Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition UPGRADE with SP2

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Product 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

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B0002423YK
• Item model number: n09-00985
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 1, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #216 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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Product Description

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.

The Security Center lets you check the status of your essential security settings.

The best thing about Windows XP is that, because it belongs to the Windows NT/2000 product family, it's designed from the ground up for reliability, security, and networking. XP Home users will soon see the benefits of this. The dreaded Windows crash-and-reboot cycle really is much less common with XP, and, provided the hardware is up to scratch, XP's performance is better, too. The downside is that using a different code base can make compatibility with old applications less assured. Business applications normally run fine, but older games, MIDI software, and system utilities may well cause problems. Windows XP is more customizable than previous versions, including its visual themes that let you change the whole appearance of Windows in an instant. Fast User Switching is a neat feature for computers used by more than one person--it lets another user log on without killing the previous user's session, and when you switch back, running applications and open documents are as you left them. This is impressive, but what really counts is that XP understands how to deal with multiple users. Each user has their own special folders, such as My Documents, which cannot be seen by other users. And for those with more than one computer, the network setup wizard simplifies setting up a network.

Windows XP Home has many strong multimedia features. New Media Player lets you copy music from CD to hard disk, create your own playlist, and write your own music CDs if you have a CD writer. You can also play back DVD-Video (but only if a hardware or software DVD decoder is already installed) and play MP3 audio files and MPEG videos (but sadly not the popular RealMedia formats). Admittedly, Media Player does nothing that you cannot also do with free alternatives, but it is slick and nicely integrated. There is also Windows Movie Maker, a basic tool for capturing and editing videos that's fun to use, although too limited for serious work.

The Information Bar in Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 notifies you when it blocks ActiveX control or active content and then lets you decide what to do.

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.

Service Pack 2 allows users to instruct Internet Explorer how to handle downloads from a specific publisher

The XP user interface is not a radical departure from earlier versions of Windows, but there are a number of small changes that together add up to a significant improvement. For example, you can add and remove shortcuts from the Start menu by right-clicking on the icon and selecting Pin or Unpin from the pop-up menu. Windows online help is integrated into a Help and Support Center that works like an internal Web site, with searchable help, tutorials, and walkthroughs. Laptop or other flat-screen users can set Windows to use ClearType for screen fonts, for a more readable display. There are, of course, some pitfalls. Windows XP Home is demanding on hardware, and it would be a mistake to install it on less than Microsoft's recommended minimum. Business users note: unlike Windows 98 or Me, XP Home Edition cannot join a Windows server domain, so the networking is peer-to-peer only--see Windows XP Professional Edition for this functionality. There is also no multiprocessor support, and a mildly annoying anti-piracy measure requires you to obtain a code from Microsoft for full installation and any future system changes. But don't let that put you off: this is Microsoft's best Windows yet.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Features

Internet Explorer Pop-up Blocker	Makes browsing the Internet more enjoyable by enabling you to reduce unwanted ads and content.
Internet Explorer download monitoring	Warns you about potentially harmful downloads and gives you the option to block files that could be malicious.
Internet Explorer Information Bar	Provides better information about events that are happening as you browse the Web, so it’s easier to know what’s going on and address potential security issues.
Windows Security Center	Allows you to easily view your security status and manage key security settings in one convenient place.
Windows Firewall update	Automatically turned on by default, this improved firewall helps protect Windows XP from viruses, worms, and other security threats that can spread over the Internet.
Improved wireless support	Dramatically improves and simplifies the process of discovering and connecting to wireless networks.
Bluetooth technologies	Enables you to easily connect to the latest Bluetooth-enabled hardware devices such as keyboards, cell phones, and PDAs.
Windows Media Player 9 Series	Makes it easy to enjoy music, video, and broadband content with enhanced security.

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!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

120 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must-have upgrade! It is way good, January 20, 2005

By	Charles Bittner "www.AskACapper.com" (Seacoast New Hampshire) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

157 of 173 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Its time to upgrade from older Windows!, September 23, 2004

By	Andre Da Costa "A.Da Costa" (Jamaica W.I.) - See all my reviews

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!

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Latest, Greatest, Gotta Have It, January 1, 2005

By	Kevin R. Austra (Delaware Valley, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.