hard to say -- no reason in the world to install sp2 i can see ..

I AGREE I AGREE, it is a decision made by our security section, I am TOTALLY against SP2, I held out as long as possible.

I ran the hotfix mentioned previously, it KINDA fixed the problem. I can now communicate 1394, but cannot control the device. I can print to tape, but only manually.

Anyone have any suggestions? I can live with it, but would really like to have it work fully functional.

SP2 is huge and fixes many "bad" things in Windows. True, it can undo other things, but on balance generally, for most people, a good idea to install SP2. If you do.... be prepared its a huge upgrade (generally) what gets changed depends in part if or not you've been keeping up with "security" updates. Also if you do, don't be freaked. I remember when doing mine at least a full twenty minutes went by before Windows said it was successfully installed. Much of that time, there was nothing on screen, no disk indicator light flashing, nothing. Weird.

I installed SP2 months ago and aside from the bone-headed idiocy Microsoft forced that broke millions of web pages adding their "warning" banner for things like Flash, generally good and I have no problems with firewire anything.

the general feeling at 100s of companies and also many of the studios I work with is - not necessary to install ... No performance improvements and production machines are not connected to the Internet anyway ..

I will still keep to the odd number only service packs, which has never let me down since the first days of windows ..


I think IBM still is not allowing it to be installed ..


On the other hand - 1000's of companies are still running win95/98 --

I'm with B_JM on this one. In the wide variety of forums which I either participate or moderate in, I can't count the number of "problem" SP2 posts. I know there are some that are successfully running it...but I've run firewire data tanks for years with no issues too, and look at the posts here of folks having problems....If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I did install SP2 on one system, and had to uninstall afterwards.

Its been my experience that companies involved with video production and the like aren't particularlly up on Windows issues. If SP2 was bad as some claim then they would be endless howls about it in the appropriate technical groups. I've barely seen a wimper and then generally by the not very well informed. Remember, I'm not that big a Microsoft fan, but fair is fair. They're dammed if they do, and dammed if they don't. First people whine that Windows is flawed (ok, it is), then the same people whine when they attempt to offer a fix for some of the things that are broke. BTW, IBM has been at odds with Microsoft for well over a decade. Not surprising considering their curious history.

The point is you don't install SP2 for perforamce gains, you install it to improve security and also to fix some long standing "bugs". So it comes down to what you use your computer for. If its connected to the Internet, my advice, install it. If you're talking only about a simple box you use only for video editing, probably not necessary.

I'm curious why anyone would think automatically odd numbered SP's are "better" than even number ones.

I run SP2 and don't have any problems. Everything works the sames as before the upgrade. I can tell you that if you run a bootleg XP the SP2 service pack will most likely break your software in some way. The firewire issue in SP2 looks to be 800 not 400.

"The firewire issue in SP2 looks to be 800 not 400"

No I can assure you it's NOT an '800 only' issue and there are threads on the Microsoft support page that verify the problem is with SP2. I don't have IEEE-1394b (800) ports but I certainly had problems with firewire connecton after upgrading to SP2 last year.

The issue revolves around the implementation IEEE-1394 standard on some earlier machines.

It caused me significant grief with my DSR-30P until I found the Microsoft thread indicating an 'unsupported' work around of reinstalling the MSDV.SYS file from SP1.

Mind you my editing system still worked with my DSR-150P and Panasonic DV-100EN but I generally don't use cameras for capture or output with Vegas.

After extracting the SP1 MSDV.SYS file from the archive that SP2 created during it's install I was able to replace the SP2 version with the SP1 version and I could then use my DSR-30P again.

Ah, sounds great newhope, where is the archive stored? Sounds like that may cure my ills.

Could I copy the file from another machine running SP1? Or is it machine specific?

D

Hey guys,
I haven't even tried my firewire yet but I'm having other problems so far and would really appreciate your suggestions:
I recently broke down and installed SP2 on this machine because Panda (anti-virus) kept suggesting it with it's pop-ups. Ever since installing it I've had problems; it started with networking issues and then later pretty much resolved thanks to John (Craftech) ....but now they're back. I also find it almost impossible to read the radio button icons on web pages, in msconfig, etc.
I tried to uninstall SP2 but "add/remove programs" states it "...has already been uninstalled, would you like to remove from add/remove programs list?" although "System Properties" shows I'm running it!
Since I haven't seen any other complaints regarding the radio buttons I wonder if something went wrong with the installing process (although it reported it was a successful install).
My question of course is, what would you do at this point?
TIA,
Randy

Man, I think it's time to buy a MAC....Wait a minute, just heard about all the problems FCP folks are having with Tiger 10.4.... Okay, how about Linux... No, it seems good for running web servers, -if you have lots of time to mess around with it, but too many problems with stuff that will be fixed with the next kernel release... or maybe the next one.

