Reader Mark Roberts asks: “does sp2 make winxp boot slower. I think i am experiencing same. “
Mark, I’ve read hundreds of first-person reports on SP2, and I have not seen any reports of performance problems. In fact, a few people say they think some things are actually faster, and that’s my experience as well.
If you’re experiencing slowdowns, you may have an auto-starting application, service, or driver interfering with startup. I would use Msconfig’s Startup tab or a similar utility to disable as much as possible and see if the problem persists. Then start adding items back a few at a time and see if the problem reappears.