SP2 at last

[kismetk]

Hi!

I know I should bite the bullet and upgrade my XP Home to SP2. Are there any backups, cleanups, checks etc. that I should do beforehand? Thanks.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Very sensible of you - 1. to have decided to upgrade, and 2. to ask about precautions. :)

The single most important thing you must make sure before you attempt to install SP2 is that you do not have any malware on your system. Any virus, troyan, spyware, or whatever can turn your SP2 system into a nightmare.

If you have anti-virus and anti-spyware sofware on your system, please run them all with the latest definitions installed.

I have not heard of any other problems with the SP2 installation than the malware problem. But SP2 is a big upgrade, and there is always a possibility that something can go wrong. It is therefore highly recommended that you take a full system backup before you start the upgrade. If you do that, you can always fall back on a working system if anything goes wrong.

Not essential, but still recommended is that you clean your system from unnecessary ballast, e.g. temp files and installed applications you do not longer need. Use CCleaner to clean temp files and other garbage, and Add/Remove Programs to remove applications you no longer want.

Once SP2 is completely installed and you have rebooted Windows, you should run Windows Update or Microsoft Update at least one more time since many updates have been released since SP2.

Once all updates are installed I recommend that you run the disk defragmenter for best system performance.

[andsome]

After following all the listed precautions, there should be no need to worry. SP2 is listed in ADD/REMOVE programs and can be uninstalled. Make sure that you go straight to Windows Update afterwards.

[Thos]

Don't worry about it. Millions have been installed and if you follow the advice above , you will have no trouble. My installation went without a hitch.

Thos.