Well, let’s begin by going to the “horse’s mouth”: Microsoft. According to KB824684 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824684 ) there is enough of a difference to provide a formal explanation: Service Pack Definition: A service pack is a tested, cumulative set of all hotfixes, security updates, critical updates, and updates. Service packs may also contain additional fixes for problems that are found internally since the release of the product and a limited number of customer-requested design changes...(read more)
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