Windows XP SP3 Creating Havoc

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.

One problem machine out of many installs

I have installed SP3 on several systems, and I have only had problems on one. It was my laptop, and I had known there were problems with the underlying Windows installation for months but wondered if SP3 might fix them. It did not. It ended up in an endless cycle of BSoDs from which it never did recover. I ghosted the drive, wiped it clean, and installed from an XP CD with SP3 slipstreamed. Now the laptop is running better than ever. I am not sure if SP3 has anything to do with that, or the fact that it's a fresh install with new, recent drivers. (most likely the clean install.)

The BSoD/stop errors I received pointed to a driver issue with DEP, but without being able to boot even in safe mode there was no easy way to debug the problem. I could have tried a repair install, but I felt more comfortable starting from scratch.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

Windows service packs have never helped broken systems. They have only made them worse. See exhibits SP1 and SP2.

If you suspect the SP won't take, just go straight to slipstream, wipe, and reinstall.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

Look, I'm a Linux fan too, but this isn't a problem necessarily with Windows alone. I have certainly dealt with my fair share of Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora distros that cacked up the big one after an upgrade. Sometimes a reinstall is just easier than trying to figure out what broke, especially on a non-critical machine.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

It's not just Windows where this is the accepted practice. On multiple occasions I've brought in ailing MacBooks (and MacBook Pros) to the Apple store and the only advice the "geniuses" have had for fixing the problem has been a clean reinstall.
It's frustrating, yes. But I don't think the problem is the product, nor the industry. The real problem is that operating systems are complex beasts. The consumer has spoken quite clearly that the most important thing is new features and functionality, not stability. Someday hopefully we'll have our cake and eat it too, but for the time being I don't think we'll be getting away from these issues.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

Ahhh, I'm having dreamy flashbacks to the old Mac System 7 days, when you just replaced the "System" file - or worst case renamed the "System Folder" and replaced it with a fresh one.

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 :) I'm just a bit nostalgic from knowing what every single file did on my PC... DOS was good like that, too.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

The reason it's so difficult to fix a windows system is because you are encouraged to not understand it. With a more open system you can learn where the system files are that get edited and replace any that begin to cause problems. With Windows however you even try to learn about more complex parts of the system like the registry you are greeted with one page messages telling you "It's important. Don't touch it." I know I sound like a open source zealot but it's stuff like this that has made people like me go from not caring either way to pro open source.

Re:One problem machine out of many installs

It's still possible to fubar Linux or Unix or OSX. One advantage that you DO have is that it is possible to do a "real" restore from a working backup...On the other hand, most people are sloppy with backups for their personal machines.

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

It was VMWare? Why the hell didn't you take a snapshot before performing this major OS update?

If there was a failure of one part (e-mail, SSH, even the kernel), you only need to repair or fix that one piece and you're back and running again and that repair can be done independently of other parts of the system.

Guess you've never suffered through a botched libc update.

Oh Yes It Will

Note that XP3 won't install on systems running beta IE8

It won't be offered automatically by Windows Update but it *will* install. However you then can't remove IE8 without ininstalling the service pack first.

Re:Oh Yes It Will

Also, the summary is misleading. If you downgrade to IE6 *before* installing SP3, then you'll be able to install and uninstall IE7 at will, after installing SP3.

Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

In the movie V.I. Warshawski , Kathleen Turner is some sort of hit-woman. Her catch phrase, something like "Sure I've killed a few dozen people, but that's insignificant compared to the population".

One could make a similar statement about SP3.

Not that I'm a MS fan-boy, far from it.

Re:Remember a bad Kathleen Turner movie

"Not that I'm a MS fan-boy, far from it."

Don't worry. I did not feel that was the message you were trying to put across at all.

Your message was clear and unambiguous. You're a fan-boy of murder for hire.

Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

It may be paranoia, but I am considering that given the welcome that Vista has received, Microsoft had no choice but to do this. Producing two OSs that compete with one another is insanity... especially when the product that's winning is not the latest one.

So the solution is fairly obvious - if you can't improve Vista, you can make XP worse. That way, people know they're going to be dissatisfied with your product from the get-go, but at least they'll buy the latest one.

