Microsoft XP Service Pack 3 - Issues

[intothebigblue]

Microsoft have released SP3 for XP which, in the main, has changes that improves XP's capabilities in communicating with PCs running Vista.

It also includes all security updates released so far for XP. I had read on various tekkie forums that after installing the pack, many people had noticed a significant increase in speed. Many described it as what you would expect by adding a load more RAM. Now I'm always up for a free speed increase, so downloaded the pack. Being very cautious, I decided to set a system restore point and frankly, was very glad I did.

The install went fine, taking about 10 minutes. I rebooted and all seemed well. Now I use my PC for many things as I sometimes work from home but I also play games. We're not talking Solitaire here. Mainly, I play Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 4 and Battlefield 2142 all online. None of them worked. After firing them up, all I got was the games splash screen and then a blank screen. Nothing moved after that. I couldn't break out from this and had to cold reboot. Office programs worked fine, as did uTorrent and various other non-Microsoft applications.

I restored back (which was quite painless!-first time I've had cause to use it) and all was back to normal.

Now I'm not saying this will happen to you, there are a lot of variables involved and what may not work one one PC can work on another. But! I suggest you do as I did and set a restore point just in case.

Oh, and was my PC quicker with SP3 installed? Not that I noticed..

[Garf]

The current release candidate automatically creates a restore point anyway and creates a backup of your system files during the installation wizard in case of something going wrong during setup. Ive installed it on a few machines and been very pleased, but those weren't actually gaming machines.

However, like most people, I'd recommend waiting until the final is released before installing it on any production machines.

[Adrian_K]

Does anyone know when the service pack for Vista is going to be available? I (very foolishly) bought a new PC with vista preinstalled rather than XP, and frankly its pants!

[intothebigblue]

Originally Posted by Garf

The current release candidate automatically creates a restore point anyway and creates a backup of your system files during the installation wizard in case of something going wrong during setup. Ive installed it on a few machines and been very pleased, but those weren't actually gaming machines.

However, like most people, I'd recommend waiting until the final is released before installing it on any production machines.

Well, I wasn't aware of that and it's something you'd only find out after the event so I played it safe!

I was happy to try a pre-release as I flatten my machine every 6 months anyway and it's almost due. If anything went wrong there wouldn't be a problem!

Originally Posted by Adrian_K

Does anyone know when the service pack for Vista is going to be available? I (very foolishly) bought a new PC with vista preinstalled rather than XP, and frankly its pants!

There's nothing I can see on the Microsoft site apart from a beta Vista SP1 refresh, which isn't the same thing. Have you got Automatic Updates on? This should log you onto Microsoft and check if your Vista requires an update.

[Eoin]

The Vista SP isn't on the aotumatic updates list yet as its not released to production. I installed the beta SP1 and it went so badly wrong that it automatically uninstalled itself! Took a few hours too.

[Garf]

Originally Posted by intothebigblue

Well, I wasn't aware of that and it's something you'd only find out after the event so I played it safe!

Unless of course one elects to read the installation guidelines on the download page

[intothebigblue]

What? Me, RTFM?

If I had downloaded it from Microsoft then perhaps. As it was I was given it on disk from work.

[EdHornby]

I'm writing this on a Fujitsu laptop with vista and I can't fault it - I will concur that I've not put much on it other than free firewall/AV software, Firefox, itunes and openOffice but there's been no problems.
I would say that you need a deceent spec machine to run Vista

According to slashdot rumours, looks like the proper release of Vista SP1 will be out very soon because the latest release of Linux is due and M$ want to steal thunder

[Matt-75]

Which latest release of Linux. Theres about 50 different distros. So if they want to get into that p*ssing match, then they better get there boots on. If it was Fedora 8 they are very late, it landed a while back. Maybe its Ubuntu, but you cant call Ubuntu linux, its a bastardisation of a distro.

Besides the day that Microsoft releases a stable product or patches on time, will never happen.

There was a rumour a while back that certain M$ websites had a linux backend due to IIS being buggy as hell. Sort of like Paypal and its Linux servers.