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

One problem machine out of many installs

[Fez]

I have installed SP3 on several systems, and I have only had problems on one. It was my laptop, and I had known there were problems with the underlying Windows installation for months but wondered if SP3 might fix them. It did not. It ended up in an endless cycle of BSoDs from which it never did recover. I ghosted the drive, wiped it clean, and installed from an XP CD with SP3 slipstreamed. Now the laptop is running better than ever. I am not sure if SP3 has anything to do with that, or the fact that it's a fresh install with new, recent drivers. (most likely the clean install.)

The BSoD/stop errors I received pointed to a driver issue with DEP, but without being able to boot even in safe mode there was no easy way to debug the problem. I could have tried a repair install, but I felt more comfortable starting from scratch.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Blahbooboo3]

It's funny that to fix Microsoft Windows, it's faster to just wipe and re-install from scratch rather than try to fix the issue.

I always wonder, how did this become an acceptable state of affairs in IT?

The dominant OS in the world easiest way to fix is by re-installing!! Just seems weird, and describes yet another problem with the computer industry.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[ppz003]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that that the case with most operating systems?

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Fez]

I doubt it was really faster in the long run, once you factor in copying my data back over, reinstalling programs, etc. It took the better part of a day to get things back to what I consider a usable state for my personal laptop with all my data.

A repair install would have probably taken about an hour, give or take.

As I said, I felt more comfortable starting from scratch and going that route, because I figured it would be the most trouble-free in the long run. A repair install may have had it up and running much sooner.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[MightyYar]

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.

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 :) I'm just a bit nostalgic from knowing what every single file did on my PC... DOS was good like that, too.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Trashman]

It's funny that to fix Microsoft Windows, it's faster to just wipe and re-install from scratch rather than try to fix the issue.

I always wonder, how did this become an acceptable state of affairs in IT?

The dominant OS in the world easiest way to fix is by re-installing!! Just seems weird, and describes yet another problem with the computer industry. Don't blame the Industry, Blame the product.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Embolism]

Same here. I just upgraded a laptop last night for total of five systems. All were pain free.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[harry666t]

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: decent operating systems don't even have to reboot.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[mgblst]

Yes, but the industry is built around that soory excuse for an OS, when it would be a lot better of if it had gone with something else.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Blahbooboo3]

I have never been able to get a repair to work correctly -- though I am not a OS administrator. Every single time I have tried with ALL the Windows products (going back to 3.1) the repair would not work properly. In the end, format and fresh install always, in my experience, took less time and had a higher probability of making things work correcctly.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[JediTrainer]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[GaryOlson]

The dominant OS in the world easiest way to fix is by re-installing!! Just seems weird...

Why, YES, with a proper network install server, install configuration, binary server, and network mounted home directories, Linux is much easier to reinstall than repair. The same can be said for Windows (XP or newer), Solaris, and many *nix systems. I can fix a system during lunch and a meeting.

Locally stored user data and locally installed applications is a completely different item. This is subject to the speed and availability of the backup system.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[acechase]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[AmaDaden]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Sancho]

It was VMWare? Why the hell didn't you take a snapshot before performing this major OS update?

If there was a failure of one part (e-mail, SSH, even the kernel), you only need to repair or fix that one piece and you're back and running again and that repair can be done independently of other parts of the system. Guess you've never suffered through a botched libc update.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[TriZz]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[pohl]

Sure, Vista kinda sucks, but all Windows versions kinda suck.

I'm not sure I see how your post qualifies as less of a microsoft-bashing post than the one you were responding to. Why must you say such negative things about the products of a poor, defenseless, beleaguered little 800lb gorilla!?

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Sobrique]

I can honestly say that I can't actually remember an occasion where it's been easier to rebuild Solaris, than fix it. I've had quite a few varying degrees of 'fubar' but invariably the problem's I've had have either been fixed by software (in most cases, not even needing a reboot) or have been a hardware fault (which in some case _have_ needed to take the system down).

The same cannot be said for Windows systems I've worked on - the time and effort involved in troubleshooting is much much higher than the effort involved in a rebuild.

*shrug*. You _can_ get utterly hosed on either, but Solaris is still better at keeping entropy at bay.

Although I _have_ done a 'wipe and restart' on a shared filesystem though on a few occasions, where whole departments have denied responsibility a massive dogpile of disorganised data. A 'restructure and clean' (tell 'em it's being ugpraded) works well for making them figure out what they actually need to keep/need backed up/are willing to pay for, and what they're not :)

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[justthinkit]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[neoform]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[msuarezalvarez]

Hmm. Why?

Anyone is free to offer whatever product they want, even as inadequate as Windows. The industry, on the other hand, could have been more selective.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[SeeManRun]

I don't find this comment insightful. Why should regular users need to understand their computer? It is a tool and it shouldn't matter how it works, as long as it works. Imagine if you had to be a mechanic to drive a car, or an electrician to watch a TV. We geeks seem to forget lay people don't want to know what a memory leak is, and shouldn't have to know. The exact problem with Linux is that you are forced to know more about how it works than you are with Windows, which is what many people don't want. Unfortunately, knowing more about the machine always makes for a better experience.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Colonel Korn]

That was always my problem with Macs, and why I switched to PCs a long time ago. On my PC, compared to on my Macs, I was relatively encouraged to understand and tweak my system.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[vandit2k6]

Your point is definitely valid. However, if you're going to sit here and tell me that you would open up and start walking through Linux kernel rather then doing a few googling about the problem you're facing with Windows than I am going to go ahead and call you a masochist. Or no I will just say you have a lot of time on your hands. That's just my 2 cents.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Knuckles]

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?

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[rvw]

It's funny that to fix Microsoft Windows, it's faster to just wipe and re-install from scratch rather than try to fix the issue. After installing SP3 on my work desktop (using the download), I couldn't login anymore. I got a black screen, the monitor stayed alive. I could go back using system recovery. After the first time going back I lost my remote desktop client, so I couldn't login to other systems anymore. Furthermore I lost my CD drive. I tried another time via Windows Update (which was only 60MB instead of the 323MB of the download), but had the same problem. I did another system recovery, going back a month now, and now everything works, although I had to reinstall several programs.

