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SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright



 
 
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  #46  
Old September 24th 04, 09:13 PM
cquirke (MVP Win9x)
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Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:07:02 -0700, "KCKeith"

Folks I had a virtually identical experience. The only saving grace is years
ago I learned to install Windows in its own partition and my applications and
data on to separate partitions. So in my case I only lost my Windows install
and my emails in outlook.


You can relocate Outlook's .PST and OE's mail data off C:, as well as
the data locations in "Documents and Settings" (TweakUI for XP).

You should do both, IMO.

After rebuilding my Athlon 64 PC twice now, I have learned a couple of things.


1) The issue seems to be somewhere in installing SP2 while running NTFS
with the compression option turned on. When I had to reformat the drive a
second time, I left compression turned off. I didn't have any issues then.


Don't use compression all over C:; there are several core files that
will not work if compressed!

2) The crashing seems to be related to my BlackICE firewall.


Make verrrrry sure Black Ice is patched against Witty !!!

seriously looking at Symantec & McAffee.


Look beyond those retail turkeys, either to free options (Kerio, AVG)
or paid-for heavywieights (Kaspersky).


-- Risk Management is the clue that asks:

"Why do I keep open buckets of petrol next to all the
ashtrays in the lounge, when I don't even have a car?"
----------------------- ------ ---- --- -- - - - -

Ads
  #47  
Old September 24th 04, 11:01 PM
Rock
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Posts: n/a
Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

trickydicky wrote:

What an interesting thread.

SP2 trashed my 802.11g wireless broadband router connection (the software
not the hardware) it also rendered a number of applications inaccessible
(Corel Draw 8 - not very up to date but pretty mainstream). Windows Explorer
ran at a snail's pace and the hard drive bagen to refuse to boot.

My restore points also failed by the way.

Now I'm not a power user but I do maintain separate hard drives with
programmes on c: and data on d: It helps when I upgrade machines and it
means I can format C: with confidence. I also took a precautionary backup of
data onto CD before I started.

Having spent 3 hours (no exaggeration) on the phone to MS support in
Northern Ireland I was no further towards a recovery. The support technician
informed me that problems with wireless networks and broadband connections is
a common theme with SP2 upgrades.

I finally invoked the tried and tested remedy - I formatted C:, reinstalled
XP (which was an upgrade but only needed a quick peek at my ME disk).
Installed SP2 from a cover disk (cost me GBP 6.49 and a short trip to the
newsagent) and spent a happy afternoon installing essential software whilst
whistling the MS corporate song (not).

It's quite cathartic clearing the decks and spring cleaning the office
whilst waiting for installations to complete. SP2 runs fine now. With the
same software and hardware. All I can conclude is that the programmes
installed into XP SP1 got in the way of SP2's clean installation. It appears
that maybe, even when you disable Norton and Wireless Networking something is
still left resident to trip up SP2.


Your statement, "All I can conclude is that the programmes installed
into XP SP1 got in the way of SP2's clean installation." says volumes.
With all due respect for the problems _some_ people are having and their
grief, there is no way an upgrade of this magnitude -- and of the
operating system no less -- can be expected to cope with all the myriad
permutations. I am neither an MS fan or basher. I don't see how it can
work for everyone no matter how much testing is done.

Shame on Microsoft for not getting it right - 802.11g has been around for a
while as has Norton.


Norton (and in general Symantec products) has caused many problems not
just with SP2. Read the newsgroups and see how many issues are related
to a Symantec product. So it's not only an issue of how long it's been
around but how well coded the product is.


Shame on MVP's for being unsypathetic and arrogant (too many millionaires
forgetting to be human).


I'm sorry but -- MVP's being millionaires? Some might, I don't know,
but certainly not from being MVP's.


Shame on the arrogant geeks who delight in picking holes in others when
their talents could be so much better employed with helpful advice.

Well done to the majority voices of compassion and reason. The truly clever
ones exhibit a social intelligence as well as technical competence.

Have a nice weekend. try to get out and breathe some fresh air. It's only
a computer after all.

Trickydicky



  #48  
Old September 26th 04, 03:43 AM
El Rayo-XP
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

I understand the frustrations of the OP regarding the authentication &
licensing issue involved with the reinstalls. But that it came to this point
is really a hole the OP dug him/herself, and should be treated as a painful
learning experience. I have been through similar purgatories. This is no
justification for the criticisms of MS stated and implied.

