Official final version of Windows XP Embedded SP2 is available now!

Hey all,

I'm happy to report that the official released version of the Windows XP Embedded SP2 update is now available for download!! You can go to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=38214 to be redirected to the official download page now!

Windows XP Embedded SP2 has lots of bug fixes and quite a few new and improved features:

  1. All of the desktop Windows XP features for enhanced security (no execute support, improved firewall, security center, and on and on)
  2. All of the XP Embedded SP1 QFEs
  3. Many updates to Enhanced Write Filter - hibernate-once, resume-many (HORM), ability to commit and disable without a reboot for RAM overlays, ability to commit individual files with the EWF APIs, much better error handling
  4. Bluetooth support
  5. Other updated components such as the .NET Framework 1.1 SP1 (included in the value add folder, you have to install it separately) and DirectX 9.0
  6. Huge updates to the documentation including full component help, many more end-to-end how to scenarios, full documentation for all new SP2 features and bug fixes - you will notice several doc updates even when comparing to the tech preview from October
  7. New since the tech preview - a macro component called the Generic Device Driver support component - with this you can add all of the in-box drivers for specific classes of hardware without going through and manually adding them
  8. SP2 requires SP1 to be present before you can install (it is an update to SP1), but it can be uninstalled so you can return to an SP1-level database if you need to without doing a full uninstall and reinstall
  9. Other updates that I know I'm forgetting currently

Mike Hall and I have updated the web download tool since the October SP2 Technology Preview with a lot of bug fixes (mostly related to better handling of failed and cancelled downloads, plus we added a feature to start over where we left off if you close and reopen the downloader application). Also, we integrated the ability to download MUI packs for Windows XP Embedded (currently only 6 languages are available but the other Windows XP languages will be available soon). Just like before, please send me comments or email me directly at aaronste (at) microsoft (dot) com if you have any comments, questions or bug reports about Windows XP Embedded SP2 or the web download application.