Slashdot Mirror
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.
I just bought a Lenovo laptop with XP Pro for my wife that came yesterday. The first thing I did after all the initial registration, etc. was to run Windows update. To my surprise, SP3 was available so I installed it. After the install, TCP/IP would not work at all. I called Lenovo and they told me to reload from restore partition - SP3 wipes out TCP/IP for that laptop. After the reload, I updated individual fixes (64 of them) and turned off Automatic Updates so it won't try to slip in SP3 again.
It's not just Windows where this is the accepted practice. On multiple occasions I've brought in ailing MacBooks (and MacBook Pros) to the Apple store and the only advice the "geniuses" have had for fixing the problem has been a clean reinstall.
It's frustrating, yes. But I don't think the problem is the product, nor the industry. The real problem is that operating systems are complex beasts. The consumer has spoken quite clearly that the most important thing is new features and functionality, not stability. Someday hopefully we'll have our cake and eat it too, but for the time being I don't think we'll be getting away from these issues.
how did this become an acceptable state of affairs in IT?
I don't know about "acceptable" but it became a necessary way of operating when Microsoft switched Windows away from INI files to the registry. Windows 3.x systems had maybe 5 or 10 INI files that mattered (i.e. that you had to hand-tweak from time to time). Each rarely had more than 100 lines in it. Maybe a couple hundred thousands bytes all in. And if we needed a driver, it was usually a driver _file_ (except video drivers).
Today systems are ridiculously complicated. Windows 3.x would not even load, let alone run, if it was installed on a partition with the number of files an XP system has (over 100,000). Just the number of files alone would sink it (try it with more than about 60,000 files if you don't believe me).
On the other hand, install systems have kept pace with the complexity. Instead of shovelling 7 floppies (Windows 3.x) into a PC in 15 to 20 minutes, we have CD (XP) and DVD (Vista) installs that take the same (order of magnitude) time to install, despite 10 to 100 to 1000 times the increase in complexity. So, re-installing wins.
With DOS, we knew our systems down to the individual file level.
With Windows 3.x, we knew our systems down to the INI level.
With XP, we know our systems down to the Windows Update/services.msc level.
With Vista, we just know our system sucks.
I come here for the love
First off, you shouldn't have posted this as AC. Aside from that, I totally agree with you.
/.ers, is that they lied about the sys reqs. My roomate has a laptop that has no business running it, and it really really sucks.
I am also not an apologist, and you can flame me to ashes for saying this, but I haven't had very many problems at all with Vista (outside of them releasing updates that make the cracks stop working).
The biggest issue with it for normal end users, not
A few disclaimers:
1 - I am a gamer, had a system that was well beyond the req's that they should have used in the first place, and it runs fine.
2 - I never pay for anything except online games(flame me for that too if you want), so the DRM stuff doesn't matter to me.
3- I totally agree that you would be out of your mind to install it in a business environment in it's current state, and with the current cost of the machines you would need to run it.
4- The fact that they are planning on discontinuing XP is preposterous. When you release a new version of anything users should want to upgrade, not be forced to.
Absolutely no interest in a "but M$ is evil" or a "but you don't realize that it does xyz" argument, just giving my experience with Vista.
The problem is that MS has stopped thinking about "advantage for the user" at least 10 years ago.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Dont trust Vista's windows classic mode. If you run Visa in Windows classic mode many of the Adobe CS3 bundle applications will have problems. You will see screen update problems in Photoshop and Premiere. OpenGL warnings in Aftereffects and you won't be able to dump to tape using firewire from premiere on many systems.