I've been running SP2 without issues ever since it was released. What I don't run is anything from Norton.

John...What antivirus software do you recommend?

Get rid of Norton. Right now.

Trend Micro makes a much less obtrusive anti-virus software program.

Personally, I don't use anti-virus software, but not everyone is comfortable with that.

I still use SP1 on my 5.5 yr-old computer. Nothing complains. I have a laptop w/ Vegas 7 and use SP2. No problems.

The one good reason to use SP2 with Vegas is that SP2 has the HDV capture drivers built in. If you use SP1 and want to edit HDV, you have to do some sleight of hand that Spot posted a few years back. Works just fine, but it isn't something you'd come up with on your own.

I'm for reinstituting the ban on assault weapons.

But in the meantime:

If you have an UZI, take your Norton software package, toss it up in the air, and gun it down.

Instead, download the freeware version of AVG AntiVirus. Disable the Resident Shield, automatic scan, and the automatic update feature so they aren't running all the time. However, you should manually update the virus signatures every day and run the scanner regularly. If you can handle doing that regularly you will have a very good virus scanner that won't intrude on your computer's functionality.

John

I, too, use the AVG virus scanner. It's really very unobtrusive, even with the resident shield running.

Another happy user of AVG free. Haven't disabled anything on it, but it seems to be very easy on the system, the user interface is clean, and the price is right.

FWIW: Sp3 is on it's way, and due shortly..

I use Nod32 as an A/V - not free, but I find it to be my best solution

I've been using XP SP2 for years with Vegas and encountered no problems that I could attribute to the service pack.

The choice of which AV program to use is a religious war. I work in the computer security community, and even those pros cannot agree. Truth be told, a heterogeneous environment is better as some AVs catch some things and others catch others. If everyone was running AVG, then the attackers would just write something to get around AVG. So bottom line? Just pick what works for you. If Norton works for you, use it. If not, chuck it and get something else.

The problem with Norton is it slows down your machine 20%. Once installed you can't get all the stuff out on an un-install, you have to re-install the OS. Once you go through the Norton ringer you will never return.
JJK

I have been using XP SP3 Pre-release with Vegas Pro 8.0b.
No problems on this end with Vegas or other programs.

I have uninstalled Norton on a couple of machines and the power seems to come back after Norton is gone. Are you sure you need to reinstall the OS? I really don't think you do, but if I could squeeze a little more out of my PC by reinstalling, I would of course.

You don't really have to re-install the OS, however there are about 300 Norton files left on your system after un-install of Norton.
JJK

When you uninstall Norton, go to the Symantec site and get their cleaner/uninstaller.

Norton Removal Tool

It removes EVERYTHING (registry, files in the Windows folder, etc.).

Also, if the performance hit was only 20%, that would be bad, but not devastating. However, I have uninstalled this pig on more than a dozen client machines, and I have seen some that took, by stopwatch timing, over four minutes to boot (before you could click on anything) and which I got to under forty seconds after removal. Similar timings when starting up Microsoft Word and other relatively fast-loading applications. I don't think the performance was this bad when the AV was first installed, but it somehow got that way over time.

And no, these computers were not infected, and the performance was instantly great as soon as Norton was removed.

Symantec's Norton Antivirus software is the most evil, horrible, bloated testament to the sloppy programming practices of young programmers who never had to deal with trying to do something useful with only 64K of total system memory, on a floppy-only computer (the original Mac did not have a hard drive).

The bloated pig "media manager" introduced in Vegas is a good example of what happens when you program this way. That one function (media management) is actually larger than the main program itself. By contrast, Vegas versions 1-4 was a brilliant piece of compact, efficient code.

Back in 1968, I had a bet with my physics teacher that I could program an equation that would solve the quadratic formula, and that I could do it in fewer steps than he could. We did it on a Wang 360E calculator.

I lost (by two lines of code).

That was the last such bet I ever lost. Efficient coding became my passion, and I learned how to program computers to control machines, a practice that requires counting machine cycles so that your computation is finished before the machine is ready to do its next thing.

Over the years I have noted one constant about the software industry: Fast software wins, and slow bloated software loses. I have yet to see one example that disproves this theory.

Count me in as a member of the Lynch Mob! Norton really sucks.

Trend Micro is a much better app, but as one of the previous posters noted, no one program does it all. We all learn those leassons the hard way.

I've had no problems running any version of Vegas on XP SP2.

Norton = evil, absolutely. It pretty much turns an audio/video workstation into a boat anchor.

I updated to SP2 for XP the first week it was available. No problems at all and it fixed a ton of nagging little issues. SP2 was what made me finally ditch Win98SE because XP was finally as stable and useful as 98 had been.

Yep, count me in

Norton = Evil
AVG = no problems

After getting burned by Norton (Symantec) and their (non)support and their resource hog, I removed it using their tools to clean all
traces etc. Gee - started having another problem with shared
files. Turned out I (along with others) got bitten by this issue
when you remove Norton ...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/177078/en-us
Anyone seeing messages about the Server doesn't have enough
memory to complete the requested operation" or whatever it was,
check out that KB article.

Symantec and AOL stuff is no longer allowed on the property :-)

mikey