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.

Comments

Re:Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

[stjobe]

Sure, unless you're one of the "few dozen", who cares, right? No skin off _your_ nose. Nice attitude.

Re:Issue Specifics

[DamienNightbane]

What!? This isn't Microsoft's fault? THIS IS MADNESS!!!

Re:Easier to read version.

[street struttin']

It has a banner add at the top This is like the third time this week I've seen this, and I'm not really looking, but dammit, this is retarded. It's an "ad" not an "add". "ad" is short for "advertisement". Just because firefox's spellcheck doesn't catch it, doesn't mean it's correct.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Sandbags]

I use Vista on ONE machine, my latest gaming rig build, and for ONE reason: I'm beta testing a couple of games only available in DX 10, and DX 10 has not (yet) been back ported to XP.

I don't run my XP machines as admin anyway, so little of Vista's new security features really matter to me. Up to date AV, ASW, and a good firewall does well enough to add the protections that XP lacked. My wife is properly trained at this point not to screw with the machine without my permission, and knows not to open web pages and e-mails she's not certain are safe. I double filter all e-mail by bouncing through different services, so anything coming in should be clean anyway, but the links inside are not allways safe, so I use phishing and blacklisting software on top of everything else.

We have not had a virus, malware, or spyware infection on any of my 7 total machines (and others I've rotated through over the years) since 2001 when I started tracking spyware. I've never had a virus, of any kind, not in any OS, and I've been a consultant for 14 years and had PCs since IBM's PS2 and the Apple IIgs.

It's not hard to remain clean. Use a small amount of common sense, and don't just renew your virus defs each year, but actually buy the latest ang greatest engine. It costs about $80 a year to stay completely protected, AND backed up for good measure, less if you have more than 1 PC and buy bundle or family versions of software.

If people running as admin was the only real achilleas heal of XP, why didn't someone just release a simple batch product to create a non-admin user and migrate the admin's files and settings. Simple, done. I've done it manually a few times, and used the user migration wiz once (it sucks).

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[SanityInAnarchy]

Maybe this will help stem the tide of Vista-bashing. No, fixing Vista will help stem the tide of Vista-bashing. Help, not eliminate -- Microsoft is yet again alpha-testing their products on the general population, and for that, they deserve to be bashed.

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. I remember very well, which is why it's all the more infuriating this time around.

Oh, by the way, can anyone confirm whether or not this is fixed yet: Disable indexing, then try to type something into the search in the Start menu. Watch system explode, because each character spawns a new thread to search, without killing the old one. Doesn't take very much to bring the whole thing crashing down.

If yes, then we've got some progress. If not, that's fucking pathetic.