Anybody editing video on a cp/m machine?

To quote my wife, a (acoustic) piano teacher...."computers suck!"
Randy

Your wife has a point. <wink>

I've beening involved with PC's (personal computers) for nearly 30 years and main frames before that and one thing hasn't changed. Its always either hardware playing catch up with software or the other way around or issues with the operating system. Ahh... computers, its a love/hate thing. They can do some amazing things, yet they can drive you crazy too.

They can do some amazing things, yet they can drive you crazy too.
How true.
So what would you do if you were me ( not you BB, but me, someone that knows just enough to be dangerous)?
TIA,
Randy

Randy, based on my experience, I can tell you that being a single license user you nor I have any chance of getting help from either Sony or Microsoft. We're simple not important enough for either of them to care.

When things aren't going right and you've tried a lot of suggestions from well meaning people or got support from the creators of the software and you still have problems sometimes the only solution is take a deep breath and just start over from scratch.

Watched a rerun of Dr. House last night, a weird Fox drama I'm starting to like that stars a grumpy but very clever doctor that often does off the wall things, but frequently cures the patient others have given up on, even the patient themselves as was the case last night.

In last night's show in spite of the patient having a DNR order, did resuscitate him anyway risking criminal charges because he was sure what other doctors claimed and that already wrote him off saying the patient had ALS, was going to die, House did things including stopping old meds then reintroducing them back one at a time...and then found out what was really wrong by repeated testing and MRI's.

So too with computers. When you've tried everything, start over. Save your work on a different drive, reformat, reinstall Windows from scratch, then one at a time reinstall your various hardware cards, then reinstall your software applications one at at time. Keep going. If you hit a problem, then you at least know which card or what software or what combination is likely causing you problems.

While an extreme measure and pains taking and slow, this sometimes will effect a cure. Only sometimes. It really boils down to how determined you are to get things working and if or not you are willing to risk all to hopefully find a cure. I've done it several times over the years (not recently) after trying everything else and sometimes that does it. Then again sometimes it don't. Hard choice. In the long run spending a good part of a weekend rebuilding wastes less them then all the mickey mouse messing around trying everyone's "cure" which may work, then again may not.

One reason why doing a total rebuild often works is Windows being a weird beast can load drivers and other critical files in a different sequence depending on how hardware/software gets installed which sometimes causes problems. To make it do that, you need to rebuild. If you have XP, sometimes reading event logs can give you a clue what's wrong. Click on Start/help then search Windows help for "event log" to get some info.

To see your event logs: start/control pannel/perm-main/Admin. tool/event viewer. This is similar to the details DVD-A reports before you burn a DVD. Red flags represent a serious problem, yellow warnings some things are going wrong the "I" warnings are just information about what's happening. The application tab gives info on applications causing problems, the system tab flags errors with Windows doing something and often takes you to a site where more info can be found.

Thanks for the advice, Bill. I'm afraid I have no other choice at this time but to do exactly what you've suggested.

I think I'm going to have to reformat too Jay as now Panda won't even start (oddly enough, internet seems unaffected though).
Before I do reformat (in the morning), is it safe to say that you guys with SP2 do not have weird icons (where there used to be radio buttons) that are VERY hard to tell when it is selected?
TIA,
Randy

One thing that people haven't mentioned is that WinXP (and SP2) default the 1394 networking connection as enabled.

Since sharing the same physical device (1394 controller) for two very different protocols and purposes (DV vs networking) is a bad thing, I've found disabling the 1394 networking (under My Networks, Properties) solves any 1394 issues I've seen with XP SP2. This has no adverse effects, since I don't know anyone who uses their Firewire ports to network computers, though I guess it might have some use if one doesn't have 1000B/T Ethernet.. :-)

Just my experience, FWIW.

Bob.