It's been almost eight months since Windows XP Service Pack 2 arrived. But a new report from a company called AssetMetrix says that less than a quarter of North American businesses surveyed have adopted it. Are the other 75% just being lethargic? Well, maybe, but 40% of the surveyed companies are actively avoiding moving to XP SP2. In other words, they're intentionally sticking with an operating system version with gaping security glitches.

Service Pack 2 is an important update that patches any number of Windows holes; PC World has repeatedly recommended installing it. But the mass hesitance about the upgrade points out a basic conundrum about Windows security as it stands, which is that patching is ultimately a crummy way to get to a more secure computing platform.

Click here to read more.