Win2k SP2 out – but unofficially?

It's there, but as yet is unannounced...

Another Microsoft leak? On Friday The Register was under the impression that Win2k Service Pack 2 had just been released, but looking at it now, we're not sure that was exactly the case.

News of SP2's availability was first broken by CNET, which said that Microsoft had "quietly posted" it, and looking at the CNET story again, yes, we see that it suggests this could mean that Microsoft was on the point of officially releasing it, rather than saying Microsoft had released it*. But today we see Paul Thurrott is claiming the code, which is hosted on the servers of Microsoft partner Conxion, is actually leaked.

Microsoft's press area certainly doesn't mention an official release yet, and the Windows 2000 area is still only offering SP1, hosted on Microsoft servers. Nor do we see any actual reference to the download, or how you get there, on the MS section of conxion.com.

Microsoft does seem to be up to something, however. Over the weekend neowin.net published a link to an SP2 FAQ on the Microsoft site, but as that's now broken, somebody pulled it. Best get SP2 while it's still hot. It was still there as of this morning. ®

* Our feeble excuse for dozing gently as all this rolled by is that it was the UK's statutory two days of summer over the weekend. Normal climate, and normal service, has now resumed.

Related links:
Download SP2 here (now updated to MS server)
CNET story
Wininfo - SP2 leaked

Unrelated leaks:
Tester ID leak leaves WinXP beta site wide open