On the XP SP2 install problems, I have to say that this has been one of the
better prepared roll-outs I have seen from MS. However, I do not like the
auto-install via WU feature alluded to in previous posts, and think that
users might benefit from some "mandatory speedbumps" along the way before
committing to upgrade.

My install went smooth enough, having installed/updated a couple of items as
advised by OEMs. A radical upgrade such as this requires a modicum of due
diligence employed in advance - and I don't just mean skip-reading some docs.
The problem I see is that many of the folks who like the tricked out,
cutting-edge., blow-ya-pals-away, "built-it-myself-4-less-than-U", killer
systems, have somewhat less respect for the "diligence" part than they have
for the "due". This is unfortunate given that home-built or custom systems
probably need even greater diligence.

I would advise users planning to upgrade to prepare for possible USB issues
with XP SP2. However these can be solved with updates/refreshes of
appropriate chipset INF files. The chipset/motherboard manufacturer should
be included in the due diligence.I

On the subject of Firewalls, avoid Norton/McAfee and most of the other "2nd
wave" companies. Go with the free & effective ZoneALarm (the upgrade to Pro
is well worth it). Of the globocorps, I would choose the CA eTrust Armor.
Both are dang good. I believe that my SP2 install was facilitated by the
prior use of ZA Pro, SpyBot SD, & SpywareBlaster (all free in some form). My
machine was in better shape (with a leaner & cleaner registry), and ZoneAlarm
even recognised the new WIndows Firewall & disabled it (a just choice IMHO,
but you can choose 4 yourself however).

All in all, kudos to MS on this one - pretty smooth for such a radical
upgrade.

"cquirke (MVP Win9x)" wrote:

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:07:02 -0700, "KCKeith"

Folks I had a virtually identical experience. The only saving grace is years
ago I learned to install Windows in its own partition and my applications and
data on to separate partitions. So in my case I only lost my Windows install
and my emails in outlook.


You can relocate Outlook's .PST and OE's mail data off C:, as well as
the data locations in "Documents and Settings" (TweakUI for XP).

You should do both, IMO.

After rebuilding my Athlon 64 PC twice now, I have learned a couple of things.


1) The issue seems to be somewhere in installing SP2 while running NTFS
with the compression option turned on. When I had to reformat the drive a
second time, I left compression turned off. I didn't have any issues then.


Don't use compression all over C:; there are several core files that
will not work if compressed!

2) The crashing seems to be related to my BlackICE firewall.


Make verrrrry sure Black Ice is patched against Witty !!!

seriously looking at Symantec & McAffee.


Look beyond those retail turkeys, either to free options (Kerio, AVG)
or paid-for heavywieights (Kaspersky).


-- Risk Management is the clue that asks:

"Why do I keep open buckets of petrol next to all the
ashtrays in the lounge, when I don't even have a car?"
----------------------- ------ ---- --- -- - - - -


  #49  
Old September 27th 04, 10:11 AM
mik
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

I installed 2 of our xp systems xp home and xp pro and both of them failed
badly.....the xp home editions would not/couldnt not recognise our wireless
network and my xp pro edition crashed and I was not very happy as it was my
work computer....At least I backed up...but that isnt the problem its the
time lost by having to re-install everything and installing my back-ups...all
I can the sooner linux can have some decent accounting software for my
business the sooner I will be dumping Windows.
Mik

"Rho_1r" wrote:

I Installed sp2 no problems at all, I dont understand why so many have these
problems, I dont have one of them.
Rho_1r(VIP) not MVP

"Tom" wrote:


"MJ" wrote in message ...
I did an incredibly dumb think last weekend. I installed Windows
Service Pack 2 because I was informed that it was vital to install the
security updates. My PC worked beautifully prior to SP2. It's a
homebuilt beauty with an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, two SATA 250
GB hard drives, 2 IDEs, a DVD and CD burner with 1.5 GB of RAM. In one
fell swoop it reduced my HD to rubble since it resulted in crashing
half my applications and then causing boot errors so that I couldn't
even boot into windows, repeated automatic restarts, inability to fix
using the worthless Recovery Console, resulting in my needing to
recover my data form lost partitions, move my data all over the
place... etc. etc. etc. what a bloody mess.

