Another surprise from MS Today !!!!

[Jim2121]

For us Win XP users. MS Came out with SP3! They have nothing to do? but drive us crazy?
appx: 66mb download...

Windows XP SP3 leaps into the tubes
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/06 ... r_release/

I like this comment: "Cannot understand why anyone with any experience of microshaft is installing this. The rule is always wait at
least 9 months."

[kf4sqb]

Does anyone know yet what's actually contained in this new SP, beyond the "original" SP's?

[wavetar]

I personally love it...a freshly loaded computer with SP2 needs to dowload over 100 critical updates before it's up to date. I slipstreamed the second release candidate of SP3 into my XP install CD several weeks ago, and now when I load a computer, there's literally nothing left to download from MS. I don't know what else it may contain, (I'm sure you can read all about it somewhere in Microsoft's labyrinth of a site) but that alone is enough to sell me on it.

Todd

[JAYMZ]

I love SP3, I have put it on several machines and they have each experienced significant performance increases. Slightly lower memory usage, and a much much more responsive system.

I am just waiting for the final final release to come out to install on my laptop because of them rescinding the release because of an incompatibility with one of their own products.

[Jim2121]

Does anyone know yet what's actually contained in this new SP, beyond the "original" SP's?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2234057,00.asp here's some info on whats in SP3!
other that a search of MS I don't know whats actually in SP3... I just typed into Google "Windows XP SP3 what's in it?" got pleanty of reading...

to download SP3 on 3 pc's took me 3/12 hours! And Todd & JAYMZ are right, nothing left to download from MS right now.... Welcome to Windows.......Jim

[Terry_Glover]

FWIW:

I finally got SP3 downloaded (took 3 attempts and 2 hours) and installed. Everything went to shite after rebooting. It worried me, I rely upon my XP machine more than any other.

I shut it down and re-boooted again. Still wouldn't connect to my wireless router or hardwired connection, everything slow or hung-up. I let the damned thing set for about 4 hours (apparently a lot of re-configuration and re-setting going on in background without any pop-up box notices) before I shut it down. I restarted again two days later, out of fear, and everything worked fine!

Seems to boot a lot faster and and is a lot smoother overall.

Just do SP3. Your system will work better. Give it enough time after first re-boot though, to reconfigure all those settings it saved before it started installing the download (may take a couple of hours, it's a big fix!) and you're OK.

*** Afterthought;

***All my MTS, Pro and ASTRO CPS worked fine after the XP SP3 upgrade. All of my Adobe high end programs worked properly as well as everything else.

[Jim2121]

Hi Terry! I did the SP3 download on three pc's -- had no problems? two are connected to a hardware Linksys router. One is wireless. No Problems at all... I did re-boot a few times, each one! maybe I was lucky?

Now for the good/bad news, I subscribe to MS alerts. We have more downloads this comming tuesday. I don't like it either. But here's a link to read about it...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/06 ... h_tuesday/
Jim
PS: has the MS link: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/securi ... 8-jun.mspx

[Terry_Glover]

Well Jim, my biggest problem was the fear that the 3 part install had gone sour on me.

As you mentioned, after a couple of re-boots and allowing enough time for the re-configuration to complete, XP took care of itself. My only intervention was trying to reset my internet connection after the first re-boot. When that failed I just let it set running for a few hours and it worked fine after a third re-boot.

Ahh, MS finally got XP to the point of repairing itself!

[Jim2121]

well the other posters here like SP3 also! In time will all change our OS...
Anyway just do your best to keep your pc clean of those little hacker bugs.
I caught 3 trojans this past week! Had to find a removal tool and run that!
I read someplace that when 2013 comes around no more MS support, just like 98
Lets see what they have planned for us next week. later, Jim Reid

[billy7834]

Surprised at such an update at what is supposed to be the end of life for the XP OS. Do you guys think that Vista will eventually come into it's own or is it another Win ME?

[Tom in D.C.]

I received a strongly worded warning yesterday from PCPitstop that I should
NOT install SP3. Among other things it warned that SP3 willl mess up my
Restore capability unless I increase the size of the Restore by a very large
amount. I have to take the word of people who do this stuff for a living as
being something serious, so at least for now I'm not doing SP3.

[nmfire10]

I installed SP3 a week or two ago without any problems. I haven't tried benchmarking anything but my laptop is running just fine. I don't use system restore so I'm not worried about that issue.

