This is just a heads-up that most Nmap functionality will not work on the just-released Microsoft Windows SP2. Why? Microsoft apparently broke it on purpose! When an Nmap user asked MS why security tools such as Nmap broke, MS responded[1]:
"We have removed support for TCP sends over RAW sockets in SP2.
We surveyed applications and found the only apps using this on XP were
people writing attack tools."
I don't know why they consider Nmap an "attack tool", particularly when they recommend it on some of their own pages[2]. Shrug.
Removing SP2 re-enables the functionality and causes Nmap to work again. Many problems unrelated to Nmap have been found with SP2 as well[3], though it does some welcome security improvements for people stuck on that platform.
I will work on this if I get time, but am currently busy rewriting the core port scanning engine for the next version of Nmap. It is much faster, offers much better multiple-host parallelization, and provides other long-desired features such as completion time estimates. If someone finds a solution to this SP2 problem, please send a patch. It may not be too hard, as Nmap supports operating systems such as Win95 that didn't have raw socket support in the first place.