tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568831582196935143.post-67967955044480409532008-04-28T01:34:00.002-05:002008-04-28T01:36:04.609-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jiXnKzlA3FQ/SBVvdu7FtcI/AAAAAAAAHCg/d5ZIiEHOJ5U/s1600-h/xpsp3_faq_promo.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jiXnKzlA3FQ/SBVvdu7FtcI/AAAAAAAAHCg/d5ZIiEHOJ5U/s400/xpsp3_faq_promo.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5194180301844493762" /></a>As I mentioned in my <a href="http://www.plasticbits.com/2008/04/review-apple-boot-camp.html">previous post</a>, I installed Windows XP on my Mac today and the longest part of the process was installing all of the critical updates for Windows with Service Pack 2.  It's been a while since I had to reformat my old Windows machine so I had forgotten how many updates there were on top of Service Pack 2 now.  <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The final tally:</span> 101 critical updates.  Yikes!<br /></div><div>Installing all of these took around 30 minutes and most of them were security patches.  IE 7 is now considered a critical update (I never understood why it wasn't when it first came out), but WMP 11 is not, which makes no sense to me.  The primary media player for the OS is now two complete versions ahead of the one bundled with the OS and it's not a critical update!?  I would guess that media probably consumes at least 25% of computer activity these days - How is that not critical?<br /></div><div><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68c48dad-bc34-40be-8d85-6bb4f56f5110&amp;displaylang=en">Service pack 3</a> should roll up all 101 of these updates into one neat little package this week as it rolls out to users, which seems just in time as the number of critical updates crosses the century mark.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6568831582196935143-6796795504448040953?l' alt='' /></div>Adamnoreply@blogger.com2