Complaints about XP SP3

Do you have problems with XP SP3?

 

Microsoft delay SP3 release because of a glitch problem after installation on some computer.

 

^herd the same!

 

I installed it last night, and I havent noticed anything different. No speed reduction or anything, which is great. So yeah, no compaints!

 

I wen to the MS site but the only thing I found is the overview.pdf for download, I think they remove it.

 

It is located here:

http://download.windowsupdate.com/m..._c81472f7eeea2eca421e116cd4c03e2300ebfde4.exe

 

O cool it is on there. I just grabbed a torrent of it a few days ago, my XP is legit and its a free upgrade so its all good. It definitely came with a few updates.

 

Thank you, I'll wait until I hear there are no problems with this version.

 

Nope, no problems, runs fine and a little faster too.

 

Mixed signals, some are saying that their computers slow down.

 

mine slowed down when I installed the RC awhile ago.

 

here is my experience...
i've been running RC2 for months... on tuesday i downloaded SP3 from the direct link to microsoft.com... i was a little pissed that i had to un-install SP3-RC2 before installing the official SP3... then it got worse when after the un-install, reboot, anf then install SP3 official....
after reboot first thing i did was run WPRIME 1.55,, somehow in the un-install/upgrade windows lost the ability to control my Core2Duo cpu... my Wprime time went up from 53 secs to in excess of 115 seconds...

right then and there i decided to wipe my machine and reinstall XP from the sata slipstream cd i created back in Jan... then did the SP2 update followed by the installation of all my laptop's most current drivers. then i installed the official SP3 i had downloaded....

now all is great!! i've still got a bit of tweaking and a few more apps to install, but my machine is running Wprime @ almost exactly the same speeds as my previous bests (maybe .3 sec slower) and as nice little extra, my registry is as virgin as it can get while still booting... after a little more tweeking using black viper's process guide i'll be ready to make an image for quick restoring in the future....

i'd rate it a solid B+ despite my problems,, and soon i'll have a quick restore image that should be good to go for 2 or 3 years... or until windows 7 comes out!!

later,
bigozone

 

FF and IE tend to crash more...but that's about it so far. Performance is about the same, with office performing maybe a little faster than it used to.

Oh, and some of my other networking software has issues now too. Probably a result of some Vista-tech for network protection that was backported to XP.

 

You've got to let the dust settle - defrag before running ExactBench2008 and similar.

 

That's right, that's why I'm waiting.

 

Just installed this morning, performance a bit faster. My Wprime increase from 43,.. to 42.29

no crash or error yet

 

Anyone else tried to make a clean install with Sp3?
I did that, and now it won't let me activate Windows.

I'm guessing it might be because SP3 isn't available on Windows Update yet or something, so it doesn't get recognized.

So just wondering if anyone else have tried activating Windows *after* installing SP3.

 

I get better performance and also less crashes with everying (so far ZERO)

 

I have no problems with the updates. The only thing I do notice is that halfway it stops updating and ask for a reboot. I guess the other half is already there. I don't really see any significant speed changes.

 

strange, on 3rd day of SP3 ... ZERO issue in browsing/surfing experiences on all browsers that i have (Minefield, IE8, Safari 3.1, O9.5beta2)

networking at work is much more stable as well.

cheers ...

 

not tried that method... my legit XP pro disk is not even SP1... it the original release,,, or i would have tried to slipstream SP3 into my install,,,

but due to my situation,, i have to install windows,,
then SP2,,
then laptop drivers (sound driver requires .NET framework
((which has to be first driver installed for ease of downgrade))).....
then sp3.....

and now my machine is running better than ever.... NO problems... no network issues, no xxxx is not responding,, i have SP3 installed on 3 desktops and my laptop in the sig... 2 of the desktops are HP prebuilts one intel and one AMD... the other is a custom built older P3 using an intel 815 mainboard with a pci sata card,,, all of them are running purrrrfectly!

 

No problems. Might be a touch faster

 

Clean SP3 install on one machine, so far so good.

 

No problem on my desktop at home...

 

Good for you!

