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Windows XP SP3 Creating Havoc
ozmanjusri writes "According to Information Week, within hours of its wide availability Windows XP SP3 had drawn hundreds of complaints from users who claim the update is wreaking havoc on their computers. One user said in a Microsoft newsgroup: 'I downloaded and installed [the SP3] package for IT Professionals and Developers on one of my computers. Now I can't get the computer to boot. I don't think Microsoft should have made this a critical update.' Other sites including IT Wire are also reporting problems, which include include random reboots or the inability to boot at all." Note that XP3 won't install on systems running beta IE8; and after a successful SP3 install users will no longer be able to downgrade from IE7 to IE6.
Four systems and counting , including my own laptop, i have upgraded to SP3 and not any problems of any kind. Systems even seem snappier. I did have to replace the standard Windows boot screen on my lappy. SP3 would not install with a custom boot up screen. For all my bile directed at Microsoft, XP is the most stable and versatile Windows I've ever used. People don't want to switch because of that, and Vista offers nothing at all compelling. Especially since it expects you to abandon all your current hardware and peripherals.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Well, do you consider an OS with security holes broken or not? Personally I do; I'd rather deal with MS trying to fix my computer after an SP messes something up than with a virus trojan that I may not even notice at first.
News about XP SP3 when it's delayed, when it doesn't work with some server...
No news when it's released.
News again when some minority of systems fail the SP3 installation.
I love that Microsoft is held to 100% success rates, too. 100%. Even though there are millions of systems with trillions of potentially screwed up configurations to miss in testing, 100%.
Unless testing for SP3 was going to take hundreds of years, stuff was going to slip through.
Windows service packs have never helped broken systems. They have only made them worse. See exhibits SP1 and SP2.
If you suspect the SP won't take, just go straight to slipstream, wipe, and reinstall.
Ahhh, I'm having dreamy flashbacks to the old Mac System 7 days, when you just replaced the "System" file - or worst case renamed the "System Folder" and replaced it with a fresh one.
:) I'm just a bit nostalgic from knowing what every single file did on my PC... DOS was good like that, too.
But what's that? A bomb icon? Extensions conflicts? Co-operative multitasking... networking and printing from the... Chooser? Ahhhhhh!
Maybe the more complicated install is worth it after all
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Look, I'm a Linux fan too, but this isn't a problem necessarily with Windows alone. I have certainly dealt with my fair share of Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora distros that cacked up the big one after an upgrade. Sometimes a reinstall is just easier than trying to figure out what broke, especially on a non-critical machine.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
I'm no Microsoft apologist, but I do think the unbridled hate that pervades /.'s reaction to every single Windows article is a bit out of hand. Maybe this will help stem the tide of Vista-bashing. Sure, Vista kinda sucks, but all Windows versions kinda suck. I think most people who are ripping on Vista for being the operating system anti-christ are forgetting how badly XP sucked pre-SP1, and even pre-SP2. 7 years ago, the chorus of "OH MY GOD XP IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN 2000! THERE'S NO NEED TO UPGRADE!" in every XP article's comments were eerily similar to the ones you hear now every time Vista gets a mention.
Vista's maturing, and as it does it'll become a better operating system, and everyone will benefit, even if they don't use Vista. Microsoft still competes largely on the basis of being a de facto standard. Vista's release has caused them to lose this edge somewhat, and the window has opened for their competition, who compete mostly on features, to get a little lazy (Leopard, anyone?). Microsoft competing more vigorously on their stale plank, assuming they don't magically find traction they've been unable to find for years, can't do anything but help the products on the market.
Okay, now it's time to cue the million responses calling me a Microsoft shill. Suggested topics: "There really was no reason to upgrade from 2k to XP, I still use 2k just fine," "Vista is beyond repair because of DRM," and "Vista is way more broken than Leopard, how dare you rip on OS X."
It's still possible to fubar Linux or Unix or OSX. One advantage that you DO have is that it is possible to do a "real" restore from a working backup...On the other hand, most people are sloppy with backups for their personal machines.
If you do a good job of screwing the system, it still can be quicker to start from scratch. Whenever I have a huge upgrade on a development machine, I tend to start from scratch, to hopefully avoid the problems that accumulate over time.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The reason it's so difficult to fix a windows system is because you are encouraged to not understand it. With a more open system you can learn where the system files are that get edited and replace any that begin to cause problems. With Windows however you even try to learn about more complex parts of the system like the registry you are greeted with one page messages telling you "It's important. Don't touch it." I know I sound like a open source zealot but it's stuff like this that has made people like me go from not caring either way to pro open source.
