Windows XP SP3 Creating Havoc 742
ozmanjusri writes "According to Information Week, within hours of its wide availability Windows XP SP3 had drawn hundreds of complaints from users who claim the update is wreaking havoc on their computers. One user said in a Microsoft newsgroup: 'I downloaded and installed [the SP3] package for IT Professionals and Developers on one of my computers. Now I can't get the computer to boot. I don't think Microsoft should have made this a critical update.' Other sites including IT Wire are also reporting problems, which include include random reboots or the inability to boot at all." Note that XP3 won't install on systems running beta IE8; and after a successful SP3 install users will no longer be able to downgrade from IE7 to IE6.
Time to upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:installing SP3 (Score:2, Insightful)
"If it ain't broke don't fix it" does not apply to computers unless you're an end user who doesnt understand how to read the technical benefits you get from a given upgrade/patch/service pack.
Re:installing SP3 (Score:5, Insightful)
No Problems (Score:1, Insightful)
I love the /. bias (Score:5, Insightful)
No news when it's released.
News again when some minority of systems fail the SP3 installation.
I love that Microsoft is held to 100% success rates, too. 100%. Even though there are millions of systems with trillions of potentially screwed up configurations to miss in testing, 100%.
Unless testing for SP3 was going to take hundreds of years, stuff was going to slip through.
Whenever a SP/major update is released ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
If you suspect the SP won't take, just go straight to slipstream, wipe, and reinstall.
Re:Oh Yes It Will (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod this one informative (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:People mess with thier own machines.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft - you never fail to amaze (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:installing SP3 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
But what's that? A bomb icon? Extensions conflicts? Co-operative multitasking... networking and printing from the... Chooser? Ahhhhhh!
Maybe the more complicated install is worth it after all
Re:Access Denied!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
They should put this in the readme.txt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:People mess with thier own machines.. (Score:3, Insightful)
All too often machines arrive with a whole slew of crap-ware pre-installed. These programs are generally either outdated by the time the user gets the PC (ie Real-Player et al), or just half-assed software written by a 2-bit audio-chipset-maker. These programs are rarely tested properly or in a timely manner when it comes to Service Packs, and there's no way MS could ever account for them.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
no IE6? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
If you do a good job of screwing the system, it still can be quicker to start from scratch. Whenever I have a huge upgrade on a development machine, I tend to start from scratch, to hopefully avoid the problems that accumulate over time.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell you how many times I've had to reinstall windows on my PCs.. I've completely lost count.
My Experience... (Score:2, Insightful)
Might be redundant, but I think its become important for people not having problems to report on that now too, considering the heat M$ takes on just about everything these days. If my old computer can handle the process of upgrading to SP3, not sure why its "wreaking havoc" with so many others...
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool a new conspiracy theory (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:2, Insightful)
Not sure what you're rambling on about here. He said the reason it's so difficult to fix a windows system, not run it. This comment thread is discussing the absurdity that even for someone who knows how to fix a computer, Windows makes it too difficult.
To use your analogy, imagine if you took your car to a mechanic because the head gasket was leaking and he said "sorry, your problem is in the engine, and I can't open it up to fix it. You'll have to just get a new engine."
The fact that, in this case, the user of the computer is also the person trying to fix it when it's broken is irrelevant.
/integrate (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I know
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess vista is good enough now... (Score:2, Insightful)
I see this as nothing more than business as usual, bate and switch.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair... (Score:2, Insightful)
As usual, a couple XP installations get broken and there's mass histeria.
I am happy with it (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the "Microsoft Solution". (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the status quo. How many times have you called the help desk to report a problem, only to have them tell you to reboot? When you call the company that made your computer, and you're in the queue waiting to speak to someone, in their litany of instructions you will hear the following: "Please reboot your computer".
When did the "Microsoft Solution" become commonplace? When Microsoft managed to convince the people who use their software that the expectation that their information technology infrastructure will be reliable is unreasonable.
Several factors contribute to this problem: disclaimer of fitness for an intended purpose, lack of liability, a software ecosystem that has relied for far too long on "experts" who haven't read the book that came with their certification, and a lack of any real measure of lost productivity due to poor information technology decisions, in general. And Microsoft has been able to use its dominant position to stave off market forces. The market isn't making Microsoft's software better, and neither is Microsoft.
But good luck getting management or anyone else making a purchasing decision to embrace the idea that a software company should be at least as responsible as any company that manufactures a real, physical product for the quality of their product.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree.
