Seems that XP SP2 is a utter Cockup..

[Wislu Plethora]

This is so wrong it's hard to know where to begin. The
level of Microsycophancy on the part of MVPs straining to
defend their heroes is sickening. See responses inline
below:

Program writers are notorious for taking shortcuts. In
many cases, they often use known holes in the system code
as a shortcut to accomplish something in thier program.

If not for the original MS "shortcuts" we wouldn't be
having this discussion. Don't forget--nearly all of the
"critical" security holes in XP were brought to light not
by MS, but by outside sources. Since some of the
applications that will be crippled by SP2 were developed
by MS, we must assume that they *knew* about the holes
and did nothing.

When the hole is later patched by a critical update,
their program (or part of it) no longer works.

Developers write code so that it will function on the
target platform. If the target platform is defective, how
is it that developers are to blame? Also, unless what
you're doing here is just spewing unsupported assertions
and engaging in irresponsible gossip, I'm sure you can
provide direct reference to application source code that
includes the type of irresponsible coding you refer to.

They do this knowingly and intentionally. They have the
opportunity to code it correctly according to specs, they
choose not to for expediency.

The "specs" are at least tacitly included in the
architecture of the target platform. If all of these holes
were such common knowledge in the development community,
why has it taken MS so long to patch them?

So who's fault is that?

Whose indeed? (Not "who's")

Or would you rather that the holes were not patched? You
know, that way everyone would be permanently susceptible
to Nimda, Code Red, Blaster etc.......

Argument from false dichotomy. I would rather that MS
provided some leadership in the process of identification
of holes in its own product, rather than waiting for
outsiders to discover them before taking action and then
blaming the non-MS development community for the
problems.

Best of Luck,

We'll all need it!