But with all of the delays of Vista they could have made it more stable before they released it. I think that's the problem with Microsoft is that they release everything before it's ready. I, personally, am an OS X user simply because I fix Windows machines all day, and don't want to go home and look at Windows. I do have XP SP3 on my MBP (boot camp/parallels) and have no issue with SP3 My problems with Vista have been minimal. The fact that it took 10 minutes to move even a small file from one location to the next was my only complaint at first. After SP1, it's been much better. I agree with a lot of what you say...given time, they'll fix more things making it more stable...but they definitely should have known about A LOT of the bugs before it was released.
No matter how hot a girl is - some guy somewhere is sick of her shit.
I haven't had to do a clean reinstall on any of my macs since OS 9..
I can't tell you how many times I've had to reinstall windows on my PCs.. I've completely lost count.
MABASPLOOM!
He didn't say that regular users should need to understand their computers, but that there should be the option to understand them. To apply your analogy, what would car users think if rebuilding the whole car was the only way to fix issues even for a mechanic?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
He's not saying that regular users should need to fully understand how an OS works, only that people who want to know how it works should be able to. This would be akin to GM saying "Don't bother trying to fix your transmission, just buy a new car" (Yes, I know not quite the same, but close enough). Does the average car driver know how to fix their car, no. But if one had the desire to learn how to, they could. In that same way, those of us who want to learn how to fix a Windows install instead of simply reinstalling would like the oppertunity to be able to do so.
Don't you hate pants?
XP was an improvement over the previous Windows version. Vista is not.
I agree.
I use linux not Windows, but this is ridiculus!
WinXP sp3 is causing hundreds of complaints?
HUNDREDS?
How many millions of XP users were automatically upgraded to sp3?
Hundreds are complaining. That is a pretty good outcome.
There are plenty of things to bash MS about.
This seems like a non-issue to me.
You're right in the similarities between XP and Vista in that they were both more bloated than their predecessors and that many users were reluctant to "upgrade" because of that. But there are some big differences.
XP was considered bloat and XP doubled the minimum requirements from 2000 Pro.
Vista quadruples the minimum XP processing requirement, octuples XP minimum RAM, decuples the minimum HDD free space, and adds a new requirement for video cards.
On top of all of that, XP and 2000 were essentially the same kernel. There weren't many compatibility issues, and users weren't faced with drastic UI changes.
So, was XP twice as "good" as 2000? Maybe, so people switched. Is Vista ten times as "good" as XP? Plus IT support costs? No, so people aren't switching.
Vista is bashed for a reason!
I had vista on my work laptop for 6 months, I kept hoping that SP1 would fix everything.. after installing it.. I downgraded to XP.
The result?
Battery life went from 1h 40min to 2h 30minutes.
The system now boots to usable state in 3 minutes. With vista, it took 28 minutes to actually get to login screen. After logging in it took another 5 minutes to actually do anything.
I don't have constant UAC annoyance (yes I know that can be turned off, but it was touted to be one of the good new features)
I can actually use 3 legacy corporate programs we need daily which didn't run on vista.
You might assume the laptop was old, but no. It's brand new! Yet my home laptop 4 years old running XP felt 3x faster than the new dual core machine with 3gb memory!
Under the line:
I can get more work done therefore costing less to my employer!
As for w2k, we still run it on few computers. Why upgrade since it works flawlessly and those machines aren't connected to public network.
I don't see any reason for vista deployment. It's like Windows ME all over again.
Only good thing with vista is downgrade right to xp from business and ultimate.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Secondly this whole "Vista is maturing" rubbish doesn't work. Vista is not a child, pet or a plant. It's not expected to grow. It should work out of the box.
Like I mentioned earlier, this mentality that it's acceptable to release a bit of software that costs hundreds of dollars in a broken state is why PC software in general sucks.
Console gaming was always superior to PC gaming in terms of quality because there wasn't any patching. They had to get it right. Where as PC game markets just had to get it sort of right. Now console gaming has the ability to patch games and, no surprise at all, the quality is dropping.
There is no reason software companies, especially one as large and as rich as Microsoft can't get it right on the first go.
Tell me this, are you willing to by a car, dvd player or microwave that only sort of works out of the box and the manufacturer promising to fix it at a later date? If not, then why is it acceptable for Microsoft to do this?
In what way was XP an improvement over Windows 2000?
As far as most users were concerned, Win98SE was the previous version of Windows.
When your OS has greater requirements than the games you play, you know something has gone very very wrong.. unless perhaps you only play the built in Windows games :p Sometimes life really is stranger than fiction..
which is totally what she said