Service Pack 2?

[Bill in Co.]

I am very aware of why it was removed. That said, I still liked it, and
rarely, if ever, had any problems with it. For one thing, when I let it do
its thing (after just opening OE each and every time), I was NOT doing other
things on the computer at that time, (not multitasking), thereby minimizing
any chances for corruption of its database.

Yes, I'm sure that is not the case for most people. But I'm not "most
people", and I appreciated that option, so that I didn't always have to do
that compaction manually myself - which I do now. They could have left
the option in, but left it unchecked by default (for the masses).

Why? Background compacting was one of the /major/ sources of corruption
(i.e., loss of messages) in OE, Bill. (It still is for those not running
WinXP SP2 with OE fully patched.) OE MVPs loudly lobbied for years
(literally) to get it removed before the OE team acted on it.

See
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

In any event, if you adhere to my all-too-frequently posted list of OE
caveats [1], you'll never see Automatic Compacting in WinXP SP2...and you
won't need it either. <eg>
=============
[1]
http://groups.google.com/groups?num...n-US&q=oe+++caveats&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wg
--
~PA Bear

Yes, I'm talking about the (automatic) background compacting of the OE
stores (assuming you had that option checked), used to compress the OE
database files.
And it was removed in the OE version that comes with WinXP SP2.

But if I my way, I would like to have that *option* back again. I, for
one, appreciated it.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Windows Defender does require SP2

Really? Well, just out of curiosity, what on earth would it need that is
so special to SP2 (if you happen to know)?

 

[Bill in Co.]

You can still do that.

Google ERUNT

Thanks. And somewhat coincidentally, I just installed it, so now I have
two ways of backing up my system: System Restore, and ERUNT.

I think the trick now will be sorting out which one to use in which cases.

Probably cover my bases and do both. As it is now, any time I make any
significant change to the system, I always run System Restore. Maybe I'll
need to do ERUNT too, or perhaps in its place.

(I think I read in the author's "readme" that he recommended using it
*instead* of System Restore - the implication being that System Restore
isn't needed, then - but I'm not so sure I would go that far)

 

[Bill in Co.]

Perhaps. But it seems that each "evolution" of these "operating systems"
keeps taking away more and more user control (and yes, I know that's because
in large part it seems to be needed for the masses, who keep mucking up
their system).

And adding more bloat.

Remember, WinXP (and Win98SE, etc) are JUST supposed to be *operating
systems* - and that's ALL! Not "applications", in and of themselves.

[[Methinks someone's still suffering from the "XPradiation Blues". <eg>]]

Are there any apps out there that require Service Pack 2? I had thought
I
had heard there might be, but I'm not sure. However, that being
said...

Some days there are times when I wish I could uninstall SP2 as (I
believe)
it is problematic for some program installations. But alas, I
apparently
can't uninstall it, as I just got this new Dell system as a relatively
new
release (and I believe it is also integrated into the system CD, too).

BTW - Is there any way to go back to plain jane WinXP (i.e. without SP2)
in
such a case, and without completely messing up the system, and requiring
a
clean install (wiping out the existing stuff)? I'm guessing that is
NOT
an option, if your system recently came preinstalled with SP2 (and uises
one
of the newer CDs, in which it is apparently now integrated into WinXP)