Anatomy of Windows XP SP2 Update

Although Microsoft will not officially release Windows XP SP2 until late July, many of the friends have been eager to install the SP2 test version, but today I am not introducing SP2 blocking pop-ups. New features in security, add-on management, professional firewalls, etc., let's take a look at the new changes in SP2 hardware.

1. DEP allows you to secure your system from a hardware level. DEP (Date Execution Prevention Data Protection) is a security feature in Windows XP SP2 that helps protect your computer from viruses and other security threats, with firewalls or Unlike virus programs, DEP does not prevent harmful programs from being installed on your computer. It is only used to prevent viruses and other security threats from running harmful code in any protected memory location on your computer. DEP uses a compatible microprocessor to mark some common memory locations as "unexecutable". If a program attempts to run code from an unexecutable location, Windows will automatically close the program. The benefit of this is that it can be run. Installed programs help prevent worms, viruses, and other security threats from attacking your computer. By default, DEP is turned on for all programs on your computer.

It should be noted that DEP can only be used if Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 or higher is installed on the computer, and the processor must also be compatible with the data execution protection technology because DEP is through the processor. NX (No eXecute) function to achieve, NX processor can mark the data in the memory that does not explicitly contain executable code as "Non-executable", if the virus program tries to compile and execute the data marked by the NX processor for storing data. The memory area code, the system will find and block this attempt. But unfortunately, the current common 32-bit processors such as P4 do not support NX. Processors supporting this technology include AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel Itanium and Itanium 2, and it is said that nVIDIA, VIA, Transmeta, etc. The company also plans to add NX technology to its chips. However, due to the slow pace of the related hardware vendors to update NX, Microsoft is anxious, but has to wait a little, for this reason, SP2 has been postponed.

If the version number of SP2 you installed is 2149 (as shown in Figure 1), then you will find the system, you can now force the software DEP, click the "Add" button to the program files that need to be protected (* .exe) added to the list, if the computer uses 64-bit processing KKD, then DEP can be turned off for applications designed to run on 32-bit processors, and for applications intended to run on 64-bit processors Unable to close DEP. If it is a version before 2149, you will see the message "The processor of your computer does not support data execution protection software due to hardware design" (see Figure 2).

2. It is more convenient to configure wireless devices.
Windows XP, which was released in 2001, supports IEEE 9=802.11. SP2 enhances further support for Bluetooth technology. Of course, without any Bluetooth device installed, the system will not change. Only when the system is connected to the Bluetooth device, the corresponding Bluetooth logo icon will appear in the control panel and taskbar, so that the user can easily configure and connect the Bluetooth device.

If you install SP2, you will find that it is very simple and easy to configure the wireless network device. Just follow the instructions of the wireless network installation wizard to complete the relevant configuration (as shown in Figure 3). ), it is recommended to save the network settings to a USB flash drive, then just plug the USB flash drive into the access point and plug in each computer or device you want to add to the network; of course, if you don't have a USB flash drive, you can only Set up the network manually for each computer or device.

3. Windows Update support for hardware
Previously, Windows Update only provided updates for Windows systems and system-related components (IE, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger), but now in addition to providing system updates, Windows Update also for the Microsoft series Support for applications (such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange) and hardware driver updates (as shown in Figure 4. Added "Windows Update" button in the "System Properties → Hardware" tab, clicked Open the page shown in Figure 5, the default setting is "I ask if I search for Windows Update every time I connect a new device", it is recommended to change to "If the device requires a driver, please do not ask me to go directly to Windows Update" option, so install Drivers can be downloaded directly from Microsoft's hardware driver library to ensure maximum compatibility and stability of the hardware. Of course, if you love the drivers provided by the manufacturer, it is a different matter.

4 system property

FIG. 5 whether to search for the driver

If you To view SP2 compatible hardware devices, you can view the relevant http://www.microsoft.com/windows/catalog/default.aspx?subid =7&&xslt=hardware&&pgn=97aad4f8-31e0-4add-a5e7-6e2cf8e82df7&&title=hardware page Information, here are the Personal Computers, Printers, Sound, Cameras and Video, Scanners, Monitors, Input Devices, Networking and Modems, Storage, Other Hardware and other hardware devices, friends may wish to slowly check.

Of course, the benefits of SP2 are not limited to the above, SP2 can automatically identify more and update hardware devices, and as long as SP2 is installed after 2126, DirectX will automatically update to 9.0c, so you can get Pixel Shader 3.0 (pixel coloring). 3.0) and Vertex Shader 3.0 (Vertex Shader 3.0) support, if you have already used a graphics card that supports Shader 3.0, then don't miss this free lunch.