XP Service Pack 3

[ElMondoHummus]

*pouts*

Gee, you guys are no fun, you turned my CT parody thread into a Computer Geek Thread.

Hehe... well, there are a lot of computer geeks on this forum, ya know . As well as a few of us who do this stuff for a living.

Really, when someone runs into problem after problem with their Windows install after a Service Pack install, I end up encouraging them to consider backing everything important up and just doing a clean reinstall of Windows. Sure, that's shocking. But when you compare around 3 hours to get Windows clean installed, patched, programs installed, and everything customized to your liking to an open ended number of hours for tracking down every little thing that broke, fixing that, then tracking down the next thing that malfunctions, well... at that point you consider the reinstall, because you know you're done in an afternoon or so. But that's only when someone's just seeing one problem after another. In truth, the only problems I've personally seen with XP SP3 was on computers without the hard drive space to install it. SP3 is a dumb gigabyte hog on installation, dumb enough to where I'm getting a hold of my organization's XP install ISO with SP3 slipstreamed in already. Doing that beats installing the OS, then installing the SP, all the while sucking my thumb waiting for it to complete. Might as well bring a book, ya know.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

There was a study recently done where they made pop ups that said something along the lines of "About to install a virus. Don't hit OK or you will install a nasty virus and fail the Darwinism test". Or something like that. No one passed because no one bothered to read the message before hitting OK.

When asked why, the participants said they were more concerned with getting the pop up to go away.

 

[Kittyclaws]

Doing that beats installing the OS, then installing the SP, all the while sucking my thumb waiting for it to complete. Might as well bring a book, ya know.

I've actually done that at a customer's home. Got my book out of the truck and read while waiting for the updates to download and install. I was in her house for 4 hours working on a PC that hadn't been updated in 2+ years.

 

[Obviousman]

No problems with SP3 here. Running a Vostro 1500 laptop. My PC seems to have no problems, either.

 

[MRC_Hans]

OK, cranked up my Medion for the first SP3 run (am typing this post on it). It tool ages to start, but that is normal after an update. IE looks very Vista style, otherwise no glitches noticed, so far.

Hans

 

[Mongrel]

No problems with SP3 here. Running a Vostro 1500 laptop. My PC seems to have no problems, either.

Installed yesterday on GFs machine - all rebooted and running fine.

Most 'issues' with service packs are 3rd party software that's a bit wobbly, works fine under SPx-1 but bits of the OS are updated in SPx that mean it won't work. On occasion it will bring down the OS with it.

 

[yodaluver28]

I love Vista. I also loved XP and each service pack made it better. Of course, I do always buy the biggest, most powerful monster of a computer that I can afford and the hardware that goes with it. Obsolete hardware is probably the biggest issue that the OS's conflict with people's computers over.

If you've had a problem installing SP3, if you get an "Access denied" flag before the installation reverses itself, it's probably your anti-virus software. Download the SP onto your hard-drive from Microsoft's download center, restart your computer, and shut off your anti-virus software. Then install the SP. It should go through.

 

[El Greco]

SP3 without problems here, both on an autoupdated installation and on a new one with SP3 slipstreamed.

IE7 does crash at will, however. Even on a totally fresh installation with nothing but MS's updates on it.

 

[Cuddles]

IE7 does crash at will, however. Even on a totally fresh installation with nothing but MS's updates on it.

I find fresh installations are the worst. You need to install some random crap and get a bit of clutter in there, otherwise the computer just gets bored and decides to liven things up itself.

 

[SRW]

I have an older lap top and SP3 killed the install process, I could not install any software or uninstall. So I decide to try a clean install, it would not work, until I installed to a new 4 gig partition. I was able to get up and running enough to back up my files and wipe the disk. I had a copy of Vista I purchased, for my son but never used. So I gave it a try. Now I can type faster that characters appear on the screen with one finger.

I am going to attempt linux again on this system.

 

[peteweaver]

Its mainly stable for me.

 

[X]

I haven't had any difficulties with SP3. Not yet, anyway.

The program that I am convinced is a ploy to occupy system resources is the new AVG free. They aren't supporting the old one, so I needed the nw one (required for university wireless network access on my laptop). Loaded it, an instantly it made my laptop run at half the speed it used to.

Regardless, I just installed it on my desktop over the weekend.
More correctly: I installed it and everything else on my desktop over the weekend. I picked up a nasty virus, and ultimately wound up formatting my hard drive and re-installing XP.
Fortunately, as my school work and other useful files are either on the external hard drive or my laptop, I didn't lose anything I can't live without.
So to prevent further virus attacks, I'm going to use a program I have found useful in the past, even if I am convinced it was specifically designed to slow down my system (AVG). There's a conspiracy I can sink my teeth into.

(Note: The whole virus/formatting/start-from-scratch thing is the reason I download stuff (nothing illegal) onto my desktop, and not my laptop.)

 

[rjh01]

I did not know I had SP3 until I read this thread and then checked. I know the computer did not come with SP3 as my computer is nearly 4 years old.

I am the only person that uses this computer. I have updates on automatic.

 

[Ove]

My problem with Vista isn't how well it performs. It's just an annoying OS to me. It treats you like you have an IQ of 2. Now I understand many users do have an IQ of 2. But I want a transparent OS that helps me get thigns done. Not one that wants to baby me through every little procedure and pound me with 100 questions about everything I do. Not one that pops up messages every 5 seconds to ask me about this or that.

Annoying. That's all I can say. They should just have a question at first launch that asks if you're an idiot or not. If you say yes, than include all that annoying stuff, if you say no, then get rid of it and don't require a person to take a whole day just to find where to turn all that crap off.

Vista by default to me is like one big clippy (that annoying paper clip character in Word that doesn't let you get anything done because he always wants your attention and 2nd guesses everything you do).

My thoughts exactly. I would wish that there was one big pop up at the beginning: "Do you want help turned on? Y/N" and if you pushed "No" all f*cking autoarrange-autocorrect-auto this-auto that was disabled.

I DO find some of the functions very clever, i am one of those that constantly makes TWo letters in capital f.inst but i would like very much that it was left to me to decide which functions i would like to use. Today i have to start after every new update with turning umpteen thousand help functions OFF.