"Service Pack 2 is a significant step in delivering on our goal to help customers make their PCs better isolated and more resilient in the face of increasingly sophisticated attacks," said Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates. "It is the result of sustained investments in innovation and extensive industry collaboration. It also reflects a broad recognition that as the security environment changes, the industry needs to work together to respond."
Microsoft says it will localize the software in 25 languages over the next two months, and recommends that users activate the Automatic Updates feature in their Windows XP systems in order to ensure that they receive SP2 as soon as it releases in their language. Automatic Updates uses spare Internet capacity to progressively download updates without interfering with daily PC use. Microsoft expects to distribute Service Pack 2 to approximately 100 million PCs through Automatic Updates over the next two months.
Microsoft says the updates and enhancements in SP2 focus on three key areas:
- Stronger security settings
- Increased manageability and control
- Improved and more-secure software components, including updates to drivers, updated support for new technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and security updates for a number of other system functions
According to Microsoft, the development of SP2 involved close collaboration with a number of software vendors, chip makers, and hardware manufacturers. For example, SP2 takes advantage of Data Execution Prevention technology available in microprocessors from Intel, AMD, and others, to reduce the risk of the most common means of virus penetration into computer systems -- exploiting "buffer overrun" vulnerabilities.
Enhancements to Windows XP contained in Service Pack 2 can be expected to quickly find their way into Windows XP Embedded, the componentized version of Windows XP for embedded systems and devices.
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