I'm going to wipe my PC clean and re-install Windows XP pro and was wondering if there are any benefits to installing SP2 or should I just stick with SP1?

I do use soulseek occasionally but other than that I don't use the internet very much and never for e-mail, limewire or something like that.

Also, any other advice for clean installing XP would be appreciated... I'm fairly new to PC's.

I don't see no reasons why you shouldn't install SP2. It works flawlessly for me, man.

My PC hardware had issues swallowing SP2, but my laptop installed it without a hitch. As long as your machine doesn't complain, go for SP2 -- always best to have the latest and greatest in security, stability, etc. from Windoze.

Should be straight-forward... format, install, updates, SSL, voila!

The reason I'm thinking about using SP1 instead of SP2 is because I bought this software called MacDrive so I could use my Mac formatted harddrives on my PC.

This software only seemed to work in SP1 so I had to load all my mp3's onto the pc before installing SP2. No matter what I did I couldn't get MacDrive to work in SP2. I have 3 firewire drives that are Mac Formatted and full of all my music which I'd like to be able to access on my PC.

Does SP2 help SSL perform better than SP1 ?

I haven't noticed anything, but it runs without no problems on SP2 for me.

Not at all. If anything, SP1 runs fewer services (i.e. security) and features than SP2. So.... SP1.... get to it!

thanks.... I turned off most if not all security services in SP2 anyway. I got a 10 hour set on New Years so I want to make sure everything is running as smooth as possible.

straight from the macdrive (mediafour) website:

Thanks... I'm on an AMD Athlon 64 ... the *note wasn't there when I purchased it, of course.

i take it you have version 5 and not version 6 then. my cousin works for that company, pm me and i'll see if i can hook-up an upgrade.

As long as you are not on the Internet I don't see any advantages using SP2. It could even be slower.

I haven't noticed anything in terms of SP2 actually being slower. It's pretty much like the old thing, you know.

SP2 work great with my laptop also,
I don't see any improve after installed SP2,
but at least work great! ;-)

I am still using SP1. My laptop is dedicated to Scratch Live (never connected to the internet), so updating to SP2 seemed unecessary to me...