Discussion on:

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is available now

I broke one of my longstanding rules yesterday when I installed the latest Microsoft service pack without first waiting at least two weeks to make sure that others didn't have any problems with it. However, Microsoft's patches and service packs have gotten dramatically better over the decade or so since the fourth service pack for Windows NT 4.0 seemed to break more than it fixed.

Will you be installing XP SP3 in the near future?

at least not on my own computers. I'll wait a few weeks, watching what happens with the work machines after it is installed there, and keeping my eyes peeled for trouble in Cyberville.

While it may be true that updates, SP's, have improved over the past decade, they haven't improved that much that 'fixes' don't still sometimes break something that wasn't broken.

Wait and see. Wait and see.

I always let people that are either braver or dumber than me do the testing of service packs.

when running NT4.0 Workstation. Was running SP5 with no problems. SP6 was released, and it being early in my Windows life I just went right ahead and installed it, no questions asked. Big booboo. Had to rebuild. I wait at least 6 weeks or so now.

Normally I wouldn't... but this has been in beta forever. I installed it on a laptop and a desktop we're prepping for imaging. So far so good, they actually seemed a little faster (talk to me again in a week). I found a couple of the little tweaks (msconfig tools tab, improved remote desktop client) and can honestly say I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm loading it on 1 of 3 of my home units to see how that goes next.

I first got burned a lttle with win95, or was it DOS 6.0, then came win 97, then win98, then win 98SE, and held off till XP Pro, and got burned a little on XP SP1, Then along came SP2 and it fixed some of the SP1 leftovers....lately I adopted a Vista...this kid is different than all the others, I got a lot to learn with this one.
My most indelible experience is all the OS's behaved differently on any same year,model manuf/hardware as well as any dis-similar machines.
That is to say, every machine from the same family genesis or mixed marriage has its own personality with a few wierd electrons here and there.
I've done transplants in sound and video cards, memory and CPU's and had good results in operating habits from the OS's to correct some of the bad OS personality traits.
I Try to stock up in workarounds, fixs, replacement software and a lot of Pro Information off the net....so as to tackle the little irritations and big conflicts when they arise.
Your first child won't help you a lot when you have to deal with the dis-similar problems the second one dreams up.
If machines and software were cookie cutter perfect, most IT's, Comp Engineers and programmers would be flippin big macs or running thier own multi-level, multi-conglomarate mega-profitable business in some other line of work...
My advice is keep a data base on what went wrong, and how you handled it, what others had go wrong and what they did to handle the problems.
Computers like People are a crapshoot, the more you know about their personalities the more prepared you'll be to deal with them...but it won't always be easy....with something like a Vista Personality...I think an upgrade video card might give this latest kid a better outlook on life..I hope..
Thats my dig...Good luck keep us informed on your experiences...with the new Kid.
jaxontop2 (hopefully)

When I installed Vista SP1, I had just migrated to a new computer a week earlier, so I had an external drive with a backup of everything.

So if it did go all wrong, I could reinstall the original OS and be back in business in a short time.

To me its a risk analysis. I had little to risk, and if I believed the hype, much to gain.

I would be much more cautious with server OSs though....

James

There is a big difference between updating your own system, and updating your users or a server.

This is a reason I went with SuSE instead of the millions of completely free versions. I don't WANT bleeding edge, and I don't WANT updating all the time. Get it tested, get it stable, and leave it alone until you have a valid reason for changing it.

In about a month, I will try out the sp3 update.

For our customers, not supporting Vista yet, and delaying support till the last minute. We have some issues with Vista printer drivers.

We do internal testing on new service packs, and generally implement them a month later. If there is a problem with a service pack the net usually picks up the scuttlebutt within a week or so.

James

my coworker took it upon herself to order and load a users system with 64bit XpPro instead of the 32bit version we have EVERYWHERE else.

A month later, it took a bit for me to figure out why a package wasn't loading correctly...... it just didn't like it.