Still I have to do a complete reinstall if I want to get this SP working I'm afraid...

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[SithGod]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't find this comment insightful. Why should regular users need to understand their computer? It is a tool and it shouldn't matter how it works, as long as it works. Imagine if you had to be a mechanic to drive a car, or an electrician to watch a TV.

Not sure what you're rambling on about here. He said the reason it's so difficult to fix a windows system, not run it. This comment thread is discussing the absurdity that even for someone who knows how to fix a computer, Windows makes it too difficult.

To use your analogy, imagine if you took your car to a mechanic because the head gasket was leaking and he said "sorry, your problem is in the engine, and I can't open it up to fix it. You'll have to just get a new engine."

The fact that, in this case, the user of the computer is also the person trying to fix it when it's broken is irrelevant.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Idbar]

Problem is, you don't pay for open source. When you pay for something, and there's people behind, waiting for the right time to sue, then you have to label stuff in such way: "If you touch it, you may break it, so you better leave it alone". It amazes me that plastic bags have to come with a disclaimer because you can kill your self with them, and I bet that if someone got killed, they didn't know how to read anyways. That is, if you don't read the "readme" file and click every single "ok" without even looking what you're doing, well, don't expect that everything will go smoothly.

Although I know /. is full of gurus that know everything about computer, I for one, believe that not everyone has to. Even though I know is important, I can't complain if my dad or my mom don't fully understand what the OS does for them, and I won't expect them to go mess with the /etc files either. And I don't expect them to read a confusing literature as the one provided in some manuals.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[filthpickle]

First off, you shouldn't have posted this as AC. Aside from that, I totally agree with you.

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 /.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.

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[mweather]

XP was an improvement over the previous Windows version. Vista is not.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Tom]

On the other hand, most people are sloppy with backups for their personal machines. Which is why Apple did a great thing with Time Machine. That's exactly the kind of stuff you need for home users: A total nobrainer, invisible, transparent, automatic. And it allows you to restore only the one file you need, not do a full rollback.

The problem is that MS has stopped thinking about "advantage for the user" at least 10 years ago.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[jZnat]

Windows Vista will continue to be bashed as is until Microsoft releases fixes a la Windows XP SP2 that actually stabilise the operating system in most cases, fixes many existing issues and annoyances, improves security (although, Vista is supposedly a lot more secure than XP et al.), and makes it an overall usable operating system. Some people still swear by Windows 2000 to this day, so I don't doubt that there will be people who will swear by Windows XP several years from now anyway.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[DaveWick79]

If only I had mod points. This is the most insightful comment I've seen on this topic today.

Microsoft even warns quite emphatically not to install service packs on a system that may have viruses, spyware, or any other system problems. The anatomy of a MS service pack is not designed to solve problems, it's designed to update OS components. I'll be the first to admit I make a lot of money supporting Microsoft products, but obviously the design of MacOS and Linux are technically superior when it comes to updates - not that the process is foolproof and it's certainly not any easier.

Sometimes when a component is fixed to prevent a problem, those who already have the problem need to straighten out that issue first or the fix won't work. What MS should do is provide a thorough system scan that runs prior to the SP install that will tell you if you can expect any issues and recommend clean install if necessary.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[number6x]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[arth1]

In what way was XP an improvement over Windows 2000?
By artificially limiting the number of active connections?
By providing more bells and whistles slowing things down?

Better support for hyperthreading and dual core is the only thing I can think of, but even that could easily have been implemented in a service pack for W2k.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Stanislav_J]

Some people still swear at Windows 2000 to this day, so I don't doubt that there will be people who will swear at Windows XP several years from now anyway.

There....fixed those typos for ya.....

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[nevesis]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[mrchaotica]

I really prefer 2000 over XP even now. But I tend to use XP, because of particular needs: my laptop is a Tablet PC; there's no "Win2k tablet edition." My desktop is shared with my girlfriend; 2000 doesn't have fast user switching. It really sucks, because I'm morally opposed to activation.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Keruo]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[macslut]

I have to agree with you. I personally don't like much of what Microsoft has to offer. I certainly can't stand Windows, but a lot of the complaints about Vista *are* exactly like XP when it came out. Likewise we hear how ME was the worst ever from some people, and how 98 was the worst for others, and so on... The problem is that Microsoft is in a catch-22. You can't make a new OS without breaking some compatibility, introducing new bugs, and requiring the user to learn new things. The more they change Windows, the more pain they'll inherently introduce. The less they change Windows, the less worth it it'll be to upgrade. In this regard, Apple has the same problem, but it's a lot less of an issue because they control the hardware, there's smaller market share, and less software to worry about. This comment is sponsored by L' Chepeau Organic Tamari Soy Sauce

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Thalagyrt]

28 minutes? I've got three brand new machines running Vista and they take about 45 seconds tops from power on to login, that includes POST. Two are laptops, one's an extremely powerful audio workstation which takes about 20 seconds. You're either doing something extremely wrong, or you're lying about them being brand new and are trying to boot it up on a 486dx with 4 megs of RAM.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Sylver Dragon]

I'll risk the "MS Apologist" brand as well.
Vista isn't that bad, but contrary to the marketing materials, you will need a pretty good system to run it. My wife's system runs it just fine, and she loves it. The games she plays on it run fine, but it was a fairly high end system when she bought it, and isn't that bad at the moment. The only change she had to make in going to Vista was going from 1GB to 2GB of RAM.

My system, on the other hand, is falling to the bottom of the totem pole; and Vista is horrible on it. I can play most games on it with reasonable graphics settings, in XP. When I tried Vista on it, many of the games became unplayable at the exact same video settings. So, I'm back on XP (haven't installed SP3 yet).

In all, the biggest problem I see with Vista is that it does take up more resources, and is really meant for newer systems. If you have a good system, you can have all the flashy Vista interface. If you have a marginal system already, stick with the Crayola interface in XP.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[thetoadwarrior]

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. Yet your reply makes you sound like a complete tool by defending the world's richest company and one which has a monopoly. You seem to think it's acceptable that they have all this power yet release operating systems in a broken state. Your apologist views are the reason PC software sucks and why PC software is being held back because companies can just rely on shitty programmers to churn out border line code with the intention of fixing it later.

