Win XP Service Pack 2 beta starts testing today

Microsoft have released a beta of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP to selected testers. It includes significant security enhancements including

• An improved version of Windows Firewall (formerly known as the Internet Connection Firewall). Windows Firewall will be turned on by default. Why wasn't it before?
• Blocking of accidental downloads and installations. Internet Explorer will help protect users from accidentally downloading and installing programs from potentially malicious Web sites by automatically blocking download requests. Users who decide to install a program can click on the download link that will automatically appear below the browser toolbar.
• Pop-up Manager. Internet Explorer will detect that a pop-up or pop-under window is unwanted if it doesn’t directly result from the user’s clicking on a link on a Web page.
• Better file attachment handling in Outlook Express and Windows Messenger. This means that attachments can open and execute with the fewest permissions possible.
• Increased customer control over downloads of external content in Outlook Express. Outlook Express will no longer download external content (such as graphics) in HTML mail by default.

The pop-up manager looks good, though the IE Google toolbar or Mozilla block all pop-ups, even ones that appear automatically if you click on a link. This could have significant effects on on-line advertising once XP SP2 is prevalent across home-users.

The Outlook Express security updates are welcome. I recently moved to Eudora after Outlook Express executed files I didn't want and refused ever to open again. It's also a great move in the fight against spam; spammers can send HTML mails with <img> tags that reference pictures on their web sites, with a unique ide (like your email address) attached to the tag. When you read the mail, the server knows that your email address has requested a picture, and thus is active - leaving you open to a bag more spam.