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Windows XP Service Pack 3

Passepartout

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I tried to install it this morning, It was not successful and locked up my computer. after multiple reboots when it showed being online yet wouldn't open a web page, I reverted to an earlier session. No SP3 and it's fine now. Methinks I'll leave it alone for now.

Jim Ricks
 

DEROS

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I had it installed for about a month. I have no problems to report. I am using a Dell D620 Core 2 Duo. However, I did not upgraded from SP2 to SP3. I did a clean install of Windows XP and skipped over SP2 to SP3.
 

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I also have had it running for about a month, with absolutely no problems. HP xw4400 workstation with Core2Duo at 2.4 GHz. Installation went without a hitch.
 

philemer

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I d/l the update a week ago and no problem yet. But, I use Mozilla Firefox most of the time. :)
 

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I upgraded XP from SP2 to SP3 when it first came out.

No problems at all for me.

All 3 windows machines (2 desktops, 1 laptop) are running XP SP3. 2 are XP Pro, one is XP Home.

-David
 

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Oddly, one of my co-workers just set-up a brand new Dell computer and updated to SP3 during installation. It took him over two weeks to get things fully sorted out. My home computer wants me to install it and I'm too chicken.
 

DEROS

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SP3 is for Windows XP

Oddly, one of my co-workers just set-up a brand new Dell computer and updated to SP3 during installation. It took him over two weeks to get things fully sorted out. My home computer wants me to install it and I'm too chicken.

Newer Dells come with Windows Vista. (You have to request to downgrade and I believe Dell charges for this.) If he tried installing SP3, I can understand why he was having problems. SP3 is Windows XP only not Vista.

Windows Vista, I believe, is only at SP1.
 

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I updated my two PC's to SP 3 without any problems.
windows auto updated my old compaq Evo 900C to service pack 3 last weekend. Right after that the computer began getting a error when trying to start windows after rebooting. It would hang with a Black screen after that and I could not get windows to start in safe mode or anything else no matter what I tried.
I forget the exact error code but when i looked it up it was a problem releated to windows being unable to access the user account security information.
I ended up using the XP professional with SP2 disk to perform a re-install/repair of the damaged installation.
I told it to over write the newer SP 3 files wth SP 2 and its working good again with SP 2
I will give SP 3 a go again sometime when I have time to mess with it.
 

Don

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The first start up after installing SP3, I had a "boot up optimizer" failure. But I've had no problems since.
 

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Been using SP3 the 1st day when it loaded on my puter, not had any problems yet & don't see any coming down the road. The only thing is, once you have loaded SP3, you can't uninstall the software but that not a problem as of yet.
 

pedro47

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Window XP Service Pak 3 KB936929 locked-up my Dell Computer. We ended up re-installing all my software on the p/c.
 

Htoo0

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Newer Dells come with Windows Vista. (You have to request to downgrade and I believe Dell charges for this.) If he tried installing SP3, I can understand why he was having problems. SP3 is Windows XP only not Vista.

Windows Vista, I believe, is only at SP1.

It's a company computer and they did get XP. For whatever reason, they are not planning to switch to Vista for some time. In fact, many of our computers are running 2000 and are to be switched to XP by the end of the year. (And it's not a small company either!)
 

GetawaysRus

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I've upgraded to SP3 on 3 computers.

The only issue is that one of these computers had a third party product installed that affected the boot.ini file. SP3 would not initially install on that computer and it gave me an error code. I had to go to the Microsoft website to track down what the error code meant. (There are tons of different error codes listed there.) When I deleted this third party piece of software (which wasn't critically important anyway), then SP3 installed properly.

No problems after several months of use on any of these PCs.

SP3 is a fairly big update. I do think it is wise to back up your hard drive, and also set a restore point, before the update.
 

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I upgraded last week and had significant problems with locking up and then in restarting my computer but eventually that day, after 2 reboots, it was fine and no issues since then.
 

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sp3 totally screwed up my HP laptop also had a problem with my desktop so i did a system restore and have not and will not do the sp3 again!!. when my desktop goes i plan to go with apple IMAC. i just can't stand microsoft anymore. far to many problems
 

Passepartout

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OK, I'm 'fessing up. I reinstalled SP3 last night, and did the restart this morning. There were a couple of moments when it seemed to be hanging up, but the hard drive light was on. So I waited and waited and lo and behold, after the looooongest reboot ever, Windows started and everything on the desktop was where I'd left it and everything I've tried, worked. Whooppee!

I guess that in my haste a couple of days ago, I shut the computer off in mid-update, messing up it's little digital mind and had to restart in an earlier session. No damage, no fault.

Note to self: Don't start something that takes unknown time when you have a limited amount.

Jim Ricks
 

senorak

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Had problems accessing the internet after installing the service pack 3 today (on my desktop). :eek: I remembered reading through this thread, so removed the program....and lo and behold, no problems w/ getting my internet connection. :p So, for now, I'm not re-installing SP3.

We also had a problem with our laptop when my son took it to college.....soon after I installed the SP3. After having the technology students on campus take a look at it, (and not figure out why it couldn't access the school's system).....we ended up taking the laptop to Best Buy....where the "Geek Squad" figured out the problem: too many "security programs". Wondering if some component of SP3 added an extra security program that coupled w/ those already on the computer, simply kept out everything?

DEB
 

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No Problem w/SP3

I installed SP 3 about a month ago both on my desk top (XP Pro) and my laptop (XP Home) and had no problems. The desk top has McAfee and the laptop PC-illan for security and there didn't seem to be any issues with either.:D

When you restart, it does take a while getting itself intialized. It does cause a little stress. Have faith?

I will say that I follow the KISS principle realative to S/W on my machines. I keep things pretty basic and don't download the latest and greatest and most exotic application just to be on the forefront or anti-MicroSoft. I think that is where people get into trouble. You never know where some of these applications have bent some interface rules or taken advantage of some quirk in the MS interfaces.:mad:

Cheers,

Paul
 

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I didn't have any problems with SP3 on 1/2 dozen PC's I installed it in. In terms of overall changes, I thought SP2 had some pretty significant changes compared to SP1. My impression is SP3 is relatively mild compared to SP2.

Jeff
 

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Someone within this thread referred to themself as being
"chicken" (afraid to download SP3).

I, too, am still 'chicken'. That largely is because I won't have much idea at all what to do if it performs poorly after I load it---as many of you appear to have experienced.

What the worst thing that can happen if I never load it?

Since I haven't loaded it---will I never be able to receive notices about other "...updates are ready for your computer" ?

Pat
 

Blues

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What I recommend to you, and anybody else on TUG who cares about their data, is to buy an external hard disk and some disk imaging software, such as Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage. I use something called EZ Gig II by Apricorn, because it was supplied free when I bought a drive from them. It looks and acts like Acronis.

Then, periodically create a full disk image of every hard drive on every computer in your home. I should do this weekly, try to get to it monthly, and in fact frequently go 3 months or longer between backups. My bad. Hopefully you can do better.

When you get it, do a full disk image backup just before installing SP3. If you have problems, you can use the backup software to go back to exactly what you had before. I've actually had to do this a couple of times when I've installed bad software, and had no problems in doing so.

It's also a nearly foolproof way to get rid of a virus. Just wipe the disk clean and go back to an image from before the virus. Of course, you lose everything else you've done in the mean time; but that may be an acceptable price.

I've been using this technique for years now. I only have a 300 GB external drive. But since the images are compressed, I can easily keep a half dozen or more images from each of our 3 computers (mine, hers, laptop), with space left over. 500GB and 1TB are available now at a reasonable cost, giving you even more room for multiple backups.

-Bob
 
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