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. XP's reception was much better than Vista's reception. Vista is definitely more in line with Windows ME but most MS apologists ignore this and just claim that Vista's respection is standard for all MS operating systems.

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?

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[_xeno_]

Which is why Apple did a great thing with Time Machine. That's exactly the kind of stuff you need for home users: A total nobrainer, invisible, transparent, automatic. And it allows you to restore only the one file you need, not do a full rollback.

Vista has this feature, there's a tab called "Previous Versions" in the properties dialog for files and folders. Microsoft calls this feature Shadow Copy on the list of Vista features.

The problem is that MS has stopped thinking about "advantage for the user" at least 10 years ago.

Except that it's only available on the Ultimate and Business editions (footnote D as of the time I linked it). Home users don't get it.

But it's a great feature (despite the crappy slow and flaky UI), and one that should be available on all versions of Vista if Microsoft was intelligent and not trying to nickel-and-dime their customers. It's the only feature of Vista I've ever used that made me think "I'm glad I'm using Vista, I'd have been screwed in XP."

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[CastrTroy]

For your roommate, Try setting the theme to "Windows Classic". It will end up looking like Windows 2000, and will speed up the interface by about 100x. I have a Vista Laptop with Celeron 1.7 and 512 MB of RAM. Before windows classic theme, it was slow beyond usable. Not it runs quite respectable. Sure it won't look pretty like Vista is supposed to, but at least you'll be able to get stuff done.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Doctor Faustus]

In what way was XP an improvement over Windows 2000?
As far as most users were concerned, Win98SE was the previous version of Windows.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[operagost]

The difference is that Vista really does suck.

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Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[arminw]

.... 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. ....

With the low costs of portable storage devices, I keep one with a clean OS handy. If the internal system fails, the computer can be re-started from the external fire wire drive. If there is an internal drive software failure, the disk repair program will usually take care of the problem. If not, the user data can be copied from the internal to the external drive. Then a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner can be used to re-copy the external drive onto the internal one. The end result us a working computer with minimal effort. With time machine, Apple has made it simple to also keep backups on a network volume.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[nmb3000]

Oh boy. I can understand people saying they prefer Win2000 over XP, or that they have no real need to upgrade (even 7 years after the fact!). The problem is when people are so blind or ignorant that they pretend/don't see the real improvements that XP (especially with 2 service packs) has over 2000.

In what way was XP an improvement over Windows 2000?

In a word? Multimedia. In more words? Security, GPO, native hardware support, support for newer versions of IE, Remote Desktop, etc. If you really don't see the myriad of ways XP improves on 2000 I'm not going to try and list them all. Besides, Wikpedia already has (more or less).

By artificially limiting the number of active connections?

Except that it doesn't. XP SP2 introduced a limit to the number of half-open connections you can have open at once. The limit (10 by default) is essentially never reached during normal use. Some poorly-configured Bittorrent clients can hit the ceiling, but it isn't that hard to disable the limit if you do a quick search.

By providing more bells and whistles slowing things down?

Yes, they improved the user interface. But by gosh, you can turn it off with a single checkbox!

Better support for hyperthreading and dual core is the only thing I can think of, but even that could easily have been implemented in a service pack for W2k.

Better yet, they should have just released Service Pack 7 for Windows NT 4. After all, what improvements did Windows 2000 offer over NT4? This same discussion happens every time a new version of Windows is released. If you don't see any reason for you to upgrade, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that nobody else needs or wants to update.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[operagost]

Better support for hyperthreading and dual core is the only thing I can think of, but even that could easily have been implemented in a service pack for W2k.

I don't think it's reasonable for a customer to expect those for free. Those are non-trivial features. There are also remote desktop/remote assistance, fast user switching, a user-friendly firewall, Cleartype, wireless support, and built-in zip folders.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

I've been running OS upgrades on the same PC since Windows 3.1 without ever having to reformat...

...then I upgraded to Vista and my house burned down.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[mamer-retrogamer]

On my PC, compared to on my Macs, I was relatively encouraged to understand and tweak my system.

Interesting. I grew up using DOS/Windows and Unix/Linux and absolutely *hated* pre-OS X Mac for this very reason.

On the Mac, all kinds of stuff happened automagically in the background--but when it didn't work, you were screwed because there was not much you could do to fix the problem.

Then Microsoft started implementing brain-dead automagic into Windows, Apple released Mac OS X (based on BSD) and the tables turned.

After years of being a PC guy, I switched to Mac 3 years ago and couldn't be happier.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Emperor Skull]

In what way was XP an improvement over Windows 2000

Cleartype. If Windows 2000 had decent font smoothing I'd still be using it.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Cairnarvon]

XP sucked mostly by mistake, so it was fixable. Vista sucks by design, so even if the bugs get worked out it will still be a worse OS.
Claiming Slashdot has an irrational hatred of Microsoft is very facile and for some reason seems to be a rather popular thing to do nowadays (there's generally at least three comments to that effect on every MS-related article), but have you ever stopped to think that maybe people have a real *reason* for their dislike?

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Keruo]

The domain does slow things alot since the startup loads alot of stuff on workstations, but still, even slower xp machines boot up in less than 10 minutes.

Something in that standard setup really breaks down vista, since that workstation isn't the only vista machine suffering from the same symptoms.
Most problems witnessed seem to relate to symantec, office 2007 and sql server.
Either would randomly freeze and turn the system inoperable.

The system reliability monitor kept running around 5-7 days uptime before sp1, after installing sp1 the number fell below 3.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Enderandrew]

How is Vista more secure? Training people to click Confirm all day long doesn't make a system more secure.

Does Vista still allow Remote Registry editing by hackers over the internet? Does Vista still have ActiveX? Does Vista still allow people to remotely run processes under a different user's credentials?

Vista also released a huge security vulnerability into the wild that can never be taken back. Insert a Vista install DVD into a computer and boot into it. With the recovery console you can have full access to a system's hard drive without administrator password now.

