XP SP3: Should I, or Shouldn't I?

J

Jack Hammer

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 8, 2004
Messages
403
It's been sitting down there by the clock for a couple of weeks now, the little Icon from MS to upgrade to SP3. My XP system runs fine, on an older HP. I have no software issues or hangups. So... if I'm having no problems is it generally safe to upgrade or should I keep ignoring the stupid yellow icon?
 
One way to look at it is to update for security purposes. If you're that unsure, test it out through a virtual machine & see if there's anything that would tick you off. I'm quite sure that SP3 is pretty seamless in operational difference vs. SP2.
 
I used XP SP3 on my ThinkPad and I like it quite a bit. There are no amazing features in it, but I do like that I can now install slipstreamed SP3 discs without needing to type in the registration key.
 
I only have 3 XP machines left. I upgraded two to SP3 without a problem. The third upgraded, but ended up with the AGP440.SYS problem. I couldn't fix it, so just installed Vista instead.
 
Just install it already. Hand-wringing right after a Service Pack is released is one thing, but months after? Come on, now.
 
Shoot- I've been installing SP3 on all my machines as I come across without a second thought.... no issues.

Now, I've held off on my REMOTE machine I don't have physical access to should something go wrong though.
 
I just installed SP3 on 35 computers at work here, went off without a hitch.
 
SP3 is mostly just the other service packs and the updates since then rolled into one. You shouldn't even notice a difference after the installation. I've updated over 30 different computers since SP3 came out and it only borked one. It was an old Dell C400 laptop and what messed it up was I updated using an old pre-release SP3 that I accidently forgot to delete and I got a blue screen because of the date or something like that. I installed SP3 on another C400 with the official release and it went without a hitch.

As Home Depot would say: "You Can Do It".
 
I will still recommend you back up important data first. I have an associate that lost some personal files to sp3, and I personally had sp3 wipe out the my pictures folder on one rig(not one of mine). I made a backup first of course;).
 
I didn't have any problems updating to SP3. Still doesn't mean you shouldn't taker precautions.
 
SP3, is for the most part, an update roll up. There is little extra in it that you would not get in pieces via the windows update website anyway. It has nowhere near the number of compatibility issues that Sp2 did because it has nowhere near the changes that could cause them as Sp2 did. The below link has a fair description of what was changed or added.

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...982/Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3.pdf

If you have any older apps that you can't live with out, google around to see if there are any incompatibilities with Sp3. If you don't find any, backup your important stuff, and apply the service pack. Or better yet, do a fresh install with a slipstreamed copy of Xp Sp3.
 
*Bumping* this to add a further endorsement, for the benefit of those people who might still be wondering.

I've today updated my own older laptop. It's a cheap-as-chips Compaq-branded jobbie, made and sold by HP well after the Compaw acquisition, and runs a Sempron CPU with 1Gb RAM and Radeon XPress 200M integrated graphics.

That machine hardly ever even has networking enabled, so it doesn't get updated very often. No need to, because it mainly only gets used for writing and for video/music when I spend time at my bush retreat, where there's no internet connectivity. I'd also held off on updating, because of the much-reported problems a lot of people had after installing XP SP3, whereby lots of pre-built pre-installed machines with AMD processors would end up with a reboot cycle, because the wrong BIOS-related fil(s) had been included in the OS deployment image.


Anyways, with some time on my hands I decided to finally update the thing, to see how it'd go. Logged into Windows Update, and no SP3 offered. So I installed all available updates, and tried again. Still no SP3 offered. Finally I checked System Properties and.......

Yeah, that's right. It'd already been running XP SP3. I'd not even noticed it getting installed!

If any machine was gonna have problems this'n was going to be one of them. Fulfilled the 'danger signs' for machines which had suffered SP related issues in the past, but I saw none of it. Whoopti-doodee!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top