Microsoft's ever-evolving rollout of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) continues today as the company releases the update to XP Home Edition users who have enabled Automatic Updates. XP Professional Edition users will have to wait until next Wednesday to get the long-awaited update through Automatic Updates. The company completed XP SP2 on August 6, and a version for corporate networks shipped publicly last week. On September 27, the company will ship new retail boxed copies of XP Home and XP Pro that include SP2 and feature a graphic that notes the product's "advanced security technologies," Microsoft sources told me.
According to Microsoft, more than one million people installed a beta or release candidate (RC) version of the update during the summer, and the company is updating those users first. Then Microsoft will slowly ease open the virtual spigots to all XP users. (For the most recent release schedule, see my updated report.) The company is staging the XP SP2 release to keep support calls to its partners to a minimum. Microsoft says that, so far, XP SP2 support calls have been relatively rare. According to Microsoft, about 300 million people currently use XP, and by the end of September the company hopes to deliver copies of XP SP2 to more than 100 million of them