Re:Nudge Nudge Wink Wing

What is so bad about Vista?

Access Denied!!!

Did anyone else get this? Microsoft really screwed this one up. Not only did they release an AUTOMATIC UPDATE that cannot be installed unless you close your antivirus (which isn't possible for my company's antivirus - the only choice is to unload it from the workstation), or to run this utility that changes permissions on all registry values and windows files, BUT they ALSO provided instructions that only make sense in a VISTA environment. For example, telling people to right-click and go to Run As Administrator, or referencing "defltbase.inf", which is a file you only find in Vista.

People mess with thier own machines..

FTA: Typically, the glitches are due to conflicts with software, such as drivers, system files, or applications already resident on the user's PC. The machines arrive in a pristine state. Users then add, sometimes compliant sometimes non-compliant software, hardware, and modify the registry. There should be no surprise that issues will arise. There are less-popular operating systems with upgrade / driver issues way worse than this.

Just a quick thank-you

to all the beta testers out there. You know who you are! We appreciate all your hard work, and when we install SP3 several months from now, when it's ready for release, we'll be sure to think of you sucke^Wkind folks.

Huh

Four systems and counting , including my own laptop, i have upgraded to SP3 and not any problems of any kind. Systems even seem snappier. I did have to replace the standard Windows boot screen on my lappy. SP3 would not install with a custom boot up screen. For all my bile directed at Microsoft, XP is the most stable and versatile Windows I've ever used. People don't want to switch because of that, and Vista offers nothing at all compelling. Especially since it expects you to abandon all your current hardware and peripherals.

I love the /. bias

News about XP SP3 when it's delayed, when it doesn't work with some server...

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.

Issue Specifics

From this article on ComputerWorld [computerworld.com]:

According to Johansson, there appears to be two separate issues. One affects only AMD-equipped PCs sold by Hewlett-Packard Co. "The problem is that HP, apparently along with other OEMs, deploys the same image to Intel-based computers that they do to AMD-based computers," said Johansson. "Because the image for both Intel and AMD is the same, all have the intelppm.sys driver installed and running. That driver provides power management on Intel-based computers. On an AMD-based computer, amdk8.sys provides the same functionality."

Running the intelppm.sys driver on an AMD-powered PC isn't normally an issue, but on the first reboot after a service pack installation, it causes "a big problem," Johansson said. The machine either fails to boot or crashes and immediately reboots.

The other problem, according to Johansson, also seems to affect only AMD machines, and involves an error message indicating trouble with the PC's BIOS. Johansson said that the ensuing recommendation to update the BIOS is "most likely not your problem," but said that the problem may be isolated to a specific motherboard. "Possibly, it is related to computers with the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard in them," he said.

Lost TCP/IP on my install yesterday

I just bought a Lenovo laptop with XP Pro for my wife that came yesterday. The first thing I did after all the initial registration, etc. was to run Windows update. To my surprise, SP3 was available so I installed it. After the install, TCP/IP would not work at all. I called Lenovo and they told me to reload from restore partition - SP3 wipes out TCP/IP for that laptop. After the reload, I updated individual fixes (64 of them) and turned off Automatic Updates so it won't try to slip in SP3 again.

Re:Lost TCP/IP on my install yesterday

I just bought a Lenovo laptop with XP Pro for my wife that came yesterday

... your other wives, that didn't come, get nothing.

-w

Worked well for me

At the risk of getting flamed to hell (this is /.)

SP3 actually improved my old thinkpad. The XP copy on it was really struggling after years of being used as the 'windows toy'. No media (my bad) so I've never reinstalled it. I allowed SP3 on with some trepidation, but the end result is that the machine is a darned sight more spry (fast and responsive) than it was before. I think the installer basically did a good job of repairing the OS while patching it.

I was pretty surprised.. it's pretty rare that anything from Redmond makes me feel that it's an improvement..

Re:installing SP3

Well, do you consider an OS with security holes broken or not? Personally I do; I'd rather deal with MS trying to fix my computer after an SP messes something up than with a virus trojan that I may not even notice at first.

Re:One of the finest pieces of software ever made

The rest of the people can't send in a complaint because their only computer won't boot.