XP SP3 Crashes Some AMD Machines

Stony Stevenson alerts us to new information on the XP SP3-induced crashes that we discussed a few days back. Jesper Johansson, a former program manager for security policy at Microsoft, is maintaining an ongoing log and support site for users affected by any of several problems triggered by XP3. Machines using AMD hardware, particularly HP desktops, seem to have several modes of failure; others affect Intel machines.

Wintel Conspiracy

[chunk08]

Too bad my submission from monday didn't make it, it would have made for some interesting conspiracy theories. AMD and Intel have made the briefs in their anti-trust case public (With heavy censorship^Wediting). One of AMD's contentions is that Intel's compiler is actually written to reduce speed and stability of programs it compiles when said programs are run on AMD processors.

<conspiracy>Maybe Microsoft has a deal with Intel to do the same with SP3 (and other Windows versions/SPs?) or they use Intel's compiler.</conspiracy>

Worth considering.

Re:Limited impact

[chunk08]

Who actually runs Windows XP on "alternative architectures." I am genuinely interested. If I could run a PowerPC PC, I would.

Re:Rename the topic to say INTEL drivers on AMD sy

[Khyber]

HP should NOT be using the same image for their Intel and AMD-based systems. There's always one for the Intel systems and one for AMD systems of each type (So, a DV2000 laptop has two generic system images, one for Intel-based and one for AMD-based. It's almost ALWAYS been this way.)

By the way, this appears to be Microsoft's problem, since HP maintains and is responsible for their own recovery images (all customized for each model and revision of laptop) and their own drivers.

What is the purpose of a service pack?

[sweet_petunias_full_]

Isn't the original purpose of a service pack to add reliability, rather than take it away?

One would think that by SP3 there would only the most minor bugs left to close, but instead giant new ones are opened. Machines that become unbootable? That's pre-alpha quality stuff.

Something is badly broken with their methodology... no wonder they were trying to do a people grab at Yahoo, the higher ups are probably pulling their hair out by now trying to figure out how to fix their organizational problem and maybe they thought a new project built on BSD (but independent from Apple code) with entirely new staff would bail them out.

Re:Ancedote time...

[whoever57]

And your point is?

Really: no-one has suggested that all machines have this problem after SP3 is installed, so one anecdote of a machine that does not suffer any problems is pointless.

Compared to Vista SP1...

[shutdown -p now]

All in all, it still seems to be faring much better than Vista SP1. For what it's worth, the latter is still disabled on Windows Update for one of my PCs (because of "incompatible hardware or drivers").

Re:Limited impact

[afidel]

Windows 2000 had Alpha support up until RTM. Windows 2003 and XP supports x64 and 2003 supports Itanium. The NT codebase is actually fairly portable and there are internal MS projects around running it on various architectures just to make sure they could move with the market if there was ever a huge move off x86/x64 (as unlikely as that is).

Re:Lovely.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking shithead, asshole.

Re:Hey, wait a minute!

[westlake]

and stop buying oem systems and build your own or do a clean install with out all the oem crap / bloat.

That won't solve the problem when some obscure motherboard driver or hardware failure sends your system into a tail spin.

I'll take the odds that the most difficult problems to diagnose are with the custom builds. The video card that has worked loose from its slot. The driver that hasn't been updated since August 2001.

Re:Rename the topic to say INTEL drivers on AMD sy

[Khyber]

"Why not? Shouldn't Windows be flexible enough to use a single system image for commonly available hardware?"

Sadly, no. Due to HP's design methodology, the differences between Intel and AMD based systems are vast. Almost none of the hardware is common, minus the video and perhaps the sound. AMD laptops generally use a Broadcom wireless adapter while Intel uses an Intel-branded wireless adapter, for example. Even the SATA controllers use different drivers (different chipsets, after all,) so even more special drivers are required.

I hated working on laptops for just that reason, so many images to remember for each model and variation. I used to keep a copy of just drivers and a fresh OEM install disc, say screw the laptop reimage bench, and get the OS reinstalled far faster than the overloaded GHOST network.

Re:Limited impact

[pimpimpim]

Actually, I run XP on a Via Cyrix, and some HP Printer software wouldn't want to install because they apparently check for either AMD or Intel CPUs literally, not for x86 compatibility. Bonus for HP is that the free chat-based support (most likely from an Indian called "Bob") was excellent, and he told me I could press something like shift-ctrl and then click the cancel button to proceed with the install for my system.

I had similar problems with installing silverlight, btw "you are not running a supported OS", I kid you not. But hard to try finding decent support there.

I'd probably stay out of SP3 just to be sure.

Re:Typical Microsoft

[LittleGuy]

I'm wondering if they'll solve this before XPSp3 gets pushed down via Automatic Update.

Sound of thousands of rebooting PCs, etc etc.

Re:Microsoft knowingly released unfinished softwar

[lawaetf1]

"The instability helps Microsoft sell new versions of its operating system. "

That would be fine if the newer versions were stabler. My experience with Vista has left me longing for XP.

Re:There is only one problem with this theory

[ConceptJunkie]

SP3 failed utterly in the face of the current market that MS faces.

While I agree with most of what you said, I'm not sure how SP3 "fails utterly". There have been far fewer problems with SP3 than previous service packs. Why, SP2, which is generally regarded as a Very Good Thing (and with good reason) broke a lot more software and machines than SP3 seems to be doing.

I'm usually the first to bash Microsoft when they deserve it, which is 99.9% of the time, but I cannot agree with the assessment that SP3 "fails".

Microsoft in general is "failing utterly" in the current market, but as far as I'm concerned, XP is doing just fine.

Re:There is only one problem with this theory

[crunchy_one]

As a web developer, I routinely install browser betas so that I can catch any problems before they develop. I'm a business and that's called being proactive.

What I also do is run a zoo of Windows / Explorer combos in virtual machines. It's fun to do side by side comparisons. My summary: Vista is much slower at everything.

Maybe SP3 re-activated an old problem.

[Futurepower(R)]

"The link you gave discusses a symptom that applies to SP2 users, not users who ran SP2 fine then 'upgraded' to SP3 and crashes."

Read the article referenced in the Slashdot story. Also, the Microsoft KB article says:
"APPLIES TO
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3, when used with:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition".

The story referenced by the Slashdot story rings true to me. The kind of sloppiness in programming we see from Microsoft sometimes re-activates stopped system services.