Incremental and Cumulative SPs
A service pack can be "incremental", meaning it only contains the updates that were not present in the previous service packs, or it can be cumulative, which means it includes the contents of all its predecessors. In the case of Microsoft's products, an incremental update was called a service release. For example, Office 2000 must be upgraded to service release 1 (SR‑1) before one can install SP2.
Recent service packs for Microsoft Windows are cumulative. This means that the problems that are fixed in a service pack are also fixed in later service packs. For example, Windows XP SP3 contains all the fixes that are included in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).
Office XP, 2003, and 2007 service packs have been cumulative.
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Famous quotes containing the word cumulative:
“Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made.”
—Bill Cosby (20th century)