XP SP2 Launch Cost: $300 Million

[Spinner]

It has been reported that Microsoft plans to spend a whopping $300m to support the launch of Windows XP Service Pack 2.

In an interview with internetnews.com, Tony Goodhew, product manager in Microsoft's Developer Group, said a chunk of the $300 million campaign will be spent working with OEMs to get the service pack installed on new PCs. "We'll be working with retailers like CompUSA and BestBuy to have SP2 installed on all new machines, even those that were shipped to the stores without the upgrade," he said.
Source: InternetNews (http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3360271)

[qparadox]

A good move, hopefully the newfound focus on security will continue and the implementation of measures not neutered. Its badly needed.

[EyesOnly]

You're so right q.

[DanG]

We've been getting tons of emails at work about how good it will be and so on, also touting all the release seminars there will be.

[profdlp]

Agreed, q. It seems that a lot of their interim patches do nothing more than disable something - with no way to re-enable it. Hopefully SP2 will fix things without turning them off.

[danball1976]

For example, the Windows Messenger Service is disabled by default in SP2. This is due to spammers using the Messenger service to display ads and such (I've been bitten twice, and I disable the service as soon as I'm finished installing XP)