Upgrading to XP SP2 (AB software implications)

A few years ago the office sent me a replacement laptop.
To my amazment, it only had XP SP1. IT Department claimed "something" in AB didn't like sp2 (read, load of bunk).

Anyway, here it is a couple of years later and I really should upgrade. I've heard rumors that all of the AB software would have to be reloaded after the upgrade.

Question


How painfull will the upgrade be?
Will I have to reload everything?

as far as Microsoft goes the upgrade should be fairly painless i've done it several times no problems. AB on the other hand... i've never exactly replicated your setup but i have to reload their software way to often for my liking. i bet the safest path would be to uninstall all ab components first and then reinstall after the upgrade, using the latest version off the ab site (i believe they are up to cpr8 now for all their software and cpr9 for some). Also i've seen where ab software has to be manually removed (aka deleting files and registry entries by hand) to reinstall correctly. to be honest if everything is working now i would leave well enough alone.

I have been using XP SP2 and have had no issues with AB, Omron, Siemens or GE. Vista on the other had will not work with much at all.

As fas as i recall sp2 has no problem with cpr7 or cpr9, try not to use the windows firewall from microsoft and use the one that comes from AB.

There was an issue with RSView32 (CPR7), Wondwerware 9.0 and Windows XP SP2. If you installed View and WW concurrently (didn't matter the install order), as soon as you installed the 2nd one, XP went to hell in a handbasket. Your taskbar would disappear, Control Panel would be empty, file copies wouldn't work. Really bizzare behavior. Turns out the combo of the two blew away the Windows DCOM registry entries causing all sorts of havoc. AB issued a registry patchfix, so beware if you run across this combo.