I know you can do the same with a Knoppix CD, but now the exploit is something more visible to the average user.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[filthpickle]

Why is it the some of the biggest and most vigorous defenders of MS refuse to pay for software? I don't know if you are referring to me, or it just made you think of it, but I am neither a big nor a vigorous defender of MS. Like I said in the post, I am just citing my experience with Vista.

I am, however, an asshole and I do have a big mouth after about 3 whisky and cokes so you were half right.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[somersault]

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..

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Moryath]

Better idea - why not just install Windows 2000 on the machine? It'll run great!

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[somersault]

Maybe he included the install time of a larger HD plus Vista? Though I can say it definitely is slower on startup/shutdown after seeing our MDs Vista laptop. It has better specs than mine, but runs like a dog. I always noticed Mac OS and Windows felt more sluggish to use than my 30Mhz Amiga. Sure there is slightly more going on with the interface (though not much, especially not anything that >2000 extra Mhz and accelerated graphics shouldn't take care of), but it's a joke that all modern user interfaces aren't lightning quick (not talking about browsing files, just rendering displays). Windows XP windows also flicker when you move them around quickly.. they should use double buffering just to make the whole thing feel more 'solid'

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[domatic]

The funny thing is that I used to be that way and then crossed a point about four years ago where I could generally zero in and fix the problem. That did a lot to endear Linux and the other free Unixes to me. It is generally possible to recover from screw ups, even really bad ones, as long as the hardware is still OK.

These days I have a USB hard drive that contains:

A list of all installed packages.
A tarred up copy of the /etc directory
Entire home directory. (which contains all installers for anything I didn't get from repositories as well)

Even if my hard drive were to completely eat it, those three things would get me my exact working environment back in an hour or two. Most of that time would be spent downloading the installer and packages. But, I have yet to have to resort to that. I've picked up enough of the way a Linux system hangs together that I can just fix the damn thing if it breaks usually.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[man_of_mr_e]

Honestly, that's just the way software is these days. Open Source is the same way, except they just call stuff beta for 5,10 or more years.

With any reasonably complex project, if you wait for it to be perfect before you ship it, you go out of business (if you're a commercial company) or you lose relevance (for open source). Meanwhile, for the 99% of people that don't have problems, they wonder why you haven't shipped already, and if you ship then 1% of people cry because they think you shipped too early.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[DarrenBaker]

Strange, that... I actually found that Vista ran noticeably faster than XP on a computer I was using as a media centre with your suggested settings. I was dully impressed, right up until Vista started randomly rebooting and throwing up BSoDs (which I personally have found to be few and far-between on XP).

IMHO, I think XP is the best thing they ever done did, and I thought that right from day one.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[Kiaser Zohsay]

The first thing I did when I got my XP machine at work was to change the desktop theme to "Windows Classic", because I hated the Fisher-Price look. The first thing I did when my wife got her Vista laptop was to change the desktop theme to "Windows Classic", because it didn't have the horsepower for Aero.

The one thing that Vista does that constantly pisses me off is that "Shell Folders" in Explorer occasionally move around in the file system, even though they always show up in the same place in Explorer.

The other night she went to download a video from a web site, and clicked open instead of save by mistake, so after about 30 minutes of progress bar, the video starts playing in Media Player. I'm like, no problem, it's in TEMP, so I'll just copy it to the desktop before WMP closes. So I open a prompt (I'm a command line bigot, so sue me) and cd to the user directory to find Local Settings, and its not there anymore. This time its under Pictures, last time it was under Favorites, who knows where it will be next time.

I'm sure this is a defensive measure to give viruses and trojans a harder time finding the stuff that they scan for, but it pisses me off when need to actually accomplish something.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[ickoonite]

Honestly, that's just the way software is these days. Open Source is the same way, except they just call stuff beta for 5,10 or more years.

Yes, but the difference with Windows is that you pay a small fortune for it. And if it's broke, you can't just poke at the code to fix it.

With Vista, all of this has become even more pronounced. Not only was it terribly late anyway, but it was shipped in this really rather broken state. Given that it took them five years to deliver it, waiting another 6 months to deliver something that actually works would have gone a long way to giving Microsoft some credibility. Instead, now they have next to none, with the result that everyone - from the student off to university right up to massive multinational enterprises - is avoiding Vista like the plague.

I think the root of the problem is that Microsoft has lost its way. Completely. Back when they had someone to compete with, the releases came thick and fast, as with Internet Explorer when they were out to crush Netscape. But now, for whatever reason, the company has ground to a halt. Apologists are talking about Windows 7, about eschewing backwards compatibility, a break from the past, a leaner, more modular system - in short, everything Windows Vista was supposed to be. But it won't happen.

Face it, Microsoft is dying.

:|

(Yes, I admit, that last line is a little dramatic. But these days it has an eerie ring of truth to it...)

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[drsmithy]

Vista isn't that bad, but contrary to the marketing materials, you will need a pretty good system to run it.

No, you won't. A US$450 PC runs Vista fine.

Seriously, when the most important factor in Vista's (like OS X's) performance is RAM, and 2G of RAM costs under US$50, in no way do you need "a pretty good system". The PC necessary to run Vista well hasn't been "pretty good" for years.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, I just can't agree. My lady has an all-intel Dell Core 2 Duo 1.4something GHz machine (Vostro 1500) with 2GB ram. It came with Vista home basic luser edition and was so. unbelievably. slow... I couldn't believe how slow it was. I slipstreamed the storage driver into an XP CD and installed that, and the system is wonderfully peppy. (It's not a monster, but it's plenty fast.) Vista requires a monstrous machine, with better-than-intel graphics. One last word; I disable the themes service on XP. I'd rather have the snappier win2k interface. But to each their own.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

[WuphonsReach]

Except that:

a) That's $276 that can't go towards other improvements in the business, or that we could use to pay employees a bit more salary. And that $276 buys you zilch in terms of support, while with open-source I could probably get a decent support contract for $100/desktop per year. If I'm going to spend money, it better be to make our jobs easier.

b) We have to deal with tracking the licenses. Which is a damn PITA. Or else we have to install some sort of license server from Microsoft (more $$$ for the hardware and OS). I hate tracking licenses for commercial software.

c) We have to deal with Vista's opinions about tracking whether it is licensed or not. A ticking bomb waiting to go off resulting in support headaches.

