NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Some colleges are fretting the release of Microsoft's upgrade to its XP operating system -- whose release coincides with the opening of campuses around the country -- saying that multiple downloads of the patch could significantly jam their systems, according to a report published Tuesday.

According to the Washington Post, the upgrade, known as Service Pack 2, is designed to patch numerous gaps in Windows XP, the operating system choice for an estimated 200 million computer users worldwide.

The report said the free upgrade includes safeguards against spyware and viruses, a hardened Internet firewall to keep out hackers, and changes to better alert users to security risks on their personal computers.

The unfortunate thing about the patch, college officials say, is that it debuts in the same month that thousands of students report to campuses.

Additionally, some organizations that run larger networks worry that the upgrade could also conflict with certain applications already in use, the newspaper said.

"The timing is extremely unfortunate," the Post report quoted Anne Agee, deputy chief information officer of George Mason University as saying. "It wouldn't be so bad if we had gotten this more than a month ago, because at least then we would have had plenty of time to test it and make a decision about how we want to correct for this."

Some universities are taking steps to block computers from automatically downloading the software until more tests are conducted, the report said.

For its part, Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) said it chose to release SP2 when it did in part to avoid a repeat of last August, when computers owned by hordes of students arriving for the fall semester were infected by the Blaster and Welchia worms, which took advantage of vulnerabilities in the software, the report said.

According to the report, Microsoft is giving schools one service pack disk for every 50 students on campus, with extra disks costing 32 cents each.