Win XP Service Pack 3

[Paul Kepen]

I just got the Win XP Service Pack 3 update. I am hesitant to install it until I find out if there are any issues with it. Has anyone tried it yet?
Thanks - Pk

[David Delaney]

yeah, I am still waiting myself...

[Noa Put]

I have sp3 installed and don't notice any difference whatsoever, if sp2 runs fine I don't see any reason to upgrade.

[Hugh Mobley]

you can uninstall if you don't want it, I have it on two computers without a hitch, my main I uninstalled it, thought it was causing me a problem and it probably wasn't,

[John Miller]

If you are fully up to-date with post-SP2 updates from MS, you probably don't need SP3. For the most part, it is a roll-up of all the post-SP2 stuff.

[Paul Cascio]

XP3 seems fine, but there is one caution. Once installed, you can no longer do a repair install with your original XP install disk should you ever need/want to. The workaround is to create a new XP install disk with SP3 slipstreamed into it.

[Paul Kepen]

Originally Posted by Paul Cascio

XP3 seems fine, but there is one caution. Once installed, you can no longer do a repair install with your original XP install disk should you ever need/want to. The workaround is to create a new XP install disk with SP3 slipstreamed into it.

So, is there any reason t upgrage to SP3? If all it is is the total of all the updates that I've installed since my original Win XP sp2 install, what advantage is there to it? Is this the Last update from MS for Win XP?
Paul yousay I won't be able to do a repair install with my original XP disk (which came after sp2). I usually reformat and start over every 1.5-2 years. How do I "create a new XP install disk with SP3 'slipstreamed' into it?
Thanks - PK

[Paul Cascio]

Wow, PK, you make it through a full 1-1/2 years? I'm usually stripping the hard drive about every 6 months. SP3 makes sense for a fresh install. Kind of a condensed way to bring your PC up to date.

Here's a great article that explains how to build a slipstreamed disk. It's a bit of a hassle, but well worth it. I tried it and it works great.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2325399,00.asp

[Paul Kepen]

Originally Posted by Paul Cascio

Wow, PK, you make it through a full 1-1/2 years? I'm usually stripping the hard drive about every 6 months. SP3 makes sense for a fresh install. Kind of a condensed way to bring your PC up to date.

Here's a great article that explains how to build a slipstreamed disk. It's a bit of a hassle, but well worth it. I tried it and it works great.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2325399,00.asp

Thanks Paul for the link. Yea, I guess it would be easier at the Operating System reinstall time to do SP3, vs downloading all of the many updates. I will check the link on slipstreaming out.

Yes, I usually get by pretty good for a year max, However, with a few over lapping projects and no time to 'bite the bullet,' I managed a bit over 1 1/2 years. Things get a little slower, and a few crashes here and there, but not many. It usually takes me several days (2-3) to get everything reasonably back to normal after a reinstall.

[Rick Steele]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

Is this the Last update from MS for Win XP?

We probably won't see a SP4 but XP will be supported for years to come. There are just too many systems out there using it and Vista's lackluster sales has taught MS something.

Now they're working on Windows7 and I'm told it's not anything more than added embellishments on top of Vista.

I did an SP3 upgrade on a laptop with no problems. I heard that XP is now roughly 10% faster doing certain tasks but of course that's hard to tell.

[John Miller]

Windows 7 will be a major upgrade to Vista - hence its number. Win2000 is NT5.0, XP is NT5.1 (a minor upgrade of Win2000), Vista is NT6.0.

The general notion of it being a minor upgrade relates to the fact that the hardware driver model used with Vista will be the same in order to minimize compatibility issues found with the previous major upgrades. There was a big change in driver model from XP to Vista, most notably for audio hardware.

Superficially, it may seem just a tweak/embellishment of the user interface but, as with previous major upgrades, there's a lot of change under the hood. Harking back to Win95 and NT4.0, they looked almost identical but were totally different beasts.

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

I heard that XP is now roughly 10% faster doing certain tasks but of course that's hard to tell.

Primarily MS Office optimizations.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

So, is there any reason t upgrage to SP3? If all it is is the total of all the updates that I've installed since my original Win XP sp2 install, what advantage is there to it? Is this the Last update from MS for Win XP?
Paul yousay I won't be able to do a repair install with my original XP disk (which came after sp2). I usually reformat and start over every 1.5-2 years. How do I "create a new XP install disk with SP3 'slipstreamed' into it?
Thanks - PK

Back in WinME days I refreshed my OS from disc images about every 4-9 months. Now, I've been sitting on the same XP Pro install for a bit over a year with no problems. How did I get no problems? Easy.... I have not updated ANYTHING since SP2. No patches, no updates. Nothing. I also don't use IE (use Firefox), don't have MS office (use OpenOffice.org), run a hardware firewall (locked down router), software 2-way firewall (zone-alarm), and use antivirus (AVG) / anti-ad-ware software (Ad-Aware).

But windows still has a way of junking up the registry after lots and lots of application installs, uninstalls, etc.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by John Miller

Primarily MS Office optimizations.

and also mostly because these optimizations are now built into the OS and pre-loaded when windows starts. That is the XP Way. Make start up horribly slow, but load everything possible so when you go to start application XYV it seems to start super fast, but that is only because of the background process that keep much of the program in resident memory waiting to be brought to the foreground.

[Paul Cascio]

Windows ME actually had what I felt was a terrific Restore function. I never understood why they didn't continue that in later versions. It was simple and clear.