A Long Awaited Waste of Time (Or Why I Wont Install SP3)

Problems (for some)...
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=030002CDH416

 

haven't seen any problems on the couple of boxes I've updated

 

Smooth salling so far.

 

Well, although the download and installation took quite some time, SP3 seems to be running without problems on my 4 yr old laptop. However, while it may be my imagination, Windows seems to be running slower than before installing SP3.

 

For sake of user comparison i feel a POLL is in order to better review the averages for those who's PC's seem to run fine with it as compared to those who are experiencing some real severe issues.

 

EASTER,

I've installed SP3 on 5 computers. No problems at all.

 

Well, I'm having a little problem that I can't seem to resolve. Installation of SP3 went just fine, but now I'm unable to access web sites due to a connection time out problem (the web page server didn't respond). This happens with both IE7 and Firefox, but on other computers the web sites work just fine concurrently.

SP3 must have changed a setting somewhere? I can't seem to determine what happened, however. I'd appreciate any thoughts about a fix.

Thanks.

 

One question I haven't seen addressed:
I have a 10-year old computer (originally Win-95) that I have upgraded to its motherboard's maximum capacity in CPU and Memory (BIOS update, 1 GHz Pentium II, 512 MB Ram). It is now running XP SP2 fairly well.
Will SP3 provide any alleged advantage on a "minimal" hardware setup, or is it the opposite; i.e. SP3 contains MORE STUFF that will just bloat and bog-down my poor old machine ?

SP3 is now showing up on my Windows Update, but I have resisted downloading it.

Thanks.

 

After I installed SP3, I was able to delete between 300 and 400 obsolete files with Reg Supreme Pro, my registry cleaner. So I guess it's like swapping files in and out more or less.

 

No NOTICABLE performance difference from SP2 to SP3 on my PC, which is a P3 800 with 512 mb ram.

 

No problems here installing SP3 - on a number of machines, also have a XP Pro SP3 disk ready to use.

 

Why is this thread named as such? Everyone has installed SP3 and are happy with it.

 

Here is a Microsoft Office benchmark comparing XP SP2 to XP SP3 pre-release version.

 

I seem to have the same issue as assethound - while download and installation went fine, I now lose internet connection after a few minutes. Other pc on the same network can connect without problems.

 

Well, not **everyone**. Personally, although I was able to update a couple of machines to SP3, trying to even get then thing installed on a third machine was a nightmare. In fact, I never was able to do so.

Ultimately, I gave up after countless hours of futzing around; the same error message appeared over and over, ad infinitum, and despite following myriad suggestions from MS Support (and a whole host of other folks), it was a no-go.

Additionally, I have noticed absolutely **zero** improvement performance-wise with SP3 vs SP2. Not sure what's happening in terms of security but re stability and performance, SP3 doesn't look much different than SP2 from my perspective.....and more than just a few are experiencing post-installation issues as well. FWIW........

 

Nowadays systems are very complex in terms of security and services running at all levels. There's a high probability to run into a conflict whenever a change is made. One can't expect MS to guess all the possible configurations that are around.

Most people agree there aren't any obvious advantages from SP3, so if one experiences any problems, the answer is to stay with SP2.

 

I just installed SP3 to a sixth computer. The computer had a fresh restored WinXP SP2 OS. It was a basic Windows install without any apps. No antivirus app.

The SP3 install took 6 1/2 minutes.

After deleting ....

C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$
C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles

.... the C: drive had an extra 50 MB Free Space over the pre SP3 value. Windows "may" have been snappier, but that's subjective. The extra free space is a bonus if you are frequently imaging your C: drive. I like to keep the C: drive lean.

 

Yeah, I agree; you're 100% on target in that there are a ridiculous number of possible configurations and MS can't be expected to address each one.

On the other hand, consider that in my last-gasp attempt to get SP3 installed, I stripped the machine down to the point where there was **nothing** but XP Home on it, I should have been able to install the service pack. I mean, with absolutely every piece of software (including 3rd party drivers) removed, I'd like to think a lousy service pack would at least install and not error out.

 

No problems here. I disabled my Av (NOD V3.0.650.0) before downloading and installing.

 

I want that extra gigabyte to make each snapshot larger in order to slow down my copy/update and my backup.

 

Pete, I average about a 50 MB gain in free space after installing SP3. See Post #42.

 

Yes.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=207221&page=2#49

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=207221&page=3#69

 

Just did some basic testing to check the installation size of a fresh xp install with various service packs.

Windows XP Pro SP1 - 1.35gig
Windows XP Pro SP2 - 1.45gig
Windows XP Pro SP3 - 1.49gig

The only tweak i have done is to disable SFC to help speed up installation.