Oh, and then there was the time she ordered a laptop with media edition....

oh and before that....... ~sigh~

Sometimes MS gets it right, but often enough to make one wary they don't. My policy for years now is NEVER jump at ANYTHING from Microsoft at the 1.0 stage. MS tends to think that their early-adopters of new MS software can be treated like beta testers, and I'm not risking my systems to debug their half-tested attempts. I'm waiting at least another month for others to trip the hidden wires first.

After DOS 4.0 and several other disasters , some of us adopted that attitude. Excel's second version was named.....2.2 just to fake us out(there was no 2.0 or 2.1).

James

I'm refurbishing a couple of old PC's & found that it's an automatic update already if Microsoft Update is set to Express. It's got a special blurb & section if you choose Custom. I'm installing it on a few PC's now, including my own.

So far, so good, even with a program that has some Vista issues (ProE, a mechanical CADD program). I'll be testing it later with Protel DXP, an electrical CADD program. I need to find out the bad news quickly. Hopefully, there won't be any.

I agree with not installing it immediately, but I haven't set up a WSUS server yet & have most of my 85 PC's set to update automatically. Patches have gotten a lot better, although I still won't install a video or NIC patch unless all else has failed. I don't know that I've ever been happy with the former. Thank goodness (Microsoft?!!!) hardware patches aren't automatically pushed.

I must have grabbed SP3 minutes before Microsoft yanked it off the website April 29th.

It was ~320MB download (2-3 minutes with Comcast broadband internet), and took only 10 minutes to install.

Several weeks ago, I installed the beta version of SP3, but IE-6 subsequently misbehaved. I prefer IE-6 because I can consolidate all requisite buttons in a single toolbar - particularly useful with the notebook computer.

The SP3 version transiently posted April 29th fully supports my prefered IE-6. It adds an annoying folder (called favorites) to the Favorites drop-down menu to push Microsoft services, but this can be deleted by a simple Registry edit. It also disallows tampering with the RPC service (Remote Procedure Call) - it can no longer be disabled or altered to manual.

After 8 days of testing, I'm compelled to give SP3 a thumbs up.

Rick/Portland, OR

Do you happen to know where I can find a comprehensive list of all of the functionality changes that SP3 includes (e.g., removing ability to disable RPC service, etc.)?

I'm alway reluctant to implement upgrades if I don't know specific details of what underlying elements have been changed.

NAP (Network Access Protection) is included with SP3. Right now, there is not a server at the workplace, but there has been talk of possible having one in the future. Given that, would it be advisable to install SP3? Right now there is no server, all of the computers are standalone,with file-sharing enabled.

HP a1630n (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core) running 32-bit WinXP SP2.

I read the Release Notes, did not have any of the problematic software that tends to cause installation problems, etc.

Initial installation completed without a hitch, but the "restart to finish installation" was an infinite loop of rebooting. After the 'black screen with the green bar" turns into a real black screen just before the blue 'loading Windows' screen comes on, I had a BSOD; it flies by so fast I can't pause to capture the 2-3 lines displayed on it.

I had to uninstall SP3.

Same here, WinXP SP3 appeared to install but after re-starting the PC it became stuck in a repeated rebooting loop.

Eventually it allowed me into "Safe Mode" but "add/remove programs" refused to remove SP3, wrongly claiming that the language was "Bosnian"!

The "restore point" eventually rolled-back and removed SP3, taking 2 to 3 hours, but trashed IE7.

I'll now have to completely reformat the hard drive and reinstall all the other programs.

SP3 is not yet ready for general release.

There has been an issue with the Intel driver being reenabled by sp3, in cases where manufacturers used the same disk image for their Intel and AMD processors, and just disabled the Intel one. If you have an AMD and especially if it's a mass-produced unit, a single registry change in safe mode should fix it:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3285530&SiteID=17

I've installed sp3 on both AMD's and Intels successfully without issues, but none were mass production machines.