Oh Yes It Will

[RupW]

Note that XP3 won't install on systems running beta IE8 It won't be offered automatically by Windows Update but it *will* install. However you then can't remove IE8 without ininstalling the service pack first.

Re:Oh Yes It Will

[nqz]

Also, the summary is misleading. If you downgrade to IE6 *before* installing SP3, then you'll be able to install and uninstall IE7 at will, after installing SP3.

Re:Oh Yes It Will

[Amiralul]

Funny how, on the official IE7 page, there is no option yet to download IE7 for XPSP3.
I've installed SP3 offline, over my SP2, but there was no IE7 with it.
But it's ok, IE6 is doing fine over here, not stressing him to much since the Mozilla launched Firefox.

Re:Oh Yes It Will

[MillionthMonkey]

I never installed IE7, so I've already avoided one flaming hoop right there already. Since I still have IE6, if I were to update to SP3 I wouldn't have to uninstall IE7 to get to XP SP3 + IE6 nirvana, so I avoid a second flaming hoop. It's more like a straightforward descent into hell with no annoying hoops in the way.

Re:Oh Yes It Will

[Hyppy]

The reason for this is the way that IE7's uninstall procedures occur, and the fact that SP3 works for computers with both IE6 and IE7.

When you install IE7, it creates a backup of all IE6-related files that it replaces, in order to replace them if the user uninstalls IE7.

When you upgrade to SP3, it replaces files that are used by both IE6 and IE7, most of which have different versions depending on which browser is currently being installed.

If you were to uninstall IE7 after updating to SP3, then it will revert to the pre-SP3 binaries that were copied during initial setup.

Now, I agree that the SP3 setup should be intelligent enough to identify and replace IE6 files located in the IE7 uninstall folder, but honestly it was probably a very low priority.

The fix? Uninstall IE7, install SP3, then re-install IE7. Not an easily automated task, but thats what needs to be done if you want to be able to uninstall IE7 in order to revert to IE6 in the future.

Either way, its not a massive conspiracy. You can put your tin-foil hat away today.

Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

[Ancient_Hacker]

In the movie V.I. Warshawski , Kathleen Turner is some sort of hit-woman. Her catch phrase, something like "Sure I've killed a few dozen people, but that's insignificant compared to the population".

One could make a similar statement about SP3.

Not that I'm a MS fan-boy, far from it.

Déjà vu?

[Corporate Troll]

Sooooo? Is there going to be an SP3a?

Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

[TheMeuge]

It may be paranoia, but I am considering that given the welcome that Vista has received, Microsoft had no choice but to do this. Producing two OSs that compete with one another is insanity... especially when the product that's winning is not the latest one.

So the solution is fairly obvious - if you can't improve Vista, you can make XP worse. That way, people know they're going to be dissatisfied with your product from the get-go, but at least they'll buy the latest one.

Re:Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

[DAldredge]

What is so bad about Vista?

Re:Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

[dlapine]

DRM infestation:

the theory- http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
the goal http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/10/microsoft-vista-drm-tech-security-cz_bs_0212vista.html
a practical consequence -http://davisfreeberg.com/2008/01/03/bad-copp-no-netflix/

And:
broken sound API's (change for change sake)
Lack of drivers for older hardware
Useless on older machines with just 512 MB of RAM
too many versions
SP1 released just last month
Did I mention the DRM? http://practical-tech.com/entertainment/vistas-multimedia-mess/

As someone already mentioned, MS has 2 OS's in competition, and the newer one is losing. Why is it surprising that they would provide a "fix" to XP that makes it less desirable? Let's face it- they could have put out SP3 at any time in the last three years, and should have. They took the time to pull SP3 last week when it was conflicting with some MS Point of Sale software, but they don't have the resources to test it on any HP systems with AMD cpus's?

Re:Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

[Mister Whirly]

Shhh! No fair bringing reality into the Microsoft bash fest!

Re:Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

[harry666t]

Wow, 140,000,000,000,000 copies is indeed great success. Who they've been selling to? Bacteria?

Time to upgrade

[Midnight Thunder]

Maybe this was just a sneaky way of trying to get people to 'upgrade' to Vista. Then again this is probably more evidence of a broken process at Microsoft.

Access Denied!!!

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Did anyone else get this? Microsoft really screwed this one up. Not only did they release an AUTOMATIC UPDATE that cannot be installed unless you close your antivirus (which isn't possible for my company's antivirus - the only choice is to unload it from the workstation), or to run this utility that changes permissions on all registry values and windows files, BUT they ALSO provided instructions that only make sense in a VISTA environment. For example, telling people to right-click and go to Run As Administrator, or referencing "defltbase.inf", which is a file you only find in Vista.

Re:Access Denied!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only did they release an AUTOMATIC UPDATE that cannot be installed unless you close your antivirus (which isn't possible for my company's antivirus - the only choice is to unload it from the workstation), I installed SP3 while AVG was running and it worked just fine.

Re:Access Denied!!!

[Taliesin]

I just installed SP3 on my mother-in-law's new Dell laptop running Norton Internet Security (which included anti-virus functionality) and didn't encounter any problems.

Re:Access Denied!!!

[pete_norm]

I find it strange that someone that doesn't have the admin rights necessary to turn the anti-virus off would be allowed to install a service pack update on his computer. I guess security policy vary wildly from one company to another...

Easier to read version.

[AltGrendel]

Here.

It has a banner add at the top, but at least it doesn't have the rest of the cruft on the page.

People mess with thier own machines..

[Tominva1045]

FTA: Typically, the glitches are due to conflicts with software, such as drivers, system files, or applications already resident on the user's PC. The machines arrive in a pristine state. Users then add, sometimes compliant sometimes non-compliant software, hardware, and modify the registry. There should be no surprise that issues will arise. There are less-popular operating systems with upgrade / driver issues way worse than this.

Re:People mess with thier own machines..

