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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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...)

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

[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.

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?

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.

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..

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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: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?

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.

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.

Re:Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

[up2ng]

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

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.

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................