XP SP1: Big size, little impact
ZDNet | at | by Mike
The initial reaction to Windows XP Service Pack 1 is that it's big and it doesn't seem to do anything. No argument on the size issue--it's immense and it needs gobs of free disk space to install itself. That it doesn't have much visible impact on the system is a good thing. There was a time when Microsoft took a lot of heat for introducing new features into service packs, which are typically supposed to be conglomerations of bug fixes. There are a few new features in SP1, but only a few, and you'd generally have to go looking for them or you wouldn't know they were there.
After installing SP1 I visited the Windows Update site and was surprised to see that several previously listed entries had been uninstalled from my system. Some are reasonable, such as the upgrade to Windows Movie Maker--I don't want it. But some, like the .Net Framework Service Pack 2, seem like they should be in the main service pack.
So maybe SP1 isn't so boring after all, especially for Anarchy Online users. The most important part is that a large number of bugs are fixed by it and that new systems will ship with those fixes.