I use linux not Windows, but this is ridiculus!
WinXP sp3 is causing hundreds of complaints?
HUNDREDS?
How many millions of XP users were automatically upgraded to sp3?
Hundreds are complaining. That is a pretty good outcome.
There are plenty of things to bash MS about.
This seems like a non-issue to me.
Re:Mod this one informative (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case it seems that HP and others took disk images from Intel machines and copied them onto AMD machines. That circumvents any test the driver developer might have implemented in the setup program. At best, the driver will re-check for the correct chipset at startup (and what then? Refuse to run and leave the OS minus an important driver? Almost as bad).
In short, the really surprising thing is that the computers did NOT fail under SP2. The OEMs made a pretty stupid mistake here and deserve to be bashed.
Re:no IE6? (Score:3, Insightful)
And as you imply if you have to run an old insecure browser for some specific task using a VM is probablly a good idea.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
XP was considered bloat and XP doubled the minimum requirements from 2000 Pro.
Vista quadruples the minimum XP processing requirement, octuples XP minimum RAM, decuples the minimum HDD free space, and adds a new requirement for video cards.
On top of all of that, XP and 2000 were essentially the same kernel. There weren't many compatibility issues, and users weren't faced with drastic UI changes.
So, was XP twice as "good" as 2000? Maybe, so people switched. Is Vista ten times as "good" as XP? Plus IT support costs? No, so people aren't switching.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:4, Insightful)
I really prefer 2000 over XP even now. But I tend to use XP, because of particular needs: my laptop is a Tablet PC; there's no "Win2k tablet edition." My desktop is shared with my girlfriend; 2000 doesn't have fast user switching. It really sucks, because I'm morally opposed to activation.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
I had vista on my work laptop for 6 months, I kept hoping that SP1 would fix everything.. after installing it.. I downgraded to XP.
The result?
Battery life went from 1h 40min to 2h 30minutes.
The system now boots to usable state in 3 minutes. With vista, it took 28 minutes to actually get to login screen. After logging in it took another 5 minutes to actually do anything.
I don't have constant UAC annoyance (yes I know that can be turned off, but it was touted to be one of the good new features)
I can actually use 3 legacy corporate programs we need daily which didn't run on vista.
You might assume the laptop was old, but no. It's brand new! Yet my home laptop 4 years old running XP felt 3x faster than the new dual core machine with 3gb memory!
Under the line:
I can get more work done therefore costing less to my employer!
As for w2k, we still run it on few computers. Why upgrade since it works flawlessly and those machines aren't connected to public network.
I don't see any reason for vista deployment. It's like Windows ME all over again.
Only good thing with vista is downgrade right to xp from business and ultimate.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly this whole "Vista is maturing" rubbish doesn't work. Vista is not a child, pet or a plant. It's not expected to grow. It should work out of the box.
Like I mentioned earlier, this mentality that it's acceptable to release a bit of software that costs hundreds of dollars in a broken state is why PC software in general sucks.
Console gaming was always superior to PC gaming in terms of quality because there wasn't any patching. They had to get it right. Where as PC game markets just had to get it sort of right. Now console gaming has the ability to patch games and, no surprise at all, the quality is dropping.
There is no reason software companies, especially one as large and as rich as Microsoft can't get it right on the first go.
Tell me this, are you willing to by a car, dvd player or microwave that only sort of works out of the box and the manufacturer promising to fix it at a later date? If not, then why is it acceptable for Microsoft to do this?
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as most users were concerned, Win98SE was the previous version of Windows.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:4, Insightful)
Claiming Slashdot has an irrational hatred of Microsoft is very facile and for some reason seems to be a rather popular thing to do nowadays (there's generally at least three comments to that effect on every MS-related article), but have you ever stopped to think that maybe people have a real *reason* for their dislike?
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A steady trend of less user control. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time you install sp3 a puppy dies (Score:1, Insightful)
My friend installed SP3 and his system crashed. Apparently it had some kind of virus on it, and upgrading to SP3 caused it to crash, Microsoft should make SP3 compatible with his virus. I'm starting a letter campaign.
My boss installed SP3 and his network stopped working. Granted, the cable fell out, but it's obvious that SP3 must have caused the problem.
Someone I know installed sp3 and their dog got run over by a car, RIGHT after he rebooted. It's obviously SP3 at work.