I'm still not finished figuring it out but in the process of trying to
resurrect my HD and reinstall windows through repair and then
reinstall over the existing installation of windows (kept crapping out
my PC), I have been informed that all my Windows XP "allocated
installs" are used up. I had to call MS, give them a very long code,
in order to obtain the ability to register my copy of XP. I'm told
that EVERY time that I may have to reinstall I can look forward to
this procedure and having to justify to Microsoft why I need another
install key from them.

Note to Microsoft: If this is an install issue then you should give me
another 20 automatically when I say the phrase "Windows XP required
full reinstalls after an 'update' caused my PC to crash and burn and
require formatting and attempted restore/reinstalls."

It's not a good feeling to be insecure about the fact that the money
you plunked down now requires justification for further installation
in the future.


Sounds like a fairly new system, and totally up to specs for anything XP, including SP2, but you didn't prepare for it. You should have read here, or at MS for the "How Tos" for installing SP2 (or any major MS update/service pack) before installing it.

If your hard drive crapped out, then it is a hardware problem, and should be relegated to the manufacturer for warranty. SP2, Windows (or any software for that matter) doesn't break hardware, people do, or time does!

  #50  
Old September 27th 04, 12:13 PM
Alias
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

Being as you're going to have to do a reinstall anyway, install SP2
immediately after installing the OS and you shouldn't have any problems.
Personally, I wouldn't even try to install SP without reinstalling Windows
first. I have done three computers in two different languages that way and
had no problems whatsoever (other than the hassle of disabling all the new
"security" features in SP2).

Alias

"mik" wrote

I installed 2 of our xp systems xp home and xp pro and both of them failed
badly.....the xp home editions would not/couldnt not recognise our

wireless
network and my xp pro edition crashed and I was not very happy as it was

my
work computer....At least I backed up...but that isnt the problem its the
time lost by having to re-install everything and installing my

back-ups...all
I can the sooner linux can have some decent accounting software for my
business the sooner I will be dumping Windows.
Mik

"Rho_1r" wrote:

I Installed sp2 no problems at all, I dont understand why so many have

these
problems, I dont have one of them.
Rho_1r(VIP) not MVP

"Tom" wrote:


"MJ" wrote in message

...
I did an incredibly dumb think last weekend. I installed Windows
Service Pack 2 because I was informed that it was vital to install

the
security updates. My PC worked beautifully prior to SP2. It's a
homebuilt beauty with an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, two SATA

250
GB hard drives, 2 IDEs, a DVD and CD burner with 1.5 GB of RAM. In

one
fell swoop it reduced my HD to rubble since it resulted in crashing
half my applications and then causing boot errors so that I couldn't
even boot into windows, repeated automatic restarts, inability to

fix
using the worthless Recovery Console, resulting in my needing to
recover my data form lost partitions, move my data all over the
place... etc. etc. etc. what a bloody mess.

I'm still not finished figuring it out but in the process of trying

to
resurrect my HD and reinstall windows through repair and then
reinstall over the existing installation of windows (kept crapping

out
my PC), I have been informed that all my Windows XP "allocated
installs" are used up. I had to call MS, give them a very long code,
in order to obtain the ability to register my copy of XP. I'm told
that EVERY time that I may have to reinstall I can look forward to
this procedure and having to justify to Microsoft why I need another
install key from them.

Note to Microsoft: If this is an install issue then you should give

me
another 20 automatically when I say the phrase "Windows XP required
full reinstalls after an 'update' caused my PC to crash and burn and
require formatting and attempted restore/reinstalls."

It's not a good feeling to be insecure about the fact that the money
you plunked down now requires justification for further installation
in the future.

Sounds like a fairly new system, and totally up to specs for anything

XP, including SP2, but you didn't prepare for it. You should have read here,
or at MS for the "How Tos" for installing SP2 (or any major MS
update/service pack) before installing it.

If your hard drive crapped out, then it is a hardware problem, and

should be relegated to the manufacturer for warranty. SP2, Windows (or any
software for that matter) doesn't break hardware, people do, or time does!