 

umm you just have to set the thread count to 2 instead of one on wprime. When I installed sp3 my wprime doubled too untill I noticed it was only counting one thread (1 cpu). If you go into the options of wprime and set it to 2 threads it works fine. My wPrime went down a bit 33.046 --> 32.681

My only issue with SP3 is that my boot time took a decent hit. It is now at 53 seconds when it was at 37 seconds... Don't know why still trying to figure it out.

 

LOL I bluescreened while using Firefox. I was shocked -- I wasn't browsing an unfamiliar site at all. But it only happened once, so I'm not that worried.

Also, the first time I did a fresh boot after installing SP3, I noticed it starts up a lot slower but the performance afterwards is a bit faster. I'll try to do a fresh boot again later to see if that's a permanent thing or what.

So far I have no other complaints. Scored 100+ higher in PCMark05 [which is a bit remarkable, considering the last time I tested with it, this computer barely had anything in it].

Oh, and I also installed SP3 on my desktop, and fortunately no problems at all.

 

0 problems and honestly its maybe a bit faster but imo nothing great though it does score a bit higher in benchmarks i dont physically see much difference.. but i have done the install for many people now and have not has a single issue with it..

 

works fine for me. don't see much difference though.

 

The adjustment is not on the appearance, is more in the power management and other security featuress.

 

by "don't see much difference" I meant in terms of speed or stability etc.. i didn't mean appearance.

 

Sorry, I got confused when you said I don't "see" much....

 

None with my Acer lappie. I had all the updates up to and including the latest on Windows Update.

So, basically, SP 3 but not SP 3 as such.

So out of curiosity I downloaded SP 3 proper yesterday. It's a 316Mb file and had a hassle free download.

So far so good. Slower on start up though. No other issues so far.

And its nice that "Add Remove Programs" shows SP3 instead of all the Windows Hotfixes/Patches that it replaces. And you can uninstall it if you don't like it.

So far it's okay and stable. And burnt to CD. No more expensive downloads after reformatting.

Cheers,
Theo

 

Have you defragged the bootfiles yet?

Gary

 

Yes I went through the whole slew.
TuneXP + Bootvis optimization + MTF defrag (each seperatly to see if anyone of them made it worse)
Regcure checked registry
JKdefrag + Ausologics for defragmenting
Cleaned temporary files
Defraged registry

Did the whole battery and while the boot time went down from the initiall SP3 install it is still higher than before SP3

 

Also took a hit on start up and yes I did the clean up work afterwards. I think we may be able to get better start up times if we slipstreamed SP3 instead of doing the regular install.

 

How could that make any difference? Bootvis and TuneXP are both able to defrag and resequence the boot files. What more could a slpistream do than that???

Gary

 

huh?!

I did not slipstream and do a fresh install. I upgraded from sp2 to sp3.
The point is that SP3 did something to make the boot slower.

 

You might want to go back and look at my message again, I was replying to jin07.

Gary

 

Well, one difference is that when you slipstream it, it doesn't store all the uninstall information. Which means the registry gets slimmed down a bit. But no, I doubt it'd make a noticeable difference.

 

Dang I thought it would make a somewhat noticeable difference by eliminating that junk and superseding SP2. Or at least make it run as well as SP2. Plus, bootvis doesn't run on my system, keep getting turn on tracing (I've also heard that for some it has wreaked XP, though I'm guessing that's rare) and tuneXP didn't do much when I used it. I think it may be time to reinstall XP since I have had it running every waking hour for about a year.

 

I can't be completely sure, since (a) there's a little normal variation in boot times, and (b) my time sense can vary depending on my mood, but it seems to me that I've had just a little bit of a slow-down on boot times. I haven't tried the apres-upgrade cleanups, so I'll give those a try and see if it makes my perceived boot times and better.

 

My only complaint about SP3 is that it's still not officially out yet.

 

And it is for a reason, my theory is the pre-launch it and let the community find the bugs and then they fix it and launch it, is less expensive this way.

 

That's how almost all software is made. The only ones that are released stable are the ones that won't be getting internet access (like Nintendo games).

 

I agree, that's why I always wait before buying a new software.

 

There should be not much complaints with SP3 since it's just a collection of post SP2 updates + some features addition.

 

But it looks like it might not consider all the drivers out there, as it has been reported some issues with some specific drivers.

 

Link???

Gary

 

I think I saw it here;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=242814