A special tool that blocks the download of Service Pack 2 on Windows XP PCs will expire Tuesday, ending the last SP2 respite for users who rely on the Automatic Updates feature in Windows to keep their systems up to date.

Microsoft released SP2 in August last year. Taken aback by customers who use Automatic Updates, but were not prepared to deal with the service pack, Microsoft provided a way to set a Windows registry key that instructs the system to skip downloading and installing SP2, but still download other critical updates.

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