Thousands of people have installed sp3 and at least 100+ are having problems, this is obviously sp3's fault, because no one ever screws up their computer.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
With any reasonably complex project, if you wait for it to be perfect before you ship it, you go out of business (if you're a commercial company) or you lose relevance (for open source). Meanwhile, for the 99% of people that don't have problems, they wonder why you haven't shipped already, and if you ship then 1% of people cry because they think you shipped too early.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the difference with Windows is that you pay a small fortune for it. And if it's broke, you can't just poke at the code to fix it.
With Vista, all of this has become even more pronounced. Not only was it terribly late anyway, but it was shipped in this really rather broken state. Given that it took them five years to deliver it, waiting another 6 months to deliver something that actually works would have gone a long way to giving Microsoft some credibility. Instead, now they have next to none, with the result that everyone - from the student off to university right up to massive multinational enterprises - is avoiding Vista like the plague.
I think the root of the problem is that Microsoft has lost its way. Completely. Back when they had someone to compete with, the releases came thick and fast, as with Internet Explorer when they were out to crush Netscape. But now, for whatever reason, the company has ground to a halt. Apologists are talking about Windows 7, about eschewing backwards compatibility, a break from the past, a leaner, more modular system - in short, everything Windows Vista was supposed to be. But it won't happen.
Face it, Microsoft is dying.
(Yes, I admit, that last line is a little dramatic. But these days it has an eerie ring of truth to it...)
The trick is ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if we're talking about OS, tools, Office, or service packs. You should *always* let somebody else go first, and wait for an "x.1" version.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:1, Insightful)
You know, I thought the same thing about the cost of Windows (or any other piece of large, complex commercial software out there) until I sat down and did the math. What I found was surprising.
Let's assume you buy the fairly-standard Windows Vista Business Edition. Newegg lists it [newegg.com] for $279, assuming you get the full retail version and not an OEM or upgrade version. Now let's assume you use it for three years. XP users have waited five years, but MS claims they'll never go that long again between upgrades. Time will tell if MS can actually do it, but I digress.
Three years is 1,095 days (assuming no leap years). That means the amortized cost of that Vista buy is right around $0.26, or a tad more than a quarter a day. Most people probably spend more than that on coffee. Unless you work at home (or are unemployed, or walk/ride a bike), you definitely spend several times that amount on either gas for your car or a subway/bus fare every day. If you have the typical $39/month DSL Internet feed, you're paying five times as much per day for that feed compared to the cost of Vista. Depending upon what kind of PC you have and what power costs are like in your area, your daily Slashdot surfing probably costs you more in electricity than Vista does.
Now, you can say that things like Fedora Core are free and thus have no amortized costs, and you'd be right. But to say that Windows costs a "small fortune" is utter absurdity. When considered over the course of a typical Windows OS lifespan, it's probably one of the smallest computer-related costs you'll incur. Even if you throw in Office 2007 Professional ($389 at Newegg [newegg.com]), the cost per day only goes up to $0.61 per day. You can't even buy a bottle of Coca-Cola for that. A small fortune? I don't think so.
Re:One problem machine out of many installs (Score:3, Insightful)
a) That's $276 that can't go towards other improvements in the business, or that we could use to pay employees a bit more salary. And that $276 buys you zilch in terms of support, while with open-source I could probably get a decent support contract for $100/desktop per year. If I'm going to spend money, it better be to make our jobs easier.
b) We have to deal with tracking the licenses. Which is a damn PITA. Or else we have to install some sort of license server from Microsoft (more $$$ for the hardware and OS). I hate tracking licenses for commercial software.
c) We have to deal with Vista's opinions about tracking whether it is licensed or not. A ticking bomb waiting to go off resulting in support headaches.
what a bunch of bs (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you expect if you try and install SP3 over a machine thats been running SP2 for god knows how long and picking up gunk from the internet etc, slowly corrupting drivers etc.
Any sane person, and im one of them, would slipstream SP3 into the original release and install that fresh....
So after doing this i have:
The one thing i had to do was download IE7 off the net, i tried using the one from AutoPatcher (how i loved thee), but it wouldnt install. Other than this its been brilliant.
So the person who started this topic and the pages around the net are proof that a certain segment of people will always try and do things the hard. I never thought id say this, but stop blaming Microsoft, they did their job and SP3 is fine. Again some people just like the sound of their own voice in internet forums, and for once its not me, its the incompetent whingers that post this crap about SP3, take some ownership you mental midgets....i suspect most of the whingers are also the ones without valid product keys too................