Sometimes we just have to wait. After the initial download of the 98/ME version Microsoft now released the latest build of DirectX 8.1 for 2K users. Read more to learn about the latest changes to this version and of course the download link.
I managed to find out about the latest changes at the MSDN news groups, as posted by Philip Taylor of Microsoft: DirectShow Modifies kernel component stream.sys to correct failure of laptops to resume from hibernation as described in Knowledge Base article Q307207. This fix only affects Windows 2000 systems using a docking station having an attached USB camera. Fixes a blocking issue in quartz.dll on Windows 2000 when running DirectShow in a service. Corrects a boundary case in the MPEG-2 Demultiplexer where packets may be dropped. This condition can occur if the video stream packet size is an integral multiple of transport packet size. The fix is incorporated for all DirectX-supported platforms. Direct3D Fixes Direct3D-base screen savers, when the computer may be unable to enter standby or hibernation by using the timer in Power Management properties. Fixes some recent game titles that use DrawIndexedPrimitive() API with clipped TL vertices. Fixes flashing polygons/lines issues in some applications that used DirectX 8.0 DrawPrim(), DrawClippedPrim, DrawIndexedPrim() APIs. The DirectX installation process requires approximately 55 megabytes (MB) of free space on your hard drive. Once installed, you can delete the installation files. The remaining DirectX files use approximately 15 MB of hard drive space. If you had an earlier version of DirectX installed on your computer, you will see little difference in used space on your hard drive. DirectX 8.1b will overwrite the earlier versions. Download DirectX 8.1b Windows 2000