Since installing SP3, I have used the latest releases of Astro and Astro25 CPS without any problems.

[Terry_Glover]

I received a strongly worded warning yesterday from PCPitstop that I should
NOT install SP3. Among other things it warned that SP3 willl mess up my
Restore capability unless I increase the size of the Restore by a very large
amount.

I'll have to check that out. I definitely want to keep the "System Restore" feature in working order. I've used it a couple of times in the past and it saves an awful lot of time and effort. At any rate it isn't a big deal to allocate more disc space for it. Just a couple of mouse clicks.

I have to take the word of people who do this stuff for a living as
being something serious, so at least for now I'm not doing SP3.

That's certainly understandable Tom. Like the old saying goes; "When in doubt, DON'T".

I personally don't want to encourage anyone to go for SP3 if they really feel unsure about it. On the other hand, it worked out fine on my end... and for others in this thread as well.

And while we're on the subject, I also did the Vista SP1 about 6 weeks ago. There were no issues with its download and install. Some fixes I noticed right away were in the way Windows power management handles the pc when idle. Automatic internet clock setting works now too. A number of other little bugs that I'd experienced were addressed and fixed, and I'm actually pretty satisified with my Vista box now.

[JAYMZ]

My system restore worked just fine after the SP3 install. I did finally apply it to my laptop and the only "bug" that I really found was that it reset my settings for the IBM/Lenovo System Restore stuff. To the point where it created 75GB of backups over a 3 week period. Once I figured that out and cleaned things up a bit all was well.

FWIW, I keep all my system restore settings to a pretty fair minimum. And that has been working quite well.

Unless there were major major flaws and bugs with the Service Pack there is nothing that I see that would really be a detriment to your system at all. But... you also have to be somewhat studious in maintaining your own PC as well. Virus scanning, Adware, Spyware etc are forever evolving. Regular defrags and cleanups are a big help as well.

[Jim2121]

My system restore is set at 12% on this Dell 5150 notebook. and I never used it but its on!
I did swap out the 30gig HD for a 80gig HD and did the Norton Ghost. I have backups on a 200GB Ext. usb Maxtor... so I never had to use system restore yet!

[Tom in D.C.]

Here is the URL for the site I was talking about:

http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2008/05/2 ... t-install/

You can see why it got my attention when I first saw
it. The language is pretty unequivocal, though in the
comments that follow there are plenty of people who
say they've had no problem -- yet.

[JAYMZ]

Certainly disconcerting but that article only addresses barely a handful of problems. Some of them are very specific to particular hardware. I guess it just pays to do your research prior to installing a major update like that.

[Terry_Glover]

I think 12% is the maximum (and default) amount of drive space Windows configures for system restore. On my 40 GB hard drive it also alloted 12% and amounts to 4.578 GB. Seems like a lot, but my hard drive still has 25.9 GB free out of nearly 40gigs total, so I just leave it at maximum.

Anyway, after I read the article Tom linked to, I can see how some people may have had major issues with SP3 if they had reduced the amount of disc space allowed for system restore down to 6% or 3%. In fact some systems with a 10 GB or smaller hard drive may have problems regardless...

Just like the article mentioned, I couldn't connect to my wireless network either. I bypassed the router and plugged the computer directly into the modem and still wouldn't connect to the internet. At this point I just got up and left it running for 3 or 4 hours. Shut the computer down before bed and when I restarted it 2 days later everything just fell into place and worked fine without any intervention on my part.

[Jim2121]

12% is the default max. I did some reading on system restore, and what Tom posted. I've kept my pc's clean, error checked, defraged, almost appx: every 10 days.
I had no probs. with Sp3 putting it on my three pc's! Lots of people at home can't afford high speed, the SP2 & Sp3 CD can be ordered from MS for appx: $3.00
and the people who put SP3 on well, most are happy... the folks that don't take care of there PC & have missing downloads over the years, ran into problems.
A friend of mine bought Vista, and he is now sorry!! its in & out of the local shop!
But it could have gone the other way, and worked fine... good luck out there!
At any rate this MS post can go on forever...so not to use up board space. I'll download what MS sends me tuesday..and post back if theres any problems....Jim

[luisa.kmet]

SP3 caused my HP 8510 Laptop to bluescreen on plugging in USB flash memorie or USB HD's. Hp could not help and in the end our IT guys rolled it back to SP2 and the problem went away.