Both my systems are running stabile and are more responsive post-SP1 than they were before. Besides, I have absolutely NO clue about why people want to run software-based firewalls and ESPECIALLY Internet Security-packages on their computers. Get a hardware-based NAT-firewall (or a full-blows firewall) in the form of a broadband router, and save yourself the headache that comes with a software-firewall. I have yet to find one that DOESN'T turn your system into the computer equivalent of a stunned slug glued to a brick wall (i.e. slow).
SP1 has not, as far as I know, been released to Windows Update yet. Word from the devs through the Microsoft Technet-community is that WU'ing of SP1 will take place in mid-march. It's been RTM'ed, which means that OEM-producers such as Dell, HP and others have gotten their hands on it. It can, however, be downloaded off Technet if you have a valid subscription. You should also be able to find it in the torrent-community, but I'd rather pluck out all my pubic hairs with a pair of tweezers one by one than installing a system update gotten through those means.
i can name 4 software firewalls that dont hamper system performance.
sygate pro(only good for 2k/xp/2k3 32bit
black ice protection.
kerio firewall.
nod32's new 3.x security suit dosnt hamper system performance
all of those have very little impact on performance, clearly your just talking out your ass OR your only experiance with software firewalls has bee norton and mcafee firewalls, and anything by symantic(norton) or mcafee is SHIT to begine with, horrible software, just fing horrible!!!!
as to your pubic hair pulling, please dont let us know how you get your jollys........
i have many a time gotten service packs beta and full via torrents, i use to have an msdn subscriotion BUT the problem was that when those servers came out, ms's servers would chug, slow as snot, cant count the number of times i went to torrents grabbed a torrent for the same thing i was downloading DIRRECTLY from ms, and the torrent finnished first.
examples.
windows 2003 server, i had msdn access via a company i was working for, it hit RTM, it was coming in at 63k max(remmber this very clearly, i was getting pissed), poped onto a torrent site, figuared what the hell and i looked, sure enought, torrent for RTM 2003 server msdn edition(no key included) and it was even a 3in1 job, so i grabbed it, it had like 7000 seeds and a tond of leechers/peers, it took my connection all the way to my capped limmit(750k out of 900 possable) and stayed there till the torrent finnished, to this day i have that disk around and use it to grab clean un tweaked un-updated copys of 2003 web/std/ent off of for diffrent jobs/installs im working on.
i killed the ms download it was only 22% done when my torrent finnished.
and b4 you ask, yes the torrent was clean, winbeta dosnt put out hacked up windows iso's, just clean ones with no mods other then multi versions on 2 disk(using a tool ms supplys for that very job!!!!)
so dont bag on torrents for updates, sometimes its the best way to get them, or get a pre-updated disk, i have xp x64 here, my orignal disk no sp on it, you cant slipstream x64 windows using x32 windows, so i would have to install it un patched, slipstream and burn a new disk, then reinstall windows again(updating an installed copy is far less clean and reliable then installing a clean preupdated version) so when i desided to give x64 another shot, well i grabed a clean slipstreamed copy online(again didnt come with a key, just the disk image), i also tryed to get this via a buddys msdn account, the ms downloader they forced me to install was SLOW AS SNOT, 130k max.......kept droping tho.....in the end i had 2 copys and disscovered the ms version that was maked as sp2, wasnt slipstreamed, the version they had up came with the damn service pack on the disk so after you installed you could update to sp2(wtf...stupid ms......)
blah, im not promoting piracy, im just saying don bag on torrents or other ways to get the files, since many times they are faster or more reliable then dirrect sorces like getting the file dirrectly from ms!!!
btw, anybody know if ms really stoped using their downloader?, somebody told me they stoped using it again and that u can use other download resumers now....if so that would be a great thing for alot of us who cant stand that thing ms made.......*grummbles* damn ms...... love windows 2k/2k3/x64pro......hate the company behind it....