I've done several successful SP3 updates, and one uninstall (to see if it was causing a modem problem, which it wasn't).

There is a somewhat tricky issue with IE7; they chose NOT to include IE7 in SP3, to cater to those still using IE6, which makes things awkward. It's recommended that you uninstall IE7 first, run SP3, and then reinstall IE7. Even at that, there's a problem with a couple of updates for IE7 that don't install after that, but that is being fixed.

An alternative, assuming your system is working well, is to do a disk image first, which is a wise idea with any service pack. The reason in this case is that you cannot uninstall IE7 after applying sp3, unless you uninstall sp3 first. If you should have to do a repair using the Windows disk, it will repair the system using IE6 files, and having IE7 installed will cause IE to not work at all. This sounds like a real mess, but with the disk image for a backup, the unlikely need for a repair is minimal.

I chose this one, leaving IE7 on and applying sp3, giving up my option to use the XP repair, rather than open another can of worms by shuffling IE's around. Take your pick, just be aware that if you don't do a disk backup and you don't remove IE7 before applying sp3, your windows disk repair option will not work.

I've got a flakey Vista, and Depend on my healthy XP to keep going.
I downloaded several pages from Monkeysoft re: cautions on installing SP3 on XP.
There's an awful lot of RED writing in thier advisory, and I need to read and understand it thorougly....B4 I jump in.
I have a great working XP now, I'm going to wait awhile a couple weeks (months, years ?) or more, and let everyone proof out Monkeysofts latest attempt at Programming.
Vista burned me several times, and still continues to dictate what I do on my computer depending on the mood it's in. It's a partime employee, when it shows up.
I don't trust Monkeysoft, and I would'nt advise anyone else to do so.
Then again there are those who love to reformat thier drives and reinstall the OS time and time again, kind of a pain/pleasure thing. Wierd....
If it aint Broke, don't fix it...that's the best advice I've ever heard.
Good luck Gang...
jaxontop2 (trying to stay there)

that your job role shows "Education" yet you are giving tech advice on a tech forum...

(Not to mention the HUGE amount of grammatical errors. What exactly do you teach?)

My guess would be that whatever he teaches, it's done on a Mac, because the comments have a smell of rotten Apples, and about as much credibility as the Apple commercials. Monkeysoft? Wait a few months/years to install SP3? Monkeysoft's latest attempt? Phew.

I mean, Vista isn't my favorite, but it works OK, just a bit demanding, and MS's service packs and updates have been remarkably good the last few years...I had no issues with multiple machines for XP sp1, 2, and now I've put SP3 on 4 (so far) without a hitch.

I read the precautions MS gave; I didn't see any confusing red warning lines, just a bit of common sense. I covered myself with full disk images of each because that's how I do it, none were needed.

I teach music comp and performance. I also teach recording, mixing and mastering with the computer, some on PC and some on Mac.

The computer has become a valuable tool for the music industry, music students don't always stay in performance, this gives them a place in the music and movie industry, it allows them a place to expand thier talents.

While I'm not a Computer Tech, I do have an opinion as to what tools are dependable and which ones are not, Vista has not been dependable for us.

When we spend several hours on a piece of music to have it disapear and have to spend time trying to get the PC up and running it has become waste of time and productivity as much as the business that looses his data base and has to rebuild it from memory.

Computer Techs do this for a living, they design and fix computers and software, because thats where thier talents and desires lead them.

Users are not all Computer Techs and Computer Techs are not all auto engineers or mechanics but we all have an opinion on what autos or computers are lemons and we do have our say.

Being a Tech, tell me why is my XP and Mac OS
so much more dependable than Vista, should I waste my time with Vista or wait till it becomes a dependable tool? Advice from someone like you who knows will be appreciated.

Thanks for the comments, everyone should take what any of us has to say with a grain of salt. By the way, I was not an english major, I spent too much time on notation and theory jammin with the jazz band.
jaxontop2