Windows All XP users need to read this!

just a little off topic here......

can anyone actually tell me how much more ram SP2 uses? I often work with huge databases and some pretty esoteric software, a lot of it custom software designed to do funky things to databases (most of it made by me ). for me, and the nature of my computer usage, memory and disk-space is a fairly critical concern (more memory for use == less disk access == faster working == more money). im on SP2, and i wont be removing it anytime soon, i dont see much of a difference (aside from a few funky things MS did to the stack, and a few networking work-arounds i had to figure out, but there are patches available for that stuff, and i have vm's and sandbox machines around).

i was just wondering, does anyone actually know how much extra ram SP2 uses? i hear the "its a memory hog" argument quite a lot, but to be honest, compare any version of windows to linux, and all windows is a memory hog (the linux system on my new cluster runs in 10 megs, and thats a fairly complete distro).

to be honest, i'd rather have SP2 on every windows machine in the world, and a lot less support calls, spam, viral-attacks, malware and a million other problems.

 

I was really aware that it used ANY more memory. Maybe it does, but not enough to make a difference.

And with memory prices so cheap, you have no excuse if you really are running that short...

 

cjmwork2

memory is always in short supply for me but that wasnt the purpose of my post. i see this "sp2 will chew up your ram" bandied about all over, and i was just wondering if there was any basis to it. im assuiming it will use more ram (cause it adds stuff to the os), but i was wondering if there was any hard knowledge on how much more it actually uses. it would appear there isnt, and the "it uses more ram" argument is the same as "it will break your software and damn you to the depths of hell" argument. lots of opinion, and little, if any, hard facts.

personally, i dont see what the problem with SP2 is, people have been hammering microsoft for all the holes in XP for ages, now they are hammering them for trying to listen to their complaints and fix it. i like bashing bill as much as anyone, but credit where its due, at least they are doing something.

(and just as an FYI, peeps should check the MS site much more often. the SP2 blocker was out before SP2 was on public release, so that sysadmins and peeps like myself could block it until we made sure it wouldnt break stuff, had i just installed it blindly, it would have broken a lot of my software tools that i use to earn my living, i refused the update for a while until i could work around its networking issues, and in the end, accepted it and everythings been rosy)

 

It should a least use more ram because of the security center and the other features.


cjmwork2, cheap memory is not that great. You will be lucky if you find a good quality one

 

With SP2 installed, my systems' memory usage is actually lower than it was before updating. It averaged 220MB and now, with all the same services and programs running, it averages 180MB. Running any game or application still has not brought memory usage to over 600MB yet.

 

If you don't need the Security Center you can disable the service, oh look no RAM usage now!

Even good memory is cheap - compared to 5+ years ago. It's not hard to have a system with 512MB or more of RAM these days, a few years ago you'd have to budget pretty hard to get that much in your system.