Thanks, that's a interesting site. Had I seen it before trying, I probably would've waited a month or two before trying SP2. But since my daughter was "going remote" on a college LAN, I thought it was worth the risk.
After being up almost all night, I finally got her machine working after a fashion but it seems to be some sort of update hybrid - a frankinmachine of sorts. Still not sure what exactly what's updated and what isn't.
Too much fun for one (36 hr) day - I'm going to take a nap...
I thought MS wasn't putting the release version for home users out until August 25?