are my optional XP sp1 software update choices okay?

This time i am going for a pristine sp1 installation! Up to now, I think the choices have been fairly obvious. I know how I am inclined to choose the following, but some, frankly, have me baffled.

Box number:

1) yes. it is not a security update though, i think, and i don't know what it fixes, but i say yes!

2) yes. i have notice many people have installed this and complained that their computers blew up, but i like that they finally included the other guys codec, and it looks slick, so i say: Yes

3) what in the world is this? don't know, don't care. Big No!

4) Microsoft .net --- I have begged and pleaded, but know one will explain this one to me. it logs on to websites for you automatically and that doesnt sound like a security problem? but also it does many mysterious things such that seemingly unrelated software needs it to run. I don't really know. I have never installed it in the past. then again, i have had problems in the past. leaning towards: No

5) Update for HighMAT. This is even harder. from what i understood, when it came out nothing used it anyway. most people probably didn't (don't?) need it. However...i tend to think that it MAY enhance compatablility of CD and DVD drives. If you have ever had a problem with one of these drives with format, or have had occasion to dread the word "aspi"...well, i lean toward: Yes.

Does anyone have any strong agreement / dissagreement of these choices. I am taking a brief break from my installation. Have gone all the way from reformat to pretty much all updates installed. This is just about the point were the install takes a header.

Thanks in Advance,

HandsOff

 

Well, I'm going to ask anyway, because it is not removable. the small (243 kb, i think) upgrade to DirectX 9.0c

- it is not listed as important
- yet it does state that there are security enhancements
- but IT IS NOT REMOVABLE

i think i will pass on it for now to hopefully hear from someone if there is anything wrong with this one, since it cannot be removed.

 

still talking to myself, i realize, but here is another one that is on my suspect list:

The network card update. i can't find much reason to install it, and the old one works fine, and also...Why do they include the option to hide the update in the future. The DirectX 9.0c update was presented in the same way. I assumed it might meant, you may not be able to install it, but with a hardware driver i guess not.

I think i will pass on it. Agree / Disagree?


- HandsOff

 

I haven't downloaded any of those at all. I just don't need them. Let me correct my self, I do have WMP 10

 

Thanks for the reply Big C,

Alot of the DirectX downloads of the past have been pretty important, but i have been to overwhelmed with more important updates to really look into the 9.0c update...still, it could well be important.

And i still cling to a hope that someone will explain what .NET passport does.

And is it a red flag when you see "don't show me this update in the future"?

but I am glad for your reply, because i don't know any flesh and blood people who keep up with this stuff. only "virtual people", by which I mean people like you that i believe are real, but have only been represented to me as a series of 0's and 1's that my computer has reassembled and displayed on my screen.

That being the case, I am vulnerable to the feeling that everyone but me has installed and is using every single update published. In fact, I sometimes feel that as the last hold out, my computer's updates are being put on little magnets on a magnetic white board in Microsoft Headquarters board room, and every morning the little magnets bearing the numbers of the updates that I installed the night before are place on the board, while those bearing the numbers of updates that I have removed are taken off. This is followed by an angry Bill demanding to know why they aren't all up there on the board yet.

I hope this is not really what is going on.

- HandsOff

 

Hi Ron,

The thing is that something just isnt working right when I install SP2, and the programs affected are not exactly the ones I want to fail: My firewall, Internet Explorer, and MS Word. I was angry enough that I was going blast SP2 in a long angry post, but I have hessitated, because if I am in a small minority I would be doing a diservice to microsoft and its customers on the off chance that my knowledge that sp2 sucks turns out to be debateable. That said, i will just use a couple of examples to illustrate my point:

- Microsoft Word is acting quirky. If the curser is placed at the beginning of a line, one must press the enter key twice before a new line is generated. This seems familiar, but I don't remember how I resolved it in the past.

- In MS Word, when you click "Open" in the "File" menu of the menu bar , then click to highlight an existing file, the file name does not appear in the space where you can type (or in the past edit) a file name. This removes what was a very useful method of editing and organizing file long file names without having to type them. - I know thats hard to understand, and may even sound petty, but it saves me work and I like it!

-- Quirky behavior in Internet Explorer "Favorites". It has problems opening user created folders use to organize links. Sometimes folders open if double clicked, sometimes you have to right click and select open. Sometimes it just won't open period.

- Windows Freezing Up all the time. especially when renaming or moving files within an aplication. Froze on snag-it, froze on exit, don't remember the other Programs that cause this to happen. In photoshop last freeze was during an instruction to delete 3 files.

- Task Manager is much slower to appear when invoked by the three finger salute.

- Windows may be saving even more log files than before, at any rate the HDD is definitely getting badly fragmented much quicker than sp1 did (has anyone else observed this?).

- File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING.VER":
modify date/time is constantly changing causing me some minor problems.
(my backup software seems to think this is a file changing without properly updating the date time stamp).

Well, this isnt a flame, just a fact. I can't live with quirky performance. It is very likely that there was something that went wrong in my installation(s). I want someone else to figure it out, I am done using my computer as a cybernetic guinea pig.

 

Google reference to .net passport - http://www.passport.net/Consumer/default.asp?lc=1033&id=2&cbid=24325&rollrs=11&lc=1033

eBay is dropping passport, as Monster.com did in October. Microsoft will continue its use for Hotmail, but is not promoting it anymore?