  #51  
Old September 28th 04, 06:03 PM
Defeated
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

I had a similar problem. My PC is as Intel as can be. Intel Motherboard and
P4 2+ghz processor and lots of memory. One major difference is that I had
upgraded to XP Pro. from an earlier version of windows and could not
reistall from an upgrade and had lost my original old windows CD and startup
floppy. After many calls to their help center which offered no help in fact
it was the tech on the MSOFT end that finally killed my machine. After
escalating this to a managers level, they sent me a new CD to install from.
All in all I was down for over a month and am still finding out things that I
have lost as I had to do a total install which wiped out my HD completely. A
real horrifying experience. My faut though, I should know better than to
install this level of upgrade this soon in the cycle. My advice, wait 6
months to install major upgrades. Maybe by then the killer bugs will be fixed

"MJ" wrote:

I did an incredibly dumb think last weekend. I installed Windows
Service Pack 2 because I was informed that it was vital to install the
security updates. My PC worked beautifully prior to SP2. It's a
homebuilt beauty with an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, two SATA 250
GB hard drives, 2 IDEs, a DVD and CD burner with 1.5 GB of RAM. In one
fell swoop it reduced my HD to rubble since it resulted in crashing
half my applications and then causing boot errors so that I couldn't
even boot into windows, repeated automatic restarts, inability to fix
using the worthless Recovery Console, resulting in my needing to
recover my data form lost partitions, move my data all over the
place... etc. etc. etc. what a bloody mess.

I'm still not finished figuring it out but in the process of trying to
resurrect my HD and reinstall windows through repair and then
reinstall over the existing installation of windows (kept crapping out
my PC), I have been informed that all my Windows XP "allocated
installs" are used up. I had to call MS, give them a very long code,
in order to obtain the ability to register my copy of XP. I'm told
that EVERY time that I may have to reinstall I can look forward to
this procedure and having to justify to Microsoft why I need another
install key from them.

Note to Microsoft: If this is an install issue then you should give me
another 20 automatically when I say the phrase "Windows XP required
full reinstalls after an 'update' caused my PC to crash and burn and
require formatting and attempted restore/reinstalls."

It's not a good feeling to be insecure about the fact that the money
you plunked down now requires justification for further installation
in the future.

  #52  
Old September 28th 04, 11:18 PM
Rock
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SP2 Kills PC & Windows XP Copyright

Defeated wrote:

I had a similar problem. My PC is as Intel as can be. Intel Motherboard and
P4 2+ghz processor and lots of memory. One major difference is that I had
upgraded to XP Pro. from an earlier version of windows and could not
reistall from an upgrade and had lost my original old windows CD and startup
floppy. After many calls to their help center which offered no help in fact
it was the tech on the MSOFT end that finally killed my machine. After
escalating this to a managers level, they sent me a new CD to install from.
All in all I was down for over a month and am still finding out things that I
have lost as I had to do a total install which wiped out my HD completely. A
real horrifying experience. My faut though, I should know better than to
install this level of upgrade this soon in the cycle. My advice, wait 6
months to install major upgrades. Maybe by then the killer bugs will be fixed

"MJ" wrote:


I did an incredibly dumb think last weekend. I installed Windows
Service Pack 2 because I was informed that it was vital to install the
security updates. My PC worked beautifully prior to SP2. It's a
homebuilt beauty with an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, two SATA 250
GB hard drives, 2 IDEs, a DVD and CD burner with 1.5 GB of RAM. In one
fell swoop it reduced my HD to rubble since it resulted in crashing
half my applications and then causing boot errors so that I couldn't
even boot into windows, repeated automatic restarts, inability to fix
using the worthless Recovery Console, resulting in my needing to
recover my data form lost partitions, move my data all over the
place... etc. etc. etc. what a bloody mess.

I'm still not finished figuring it out but in the process of trying to
resurrect my HD and reinstall windows through repair and then
reinstall over the existing installation of windows (kept crapping out
my PC), I have been informed that all my Windows XP "allocated
installs" are used up. I had to call MS, give them a very long code,
in order to obtain the ability to register my copy of XP. I'm told
that EVERY time that I may have to reinstall I can look forward to
this procedure and having to justify to Microsoft why I need another
install key from them.

Note to Microsoft: If this is an install issue then you should give me
another 20 automatically when I say the phrase "Windows XP required
full reinstalls after an 'update' caused my PC to crash and burn and
require formatting and attempted restore/reinstalls."

It's not a good feeling to be insecure about the fact that the money
you plunked down now requires justification for further installation
in the future.


Having a complete backup helps too. That is the cornerstone of PC work.

 




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