Windows XP SP2 vs SP1 Performance Comparison

"Short-Media have thrown up a new article which asks does Windows Service Pack 2 slow you down? " Microsoft released Service Pack 2 and millions installed it. Did boat anchors come with the enhancements? We threw 108 benchmarks at Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 in an attempt to declare a winner.

Does the old saying go "newer, better, faster" or "you can only rework the plumbing so many times"? Service Pack 2 brought enhancements to Windows XP including a very handy pop-up stopper and the much needed firewall security. A new Service Pack does improve upon some features of an operating system besides plugging up the holes but do the improvements come as extra weight or is some code jettisoned in favor of newer, leaner code?

A comparison between the Service Pack 1 clean install and Service Pack 2 clean install shows 4 extra processes and 42 extra megabytes added to SP2 on the test system.

Windows XP SP2 vs SP1 Performance Comparison