Has anyone installed the SP3 upgrade to XP Home or Pro? Looking for real-world results instead of professional reviewers. Alternatively, pointers to recommended reviews would be nice.
I'm considering moving to Ubuntu Linux, but was also wondering if SP3 would help some problems I currently have (mainly with Vista, but that's a whole series of other topics) and put off the XP -> Linux change for a little while longer...
TIA
XP SP3
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SP3's public release has apparently been delayed.
ref: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288724,00.asp
So far the best comparisons I have seen between the various versions of XP and vista are here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1772
Myself, I am waiting for Windows 7, sp1.
a. I have no particular difficulty with XP/sp2 and have lots of apps that I doubt will run as trouble-free on Vista, unless I spend money on each of them to get the latest version for the sake of vista compatibility.
b. I have this theory that MS has an A-team and a B-team of new-OS developers. The B-team worked on the Win.Me fiasco while the A-team did win.2000. The next assignment for the A-team was win.XP a comparatively better OS. For the B-team is was Vista, which could be as botched as win.Me was. Now I see at the A-team working on the next version: Windows 7. I will wait until it's sp1 -- that way I will get the better product after its warts have been removed.
PS - as for timing, I'm expecting some time in 2010 or 11. No rush when what I have is good enough at the moment. BTW, according to this report, Bill Gates indicates Windows 7 may be ready in 2009.
ref: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288724,00.asp
So far the best comparisons I have seen between the various versions of XP and vista are here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1772
Myself, I am waiting for Windows 7, sp1.
a. I have no particular difficulty with XP/sp2 and have lots of apps that I doubt will run as trouble-free on Vista, unless I spend money on each of them to get the latest version for the sake of vista compatibility.
b. I have this theory that MS has an A-team and a B-team of new-OS developers. The B-team worked on the Win.Me fiasco while the A-team did win.2000. The next assignment for the A-team was win.XP a comparatively better OS. For the B-team is was Vista, which could be as botched as win.Me was. Now I see at the A-team working on the next version: Windows 7. I will wait until it's sp1 -- that way I will get the better product after its warts have been removed.
PS - as for timing, I'm expecting some time in 2010 or 11. No rush when what I have is good enough at the moment. BTW, according to this report, Bill Gates indicates Windows 7 may be ready in 2009.
not sure if you're still looking for information after three weeks, but here it is anyway.
after i installed sp3, i noticed a few changes. i had to disable some services that i don't like running - the installer started them up again. and i had to re-patch my uxtheme.dll since sp3 replaced it. that's about it.
it runs the same as good-old sp2 as far as i can tell.
xp doesn't have to be all bad. i run it with a shell replacement, and since i am using xplorer2 now, i never have to load explorer.exe for any reason. plus, 95% of the apps i use are portable, so i hardly have anything installed. it keeps my registry clean and greatly reduces the number of .dll files i have to have loaded. i also keep an eye on my running processes, services, etc. to make sure i use my 512mb of ram to its fullest! my system is hacked to pieces, but it's very stable, quick, and best of all, my computing is many times more productive than it was with out-of-the-box windows!
as for vista, no thanks. between xplorer2, a patched uxtheme.dll, and a little progam called Launchy, i have the best features of vista without the fuss. and as for windows 7, we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed
after i installed sp3, i noticed a few changes. i had to disable some services that i don't like running - the installer started them up again. and i had to re-patch my uxtheme.dll since sp3 replaced it. that's about it.
it runs the same as good-old sp2 as far as i can tell.
xp doesn't have to be all bad. i run it with a shell replacement, and since i am using xplorer2 now, i never have to load explorer.exe for any reason. plus, 95% of the apps i use are portable, so i hardly have anything installed. it keeps my registry clean and greatly reduces the number of .dll files i have to have loaded. i also keep an eye on my running processes, services, etc. to make sure i use my 512mb of ram to its fullest! my system is hacked to pieces, but it's very stable, quick, and best of all, my computing is many times more productive than it was with out-of-the-box windows!
as for vista, no thanks. between xplorer2, a patched uxtheme.dll, and a little progam called Launchy, i have the best features of vista without the fuss. and as for windows 7, we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed
ditto. no problems. I haven't noticed any difference, but haven't gone out of my way to look for any either. Installation was without incident, although I disabled my AV to speed things up, as it warned that it could take from half an hour to two hours to install. (it took 45 minutes)garbanzo wrote:it runs the same as good-old sp2 as far as i can tell.
It's available now at the windoze update center, but AFIK they are not pushing it out as an automatic update.
(my links, above, are to the US english pages)
(my links, above, are to the US english pages)
Further note - When I tried to install win.XPsp3 from CD onto my wife's Acer computer which uses AMD Athlon64 processor running win XP Media Center Edition (32 bit), the installation failed and backed me out niceley, but it spent 3/4 hour before failing and then a half hour to restore. :(
I tried twice before asking MS support for help.
Installation succeeded by installing in SAFE mode (at MS recommendation). I only had to run the bare install file {WINDOWSXP-KB936929-SP3-X86-ENU.EXE} which I had copied onto my hard drive.
I tried twice before asking MS support for help.
Installation succeeded by installing in SAFE mode (at MS recommendation). I only had to run the bare install file {WINDOWSXP-KB936929-SP3-X86-ENU.EXE} which I had copied onto my hard drive.
Interesting - obviously there are tons of sites with different links and many different posts about XP SP3, but I remember reading particularly about how SP3 was not AMD friendly....I'll try to find those relevant posts to see if installation via Safe Mode was suggested at all to any of those individuals, and if not, mention your experience to them.
Glad it worked out for you.
Glad it worked out for you.
Most of the other sp3 issues I have seen reported about systems with AMD processors surfaced after sp3 had been installed. Nasty stuff like could not even boot at all. :shock:
I didn't mention that part, but had taken a full image prior to the first attempt so I could do a 'bare metal' recovery should I have had to.
(FWIW, I use Storage Craft's Shadow Protect Desktop edition for backups. It's not free by any means, but it's a really great product. Much easier to use than anything else I have found. It's not so much the taking of backups that distinguished it (any good backup app will take backups in the background on a schedule you define), but routine recovery of data is a snap: probably what I use it for most often is to recover old files I deleted because I thought I would never need them again.)
I didn't mention that part, but had taken a full image prior to the first attempt so I could do a 'bare metal' recovery should I have had to.
(FWIW, I use Storage Craft's Shadow Protect Desktop edition for backups. It's not free by any means, but it's a really great product. Much easier to use than anything else I have found. It's not so much the taking of backups that distinguished it (any good backup app will take backups in the background on a schedule you define), but routine recovery of data is a snap: probably what I use it for most often is to recover old files I deleted because I thought I would never need them again.)
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ComputerGuy
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