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I'm a senior technician for a large computer service company, I have installed sp2 on hundreds of machines, we even slipstream it into our new installs. On EVERY SINGLE machine that we have had a problem with sp2, it wasn't sp2's fault. We go back and do a kaspersky scan and sure enough, theres viruses and malware on the machine. On the machines that are running sp2 we have seen a DRAMATIC (90%ish) cut in spy/mal/adware and viruses on the machines. Seems people are stupid enough to click yes on every activex popup but not smart enough to right click on the toolbar and choose install activex plugin. If you are having problems with sp2 i suggest a full scan with kaspersky demo version (its full, just limited to 30 days) then remove kaspersky (yes remove it, it kills performance to a crawl) and run spybot 1.3 and adaware SE, then hijack this. Once you get the system nice and clean (and assuming you don't have a jacked product id) sp2 will load nicely. Every application thats mainstream (nero, norton, zone, etc) has put out a update that brings it to compliance with the WMI needed to run with sp2. Norton makes you run live update like 4 times and then uncheck a box blocking sp2 from communicating with it "Allow other programs to communicate with symantic products (not recommended)", (not recommended pretty much sums up all of symantics problems, with nav2k4 you know you have a virus when the autoprotect icon stops working)
Every program thats listed as being incompatible that ive run into will generate a popup from windows with the url for the update from the software maker. FYI office 97 was listed as having problems with xp in general along time ago. Maby its time to move to star office since you dont want to update your office. sp2 rocks, plain and simple, the firewall is very nice (people just dont realize its running and their apps may not get out on the net, its that low profile). Windows update 5 with the new BITS system makes getting those crit updates easy. If you seriously have a problem with sp2 in your business due to compatibility with certian obscure or custom software titles, then you should make sure that you are running wus server (its free) so that all your systems are getting the security updates they need. no firewall = fool, no computer usage policy at work = fools, no backups = fools, no updates = fools, etc etc etc. Computing safely is a responsibility. In 8 years I have never seen a person or a company that computed responsibly and been bitten by computer problems.

Oh how I wish there were more network admins like you!!

I hope you're getting a premium wherever you are!

The problems I've had with SP2 aren't the installation. We run java-based application servers to a gui-based graphical front-end for banking databases, and SP2 will not leave that application alone unless the new firewall is disabled. I've stopped loading SP2 and am instead looking to extend Citrix to each desktop.