In praise of XP SP3. Yes, really!

[Bob Crabtree]

A mate brought round to me his heavily infested Compaq Presario 2100 notebook PC, running XP Home.

Just for the record, as is the way of things - and contrary to what it says up top of the PC's keyboard - this actually turned out to be a 2143EA/DM963A.

After picking out most of the nasties, I installed Kaspersky Internet Security Suite but couldn't get KIS working fully (a first for me) - despite my having previously run uninstallers for McAfee and Norton.

Firewall was among the things not working in Kaspersky.

So I uninstalled Kaspersky (and then ran the uninstaller supplied by the maker) and installed AVG Pro (my mate has a three-PC license).

But then I ended up in a situation where the wireless wasn't properly installed (Windows kept on trying to re-install it).

I tried to uninstall the software for the built-in wireless card, to no avail, so I disabled the hardware and installed a ZyXEL CardBus wireless card. Trouble is, Windows had the same failed-recognition problem with that.

Oh, and the touchpad hadn't been working - and still wasn't after a re-install of its drivers - and then the mouse stopped working in normal mode and safe mode, whether connected by PS2 or USB).

I tried all the tricks - rolling back drivers (not allowed in this case) and a whole bunch more stuff besides, and had pretty much drawn a blank.

So, in a kill-or-cure attempt, I installed Service Pack 3 (SP3) for XP.

To my amazement, instead of this requiring me to offer profuse apologies, remove SP3 and do a repair-install, SP3 sorted out EVERYTHING - the built-in wireless, the touchpad (which had not be working at the outset - or a long while, in fact) AND the mouse!

I'm not suggesting SP3 as a cure-all but, in my particular case - and it was a situation that had left me comprehensively stumped (and that's really not very common) - it worked a minor miracle.

So, hurray for SP3!

Bob C

[smargh]

Did you try sfc /scannow? That might have replaced the files which SP3 replaced. I'd imagine that tcpip.sys might have been fiddled with by the malware.

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by Bob Crabtree

So, hurray for SP3!

Bob C

Philistine. Everyone knows it's a bloated piece of junk and we should all be sticking with win98

[2Cold Scorpio]

Shoot, my XP installation runs better with SP3 than it did with a fresh install of XP and a slipstreamed-in SP2. And it installed without a hitch, too (unlike Vista's SP1, which after being with tech support with MS for several days, we figured out I had to reinstall because something was corrupted...or something along those lines preventing the SP from finishing its install...).

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by kalniel

Philistine. Everyone knows it's a bloated piece of junk and we should all be sticking with win98

Actually, I wished you hadn't got me onto the subject of Win 98!

Why?

Well, I had a fiddle recently with a PC that had a very clean install of 98 and bags of RAM (less than 256MB!) and it was amazingly fast.

[Bob Crabtree]

Oh and my experience with SP3 emboldened me to install in on my own main work PC this morning - well before the working day began - and it went on speedily and, as far as I can see, has had no adverse effect.

I can't see any positive effect yet but I thought I was due for a fall given the way that SP3 had done the business for me on that other PC.

[timread]

I've had only positive experiences with SP3 personally - on my own PC and quite a few PCs at work now.

I've got no hard figures/perfmon stats, but it just feels to me like systems are about 5-10% more responsive after installing SP3. Which is a pretty useful shot in the arm for many of the systems we're running at work (e.g. optiplex GX280 - pentium 4 2.4 GHz).

Also haven't come across any compatibility issues :-)

[TAKTAK]

hmmmm, interesting, the only encounter i had with SP3 was a friends toshiba laptop where it deleted every single driver

[mingj_14]

I didnt feel any difference in SP3 with SP2 lol?
is it just my computer or something

[keef247]

my rents box had a 512mb ram module die so rendered it with 512mb i was about to do a format thinking urgh this is going to be SO slow now (old barton 2800 machine) and i went for sp3 install and to my amazement even with all the stuff they use its so smooth.
result i'd highly recommend sp3