Xp Sp3
 

4000+ files updated. Lotta space for the backups.

So far, so good. It seems to be faster than SP2 with all the patches. (boot up time is faster, startup at login is faster, etc.)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

-David

I was running XP SP2, fully up to date, so SP3 was a small download for me. Less than 100Mb. Update was flawless, but I did not notice any performance increase. In fact, I notice no differences of any kind :)

I think there's only four new features in XP SP3, and they're all "Under the hood" sort of things so it's mainly a security update.

Installed XP SP3 on 2 yr old Sony VGN-SZ270P yesterday and so far everything works. Can't see any change, good or bad.

One important item I think worth mentioning. Prior to SP3 you are able to drag files from networked computers over to your own computer, making copies, or moving those files. With SP3 installed, this is no longer allowed by default. You will be treated to a security violation message window.
This is due to a deliberate new security policy enforcing file downloads from external sources. (It's a feature not a bug)
To regain this functionality go to:
control panel->internet options->security->(select the zone)->custom level->Drag and drop or copy paste files and "file download" under "downloads"
This will now allow the drag and drop functionality as before.

I read a report last night that for people with HP AMD-based desktops (not notebook) are having issues. There's a workaround, but it's painful.

The issue is that HP used a single binary image on their intel and AMD based systems, and though it was benign in SP2, it isn't benign in SP3. You have to remove a driver, otherwise the system won't boot.

-David

This isn't all that uncommon a thing to do when building an OS image; we do it all the time across desktops and laptops from different vendors to deploy an upgrade for clients. Sucks that SP3 breaks it, but it seems like the workaround reg key is pretty simple to deploy, as is a GPO setting to fix the security zones thing, but I am definitely happy that others are discovering these issues instead of me. :)

My custom built 2.5 GHz machine has been "inspecting" for the last hour.

Am I in computer h3ll, or will it recover? Place your bets. . .

Edit to say, after three hours the system was still hung. With some trepidation I killed the installer (since exit didn't work either). The machine actually came back up!

I then killed every non-windows process in the Task Manager and went for sp3 again. This time it worked . . . :rolleyes:

am i correct in presuming that compaqs are hps with a different spelling. i have an amd compaq.

Maybe. They are the same company now but the one you're using might be old enough that it has a different image on it where this isn't an issue. The instructions for working around the issue are pretty simple if you're comfortable in regedit. The real problem is for people who didn't address it in advance.

I just upgraded about 12 comps to SP3....everything went smoothly, except 1 PC.

Some suggestions

1) If you can turn off Anti-Virus...do it...we use McAfee and the annoying thing about disabling the real time scanner is that it turns itself on again after 5 mins and of course I don't know how to change that....update goes MUCH faster on some computers (especially, old slow ones) if the AV is off

2) Start the update after a fresh reboot. I had 1 PC that took 5 hours to "inspect" the configuration. I finally did a hard reset and the machine automatically "rolled back" to SP2 (1 hour and 2 reboots later). After that I ran the update again and everything went fine.

- HF

I haven't installed SP3 yet but I have an AMD HP Desktop computer. Anyway I checked the registry for the Intel Driver and I don't have it. I also checked which powersaving driver is running on my machine. It is the amdk7.sys which is the right one for my old AMD. So either for whatever reason on my HP runs a different Windows Image or only certain HP AMD PCs are affected.

So the best thing to do is to check the registry if you have an AMD HP computer running XP.