[Dancindan84]

Yes, but the updates in those cases probably aren't done as a critical update that basically gets shoved down the users' throats. There's likely a lot of people blindly installing SP3 when they get the pop up that could be in jeopardy of having their computer locked up on them. Those type of people also likely don't know how to fix something like that on their own, so they're going to have to fork over $80/hour for some teenager at Best Buy to tell them it can't be fixed and blow away their install.

Re:People mess with thier own machines..

[heritage727]

So as long as I don't install any software on my machine or do anything that changes the registry I'll be OK? I think the next computer I buy I'll just leave in the box. That way I'm sure not to have problems like this.

Re:People mess with thier own machines..

[JeremyGNJ]

I disagree that computers arrive in a "pristine state".

All too often machines arrive with a whole slew of crap-ware pre-installed. These programs are generally either outdated by the time the user gets the PC (ie Real-Player et al), or just half-assed software written by a 2-bit audio-chipset-maker. These programs are rarely tested properly or in a timely manner when it comes to Service Packs, and there's no way MS could ever account for them.

Re:People mess with thier own machines..

[bellers]

>>There are less-popular operating systems with upgrade / driver issues way worse than this.

Slackware, I'm looking at you.

Re:People mess with thier own machines..

[Sun.Jedi]

I find my servers work far better before users actually try to use them, or after I've kicked them off. /intended sarcasm

Just a quick thank-you

[LearnToSpell]

to all the beta testers out there. You know who you are! We appreciate all your hard work, and when we install SP3 several months from now, when it's ready for release, we'll be sure to think of you sucke^Wkind folks.

Huh

[His Shadow]

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.

Re:installing SP3

[JeremyGNJ]

You are an idiot for not installing SP2 as soon as it was available.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" does not apply to computers unless you're an end user who doesnt understand how to read the technical benefits you get from a given upgrade/patch/service pack.

Re:installing SP3

[plague3106]

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.

Re:Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

[garett_spencley]

"Not that I'm a MS fan-boy, far from it."

Don't worry. I did not feel that was the message you were trying to put across at all.

Your message was clear and unambiguous. You're a fan-boy of murder for hire.

The Microsoft Patch Cycle

[L4t3r4lu5]

Patch size (in MB) = X
(X * 3)/100 = T

T = Time patch is ready for release to public (from microsoft release date, in months).

This puts Service Pack 3 general release for February 2009, and i'm not touching it until then.

I love the /. bias

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I love the /. bias

[manifoldronin]

I'm not going to defend the /. bias, because it's there big time, and we know it.
But I'm sorry, I am just not buying this "there are too many configuration combinations to test" argument either. Not when we are talking about the third service pack of an operating system that has been running mainstream for 6 years. Not when it would prevent a computer from booting at all.
Hell, at this point in XP's life cycle, there should not have been any service pack at all. All Microsoft should be doing for XP is pushing out real critical security patches, which should address only individual paths.
And as to the success rate Microsoft should be held to, I don't know if it has to be 100% across the board, but I do know that when I've paid for a piece of software, when the vendor of the software has an automatic upgrading mechanism in place that would do even the most radical upgrades behind my back, and when those upgrades could completely shut me off from accessing my computer, yeah, I would think I have every right to demand a 100% success rate on my computer.

Issue Specifics

[sean_nestor]

From this article on ComputerWorld:

According to Johansson, there appears to be two separate issues. One affects only AMD-equipped PCs sold by Hewlett-Packard Co. "The problem is that HP, apparently along with other OEMs, deploys the same image to Intel-based computers that they do to AMD-based computers," said Johansson. "Because the image for both Intel and AMD is the same, all have the intelppm.sys driver installed and running. That driver provides power management on Intel-based computers. On an AMD-based computer, amdk8.sys provides the same functionality."

Running the intelppm.sys driver on an AMD-powered PC isn't normally an issue, but on the first reboot after a service pack installation, it causes "a big problem," Johansson said. The machine either fails to boot or crashes and immediately reboots.

The other problem, according to Johansson, also seems to affect only AMD machines, and involves an error message indicating trouble with the PC's BIOS. Johansson said that the ensuing recommendation to update the BIOS is "most likely not your problem," but said that the problem may be isolated to a specific motherboard. "Possibly, it is related to computers with the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard in them," he said.

Re:Issue Specifics

[synthparadox]

Hrm. Thats interesting because my main box runs on an Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe with an AMD64 X2 5600+ in it and my Dell Latitude D630 laptop runs a Core 2 Duo and I updated both without problems yesterday. In fact the install yesterday was the most flawless install of anything I've seen in a while.

Whenever a SP/major update is released ...

[jsnipy]

Whenever a SP/major update is released, can't you always find people who are complaining and having trouble?

what?!?!?

[Gewalt]

You mean people actually install service packs? I haven't done that since... well.. since before windows 2000. I guess not everyone can just back up their files, slipstream the latest service pack and do a clean install. OK, just kidding thats not practical at all, but that's a shame, cause everyone would benefit from a clean install of XPSP3.

My XP vm has never been smoother.

Lost TCP/IP on my install yesterday

[RPGonAS400]

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.

Re:Lost TCP/IP on my install yesterday

[the_wesman]

I just bought a Lenovo laptop with XP Pro for my wife that came yesterday

... your other wives, that didn't come, get nothing.

-w

Re:installing SP3

[kalirion]

If they released this as a critical update, wouldn't it be picked up by auto-update if you have that turned on?

Re:One of the finest pieces of software ever made

[kalirion]

The rest of the people can't send in a complaint because their only computer won't boot.

They should put this in the readme.txt

[argStyopa]

So the point is, make sure you have your linux bootable cd available when you install the XP3 patch, so that if this is the issue you can successfully boot up, go in, delete that offending file, and you'll be good to go!

Worked well for me

[EasyTarget]

At the risk of getting flamed to hell (this is /.)

SP3 actually improved my old thinkpad. The XP copy on it was really struggling after years of being used as the 'windows toy'. No media (my bad) so I've never reinstalled it. I allowed SP3 on with some trepidation, but the end result is that the machine is a darned sight more spry (fast and responsive) than it was before. I think the installer basically did a good job of repairing the OS while patching it.

