The long wait is finally over; Windows XP Service Pack 2.8 went live on Microsoft's site last week. At last we have the first major overhaul of last month's Service Pack 2.7.

And make no mistake about it; this is the biggest Windows Service Pack 2.x upgrade yet—a whopping 8 GB that will take more time to download than Microsoft spent on debugging.

The company created SP2.8 to make your computer a safer place to be. The upgrade patches over 93 of the 10,867 known security flaws in SP2.7, most of which were caused by holes in 2.6. This is all part of Microsoft's latest initiative: Security-TTWMI (This Time We Mean It). But SP2.8 is more than a collection of patches. The operating system was completely rebuilt from the top up. Every line of code from the original SP2.7 (and previous originals) has been backed up with four or five new lines of instructions written with Microsoft's famous craftsmanship. This may explain Redmond's confidence that the new Windows is "completely impenetrable."

Central Station

The most visible new addition is the Central Security Center, which offers you one location for working with SP2's Security Center, SP2.3's Security Center Millennium Plus 4, and SP2.6's Extreme Security Center Xperience. Now from one window you can open up eight others to find out that your anti-virus program isn't working and Windows doesn't know why.

But Microsoft has also overhauled the firewall. Now, when SP2.8 boots, a message comes up that reads "Yes, we have a firewall." Of course, historically speaking, obscurity isn't the only problem with the firewall. There's also the issue of it occasionally getting turned on, and thus interfering with third-party firewalls—the type that actually work. So the new version, dubbed the Internet Noconnection Firewall, is designed to supplement other firewalls rather than compete with them. To that end, it only blocks programs that your other firewalls let through. For instance, suppose you tell ZoneAlarm that a particular program—say, Internet Explorer—should have access to the Internet. The Internet Noconnection Firewall senses that you have made that change and instantly adds Internet Explorer to its own "Always Block" list. You can easily tell the INF to let Internet Explorer through by having ZoneAlarm block it.

Turn On, Tune In, Pop Up

PS2.8 has taken Internet Explorer's pop-up ad blocking to a new level. Earlier versions worked too well, blocking pop-up Windows that people wanted to see—such as those on www.msn.com. The new version evaluates pop-ups to determine if they are or are not unwanted advertising. For instance, if a pop-up contains animation, certain key words such as savings or discount, or contains photos of people wearing suspiciously little clothing, PS2.8 lets it go through.

Outlook Express is also better protected against spam. If you accidentally open a message that was sent to 10,000,000 addresses in hopes of catching one idiot, there is no danger that you will be hit by offensive images and threatening code. By default, the new Outlook Express blocks all pictures, scripts, links, and text. If you want to examine a message's contents, you can disable the Pictures Scripts Links and Text Blocking feature for that particular message by finding and editing a unique setting in the Windows Registry. If you want to globally turn off this feature for all messages, you can uninstall PS2.8.

There is no way to uninstall PS2.8.

Why Wireless

Remember when wireless security was a serious problem—when your neighbors could easily log onto your home network and look at your family photos? Microsoft closed that gap for good with XP PS2.5. With that release, you could take your notebook into any WiFi-equipped café with the absolute certainty that you wouldn't get Internet access. But even the best solutions could always use some tweaking. Windows XP PS2.8, working with one of the new PS2.8-compatible routers (of which there are none), will automatically change the WiFi password every third day. Since your computer makes the change in the router, it alters its own logon procedure accordingly so that it is not frozen out of your network like the other computers in your home.

Not that all of PS2.8's additions are security minded. Some are just plain fun. For instance, Media Player 9.99999 does more than any other audio and video playback device to protect artistic works from the people who enjoy them. In order to make sure that no copyrighted material is ever copied or righted, Microsoft has added a layer of complexity that would probably not have been conceivable by a company that didn't get its big break working with IBM.

To Upgrade, Or Not to Upgrade

Should you download and install Service Pack 2.8? The good news is you don't have to worry about it. Microsoft has wisely relieved you of the necessity of making this decision. Your version of XP will upgrade itself automatically.

Of course, this will take some time. At some point in the future, chosen by Microsoft, your Internet connection will occupy itself entirely with downloading the upgrade. You'll be able to use it for your own purposes after three to five days—weeks if you have a dial-up connection.

The automatic updating does more than relieve you of making a difficult choice. By ensuring that every XP user gets upgraded more or less simultaneously, Microsoft avoids singling out for extra punishment any particular minority, such as early adopters.

© Copyright 2004 by Lincoln Spector