SOT: WinXP SP3 heart stopper.

farss wrote on 9/11/2008, 5:12 AM

Sometime ago someone did ask about the wisdom of installing SP3 and the general advice was it's just fine, go ahead. As I've updated a number of systems to SP3, tonight I went ahead and updated my new quad without having any planned exit stratergy. That could have been a big mistake..
After installing the upgrade and restarting the PC Windows would hang on the splash screen with the progress bar running forever. After much Googling and reading it would seem I'm not alone. I wouldn't say whatever problem I struck is common but it can happen.
I think I was lucky, I was able to boot into Safe Mode and via Control Panel's Add/Remove programs uninstall SP3. First restart was a bit iffy with a "Please Wait" message. Restarted again and all seems back to it's previous state, one big sigh of relief.
My advice, make certain you have a known working restore method, I was so cavalier I didn't and that could have cost me a lot of work.

Bob.

Comments

teaktart wrote on 9/11/2008, 10:06 AM

Farss,
I almost had to drag my computer to the repair shop after installing SP3. My computer started to freeze up big time while trying to load XP just as you describe. The Windows screen could stay the same for days.... Hit the on/off button about a dozen times before I would get lucky and be able to log in.
I could not get to a good system restore point prior to the install. For some reason I couldn't get to a restore point in August... when my computer was working just fine. I uninstalled the SP3 and reinstalled and still have had the freezing on startup. Once I had to use 'safe mode' (which I don't really know how to use), but that was the only way to get booted and try again to restore to some operating function. Its been about 8 days of this nonsense and still I pray each time I turn on my machine that it will boot and open. I'm making new restore points once I get it up and running.
On my other email machine the stupid SP3 messed up my email fonts and everything is italics and I have no way to undo that screwup, despite trying to reconfigure fonts, etc.. Looks like I need to uninstall on that machine too in hopes I can get my stuff working right again.

This has been one huge pain in the ass and has eaten a lot of my time trying to get my computers working right again.

You are not alone!

Eileen

UlfLaursen wrote on 9/11/2008, 11:13 AM

Thanks for the warning, Bob.

I usually make an image of a working config with either ghost from Norton or TrueImage from Acronis, and this investment is a very good one. You can always go back to a working config for your systemdrive.

/Ulf

CorTed wrote on 9/11/2008, 12:08 PM

Probably a way for Microsoft to convert you all to Vista.
Bob, maybe time to make the switch?
I know you have a box with new hardware, for what its worth Vista is running pretty smooth for me lately....

Ted

farss wrote on 9/11/2008, 2:42 PM

I think yesterday was a bad day for computers.
The one OSX machine where I work now takes 10 to 30 minutes to boot. Pretty certain I know why too, using a WD MyBook as the device for Time Machine backups is not good.
Also found a clients web site has an embedded JAVA trojan.
After I got the XP SP3 removed I bought the latest True Image for that PC. Took several goes to download the friggin thing. The file name is so long this old Win2K clunker had issues copying the file from the temp folder to the NAS box, yish.

Bob.

RBartlett wrote on 9/11/2008, 3:02 PM

SP3 seems to show up problems that were waiting quietly in the background and would have stayed that way if Microsoft had taken more care before releasing this into the wild.

I believe there has been enough trouble for a new toll free number to be made available to reach their support desk. Although I think this is USA only or North America only at this time.

Often there is a tangible issue caused by the system builder. Or at least HP has had some issues with their AMD based computers in that they've had boot sequences that have loaded or attempted to load drivers and tweaks intended for Intel architectures. This has been fine until these updates. I believe Microsoft have warned makers not to make assumptions over having a common install-first-time-set disk image just because it works. They've written instructions clearly making this practice inadvisable. That said, perhaps Microsoft ought to have beta tested more or listened to feedback more prior to firing this one over our bows.

All I can see we've really benefited from is a cumulative security pack and native support for networking, WPA2 inside Wireless Zero Configuration for Windows. Service providers have also had to suffer the costs of delivery. Especially where they are paying for 95th percentile of 5 minute bandwidth averages over their aggregation points that hand off to the PPP based access networks. Sometimes I miss the days where updates like this came on next month's magazine/journal. At least you had some time to prepare or skip on an update such as this.

We need microsoft for Vegas and to keep Linux improving (and OSX probably a few steps ahead of both in some important areas). I'm not sure we need grief like this.

Keep your recovery console disc at the ready! Many have backed off using the more immediate options but you do need to be able to boot far enough to achieve this. That said, my cranky old laptop upgraded fine and others I know have been fine. So it is like some kind of zip code lottery. Of course folks rarely say how well a fix centric update has gone!