I was pretty surprised.. it's pretty rare that anything from Redmond makes me feel that it's an improvement..

no IE6?

[werdnapk]

Not being able to downgrade to IE6 is a bad thing?

Re:no IE6?

[petermgreen]

It isn't as bad as some people are making out. If you have IE7 installed when you install SP3 you can't go back to IE6 afterwards but SP3 does not force you to upgrade to IE7.

And as you imply if you have to run an old insecure browser for some specific task using a VM is probablly a good idea.

Re:no IE6?

[Darth_brooks]

Have you flashed the firmware on those Jetdirects? Usually that will get you working on a semi-recent version of IE.

I've had the same issue with older Compaq and HP iLo ports. The last firware releases for the product will at least let it work with IE 6. In particular, I had an iLo port that firefox wouldn't go near, but after a firmware flash, IE6 gave me a quick nag screen about an expired cert, then connected like the insecure little whore that it is.

Finally they made XP secure

[g0bshiTe]

FTFA

The service pack should offer a number of enhancements over the current version of the OS, which Microsoft is phasing out after June 30th. It includes all updates issued since Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released in 2004, and some new elements.

I'm glad MS figured out how to secure Windows totally.

Anyone else thinking that MS wants to kill off XP?

[distantbody]

...and on another note, has anyone noticed that 99% of wikipedia's screenshots of windows apps have gone from XP to Vista? It's almost as if something, some...strange force, is trying to convince me that anything less than Vista will get me laughed at...

Re:installing SP3

[geekoid]

No they are not.
You should wait to see what happens on other computers before doing any OS upgrade.
If you are a single user, wait, if you are a company put it on test machines.

Your an idiot for not understanding the the PC upgrade history is far from stellar. Yes, SP2 was fine, but that's hind sight.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it"
That's exactly how you should deal with computers.

My Experience...

[thebonafortuna]

Downloaded and installed on my six year old ThinkPad A31 last night -- everything works fine. Didn't even take all that long.

Might be redundant, but I think its become important for people not having problems to report on that now too, considering the heat M$ takes on just about everything these days. If my old computer can handle the process of upgrading to SP3, not sure why its "wreaking havoc" with so many others...

Cool a new conspiracy theory

[arrgster]

Here's my theory, they did this on purpose to make everyone hate XP so we will now flock to vista... They can even say.. hey look it's an old OS it's going to have problems like this, that's why you need to buy Vista.. Then you'll have the same problems because you moved to a new OS, which is better because it's new...

Re:Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

[up2ng]

Now Kathleen Turner is as bloated as XP is, good comparison

/integrate

[unrealmp3]

I wouldn't really apply a Service Pack on a live system. Integrate the Service Pack 3 to your installation CD, and install a clean OS. There are so much different configurations that a Service Pack, which deeply modify the operating system, it's almost impossible it might not cause issues on a running operating system. I've installed a slipstreamed Windows XP Service Pack 3 without any problems.

Failed to work for me....

[UttBuggly]

...when I attempted to install it on a standard Compaq Evo N610c laptop. Other than a 2nd NIC installed in a card slot, this is a vanilla machine with IE7 and Office 2003.

The SP downloaded and began the install just fine. Ran all the way to the end, which took over 2 hours, and then popped up a dialog after reboot that the installation "...has failed and will be rolled back. This is a two-step process..."

Pressed OK and it took about 45 minutes and a reboot to finish. After boot, I got the "your system has encountered a serious error" dialog. So far, everything SEEMS normal, but I haven't done much as this is my 3rd PC, hence his starring role as "SP3 sacrificial lamb".

Disappointed, but not particularly surprised this SP has issues.

I guess vista is good enough now...

[McNihil]

so botching as many XP installs to make people shift to Vista is in Microsoft's and their shareholders best interest.

I see this as nothing more than business as usual, bate and switch.

To be fair...

[sco_robinso]

A casual yum update has broken various Linux servers of mine over the years. I'm usually a lot more careful doing yum updates than I am with Windows updates - not because one is inherently more destructive than the other, but because there's almost always a variety of one-off packages that it can break. Microsoft's casual [security] updates are usually fine, but even their service packs don't seem to break too much.

As usual, a couple XP installations get broken and there's mass histeria.

I am happy with it

[i4u]

My system is working very well after the upgrade. XP feels better with XP SP3. I can imagine though that lots of XP users have all kinds of stuff installed over the years and this SP is a major update that can have many side effects.

Not unique to Windows

[rickb928]

"It's funny that to fix Microsoft Windows, it's faster to just wipe and re-install from scratch rather than try to fix the issue."

Have you read some of the news reports about foreclosed home being stripped of plumbing, wiring, appliances, fixtures, even doors and windows? Some (many?) of these are proving to be cheaper to just rip it down and build new when the market comes back. Maybe even cheaper than waiting for someone to start up a meth lab and blow the whole thing to toothpicks.

It's *usually* faster and easier to rebuild a Windows XP/2K machine than to fix any of so many nasty malware infestations. And '9x/ME machines need to be removed from the 'Net and recycled. Ask Microsoft. BTW, tag that admission *honest*. A rarity for Microsoft, and typical that they would exercise it in an admission of OS security failure.

But that's just the way it is. I started spending my anti-malware research time optimizing data recovery and reinstallation, rather than disinfection. So much more effective to nuke the site from orbit.

It's the "Microsoft Solution".

[gr3y]

This is the status quo. How many times have you called the help desk to report a problem, only to have them tell you to reboot? When you call the company that made your computer, and you're in the queue waiting to speak to someone, in their litany of instructions you will hear the following: "Please reboot your computer".

When did the "Microsoft Solution" become commonplace? When Microsoft managed to convince the people who use their software that the expectation that their information technology infrastructure will be reliable is unreasonable.

Several factors contribute to this problem: disclaimer of fitness for an intended purpose, lack of liability, a software ecosystem that has relied for far too long on "experts" who haven't read the book that came with their certification, and a lack of any real measure of lost productivity due to poor information technology decisions, in general. And Microsoft has been able to use its dominant position to stave off market forces. The market isn't making Microsoft's software better, and neither is Microsoft.

