It's that time for all you WinXP users

[Doppelganger]

As you might have already heard, Windows XP SP2 is due for release next month. Due to some of the enhanced security features and better control over existing features, you or your system administrator may decide to upgrade to it. However, the defaults used by this service pack will probably cause errors in existing games and apps such as FFXI, IRC, and even create errors with some web services. In the following days, i hope to add a few steps to which people can correct the settings to have these apps working (if im lucky, aerobahn will save my butt and do most of the work :sweat: ).

If you have any concerns about this windows update, feel free to post it here.

[Jokesta]

I dono yet. I probably will wait and see if I can find reviews on it before I deicde to upgrade or not.

[michaeldue]

I've just upgraded to SP2 and It works perfecly! Even though it's not officially 100% ready yet.

I especially like the service center that keeps track of your anti-virus software, firewall and automatic updates. If any of these are not updatet with the lates virus difinitions or not working probably - the security center software will warn you! Thats sooo cool - never again will I forget to update my anti-virus software.

Oh and I'm running both IRC (MIRC) and FFXI without any problems

[Doppelganger]

Well, this is just in case someone can't get it to work, or wants to change the way windows controlls their life.

As for the security center part of sp2, that's why im getting it:sweat: .

Here we go (due to my prefered pic host being down for the mement, i am unable to provide the pictures, hopefully it shall be working by the end of the day):

By default, Windows XP SP2 will have the Windows Firewall enabled, providing the same service as third-party applications like ZoneAlarm. Although there should not be any problems, this will explain what to do if you are unable to connect to the POL servers.

First you must open up the Windows Firewall settings dialogue, this is found by opening the "Properities" dialogue and clicking the "Settings" button on the last tab. After making sure that the checkbox labled "Don't allow exceptions" is unchecked, move to the second tab. There you will have to press "Add Program...". First, find POL and double click it (this should add it to the list, otherwise press ok and click "Add Program..." again), then repeat for FFXI and expansion if they are listed separately (if you use TeraMasters, repeat for that too).

Now move to the third tab and click on the "Settings" button for "ICMP Settings". Click on "Allow incoming echo request" (this lets you become pingable, not entirely needed, but good practice just in case). Now you should be able to play FFXI.

If this does not work, you might have to manually configure the ports, in which case you must go back to the second tab. There you will press "Add Port" and leave first box empty for now. In the second box type the port range you currently use (if you have a router, you are most likely fowarding 50000-65535 on TCP because it's easier to type), and the type (unless you fowarded only UDP 50000-65535, you are most likely using TCP).

That's it for now, i hope to get an update to this quite soon.

[michaeldue]

There is no - I already updatet to sp2 vote option

But as I said - I did - And everything works fine even though its still a "beta" (but fully operational and almost 100% complete release).

[hotlad]

well ive installed sp2 and i just turn off the firewall to play ffxi and it works fine better than ever by the way sp2 is very stable

[Doppelganger]

although ffxi seems to work fine with everyone, a few people seem to complain that FPS like HL seem to work worse because of SP2, not to mention that War III is in the microsoft list of programs that do not work properly in SP2.

not just that, but also office versions after 2000 are also on that list (may not be negative, rather different, but ill let users of final release tell me for sure).

if anyone actually wants SP2, you can dl the 266mb file that installs it from the microsoft catalogue site (labled as an IT product, though it'll work for any comp).