Hi and thanks for the support.
What can I look at in xp home to see that SP2 has been activated. I did the updates and did a restart.
Your start menu should have changed when loading Windows XP.

Right click on My Computer - Properties, there it should state what Service Pack is installed.ricky1me....Are you ASKING ...how do I know its installed ...or how do I activate it....? No ACTIVATION is required.....and if you didnt notice the change in the logo at start up ( it has changed slightly....differant color)
then do as Raptor suggests or look in control panel and you will see several new ICONS....IE "SECURITY CENTER" and "Windows Firewall" ......apart from that, things are pretty much the same as they were before.

dl65  Yes, I first went into updates and did an update and install. I activated automatic updates and it did it's thing and installed all.

That's when I posted this to make sure AND it started doing another update (this time much more activity) and it installed sp2. It also SHOWS a shield in the notification area.

Thanks for the help!its should be listed in the events log....control panel adimin tools...and also in the add/remove programs...