But good luck getting management or anyone else making a purchasing decision to embrace the idea that a software company should be at least as responsible as any company that manufactures a real, physical product for the quality of their product.

omg

[Toreo asesino]

it totally thrashed my computer, now won't start at all - constant BSOD's. Also, there's a burning smell coming from the back of the tower; I could swear its killed the fan on the cpu too. Oh, and it constantly leaves the toilet seat up now when it goes to the loo, and keeps looking at my girlfriend's ass.

Fucking Microsoft.

*shakes fist*

Re:Mod this one informative

[Lonewolf666]

Usually, you know what hardware you have and you apply the correct drivers. Also, many setup programs have safety checks built in, as in "stop installation when correct chipset is not detected".

In this case it seems that HP and others took disk images from Intel machines and copied them onto AMD machines. That circumvents any test the driver developer might have implemented in the setup program. At best, the driver will re-check for the correct chipset at startup (and what then? Refuse to run and leave the OS minus an important driver? Almost as bad).

In short, the really surprising thing is that the computers did NOT fail under SP2. The OEMs made a pretty stupid mistake here and deserve to be bashed.

One reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Better application compatibility. Some of my older games worked in Windows XP right out of the box. In Windows 2000, you would have to download some toolkit and mess with some settings before they ran properly.

new plan

[TRRosen]

If you can't fix vista...Break XP

Brilliant

[slashdotlurker]

That is one way to boost Vista adoption rates.

Can't make Vista better ? No problem. Lets just screw Windows XP.

Re:Issue Specifics [HP and AMD]

[quaero_notitia]

No problems with my Intel processor based systems, but blue screens at bootup on all of my HP and AMD processor systems. The fix is to boot into safe mode, change one value in the registry, reboot and viola! I'm back in business. Even granny could do it. That's probably why Microsoft failed to mention it. ;) Oh, my Vista SP1 install on HP took six reboots and about two and a half hours. It failed the first three times. I'm going to make some money from these service packs!

Re:Anyone else thinking that MS wants to kill off

[hey!]

Yes, obviously they do. The technologies in Vista are key to their leveraging their desktop monopoly into other areas like entertainment.

However -- this is NOT the way they want to do it. Especially now.

Microsoft is a big picture, global strategy kind of outfit, and right now several of the underpinnings of their grand strategy appear cracked.

IE, while still the dominant browser, has lost significant market share for the last four years running. MS is a perennial nobody in online services, something the Yahoo acquisition was supposed to fix. They'll be back, but with every month their ability to execute a dramatic turnaround using their browser and desktop monopoly drops. While arguably the office monopoly is more important than the desktop monopoly, the desktop monopoly is the fulcrum and DRM is the lever by which they hope to become the dominant player in digital entertainment. That's why they aren't hot and bothered about Blu-ray; they don't envision a future where people access information by any old third party hardware.

Why was Vista such a dog, after they'd delivered two successive solid releases in the Windows franchise (2000 and XP)? Because they had too many agendas; too many strategic partners to keep happy. Vista is not architecturally worse than its predecessors, in some ways it is better. It's just unfinished; MS had too many strategic imperatives to satisfy, imperatives that were useless or meaningless to customers.

I think what we're seeing is a world of technology that is too complex and dynamic to be orchestrated by the strategic plans of any single company. But MS is a big picture, grand strategy kind of company. There's lots of valuable pieces in that company too.

The irony is we may look back in ten years time and conclude that MS shareholders would have been better if the anti-trust case had resulted in a court-ordered breakup. Since MS dodged the break-up bullet in 2001, its stock price has lagged the NASDAQ as a whole.

Re:A steady trend of less user control.

[somersault]

I hate all those companies that sell non free crap. Why should I pay them for the decades of developer time that they pay for when creating their software? Grrrrrrr

Dear participants of the SP3 public beta,

[Nullav]

Thank you for both warning and revenue.
Signed, the participants of the SP2 public beta.

Not net drivers -- security software

[BanjoBob]

Microsoft is telling people that the problem has to do with script blocking by various security/anti-virus/ad-malware products that are installed.

They say you need to uninstall your security software (McAfee, Norton, Symantec, ...) BEFORE you install SP3. Then, you may reinstall your security software. While on the phone with one of their Indian or Pakistani speaking reps, they never once mentioned anything about network card, adaptors, drivers, .net, etc. It was all security product related.

BootCamp disk space issue solved!

[zerofoo]

There is an issue with XP Service Pack 3 when installing on a Mac with BootCamp. During the free disk space check, the SP3 installer reports that there is not enough free diskspace.

The fix is a quick registry edit:

Create a regkey(REG_SZ) (String Value) called BootDir under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup and set the value to C:\

Reboot, and then proceed with the SP3 install. That little bit of knowledge cost $295.00 and 3 hours of my time.

-ted

The trick is ...

[golodh]

you have to make sure you aren't the first or even among the first to install Miscrosoft software. So shy away from anything Microsoft named "1.0", or even "x.0".

It doesn't matter if we're talking about OS, tools, Office, or service packs. You should *always* let somebody else go first, and wait for an "x.1" version.

what a bunch of bs

[stylemessiah]

Heres yet more proof that the collective IQ in the world is sinking.

What do you expect if you try and install SP3 over a machine thats been running SP2 for god knows how long and picking up gunk from the internet etc, slowly corrupting drivers etc.

Any sane person, and im one of them, would slipstream SP3 into the original release and install that fresh....

So after doing this i have:

• No issues.
• Speedier startup and the long delay in shutting down is gone.
• All my drivers work and i have some hardware in this thing, no issues.
• Less notices in event viewer than i actually had using SP2 in the last few years.

The one thing i had to do was download IE7 off the net, i tried using the one from AutoPatcher (how i loved thee), but it wouldnt install. Other than this its been brilliant.

So the person who started this topic and the pages around the net are proof that a certain segment of people will always try and do things the hard. I never thought id say this, but stop blaming Microsoft, they did their job and SP3 is fine. Again some people just like the sound of their own voice in internet forums, and for once its not me, its the incompetent whingers that post this crap about SP3, take some ownership you mental midgets....i suspect most of the whingers are also the ones without valid product keys too................