but does a decent job so far of blocking most annoying Pop-Ups. I wish the Windows Team allowed users to train it, so if a Pop does succeed, you can tell the pop-up blocker engine that was a pop-up window and you shouldn't let that pass the next time, maybe Microsoft will let it improve over time. Other great improvements to IE in SP2 is the ability approve programs, so drive by downloads have become a thing of the past, anything you decide to download or accidentally clicked on a webpage has to be approved.

Another wish is, better integration of the ActiveX controls with Microsoft's own technologies, I notice that when I had to do a Office Update, the ActiveX API engine on Microsoft's Office website had to be approved before I run the utility that checked for updates for Office products I needed.

Microsoft has also streamlined Windows Update to be more user-friendly, you the user have the option for a Express or Custom install, Express only installs the most critical updates, while Custom allows to install the entire kitchen sink, including stuff some users can do without on Windows, (go with Express). Windows XP SP2 includes minor enhancements such as Windows Media Player 9, but why didn't Microsoft just wait a little longer and included Windows Media Player 10, which is already out? The blue tooth update is also a needed update, it wasn't intuitive right out of the box, but is more user friendly, all this, you can get for free if you are existing XP owner.

Overall, if you haven't upgraded to Windows XP yet from older versions of Windows, this is the time, but if you are an existing Windows XP user, I say skip this and just order the SP2 CD or download it from the Windows XP Website. I highly recommend users running prior versions of XP especially 95, 98, 98 SE, NT 4 and ME, maybe 2000 also move to XP, since Microsoft is planning on porting any of technologies in XP to those older versions of Windows, plus it has some great new features and you will love the Security technologies that provide a better experience for you the user. Most of all, I highly recommend Windows XP users get this update!

Latest, Greatest, Gotta Have It
Wow, what an improvement over MICROSOFT MILLENIUM EDITION, WINDOWS 2000, and WINDOWS 98. WINDOWS XP, both the home and professional editions, have finally worked out the electronic glitches in Windows 2000 and ME. Both 2000 and ME were stop-gap products rushed to market to cash in on turn of the century fever. Unfortunately, both products had such teething problems that many buyers, including myself, reverted back to tried and true Windows 98. Eventually I reloaded MILLENIUM EDITION, but had to tie up the phone line for almost three hours to download all of the necessary Microsoft patches in order for ME to work properly.

XP is light years ahead of the former Windows applications. It was easy to load, required no tinkering or patches to enable the program to function, and added options, like audio, digital photo, and CD transfer capabilities, that never before existed. The computer loads much faster and is generally much more user friendly. Additionally, XP is better equipped to deal with the Norton family of computer security programs.

There are a few drawbacks, and XP warns you about them as it is loading. Some programs, particularly older programs, must be reloaded. In my case, I had to reload the software for my HP 800 series printer, Epson Scanner, Photo Shop, and Sonic Record Now. Where the original CDs are available, this is not much of an inconvenience. Unfortunately, some of my computer's software was installed at the time I had upgrades, such as a DVD burner, professionally installed, and I did not have the original CD.

So it goes. Microsoft WINDOWS XP (with Service Pack) is the next logical progression in the ever-evolving Windows applications. Save yourself a lot of headaches and invest in an upgrade now.