a whopping 85 MBs and with a basic service DSL, got done downloading and installing just a little over two hours. Ouch! :D If you have dial-up, this might test your patience. There are some changes: there's a pop-up blocker (I already have the Google toolbar), a manage add-on thing-a-jig, an alert at start-up that let's you know if your security softwares are off or on, and maybe some other things not yet noticeable.

Basically a whole new security center. I've been running it since the beta and apart from having it kill my XP Serial for some unknown reason, I've had no other problem with it. A call to MS fixed the serial key side of it and everything is all smooth.
Another thing it adds is better support for Bluetooth devices and now they are plug and play the way you would use a USB stick (or so it is said) and much better support for wireless devices.

I'm not sure whether it's made windows run any faster or slower, but everything seems to run the same here. I'm running it on a XP3200+ 64BIT with 1gig of ram at Dual Channel however so if anyone could let us know whether it does affect their machines performance it would be appreciated.

I'm using the beta version right now ... no differance in ops really noted because I use Norton and other anti bad stuff software.

If I stopped using IE and used another browser would I actually need SP2?

You sure would. Regardless of how good it really is, you have to keep in mind that SP2 is supposed to pretty much lock down your whole PC. It doesn't cover Spyware or Adware which what most popups can lead to if you're not careful, but instead is supposed to reduce hack attacks (yeah right) and the infection of trojans (yeah right again).

Either way it must do some good so I run it regardless...heh

I've been using it on my daughters PC since it was available for home. Unfortunately it's not for Pro yet, so I haven't upgraded my machine, but so far no problems.

The size of the download is based on what is needed on your system. If you've never downloaded SP1 or any updates, the d/l will probably run about 200MB.

So far, no problems, it's great for those who aren't overly PC savvy.

Well I have it for Pro on my other pc. (3.4ghz P4, 2gig RAM etc.) but I have decided not to upgrade this machine right now. But no problems so far.

Im with Bokken, haven't noticed any speed improvement, but its a quick pc anyway, so I didn't expect to.