[LTCJ]

This article is almost two and a half weeks old. While the situation described isn't exactly what I experienced, it was close enough to be the final nail in the coffin. I wish I had seen it before trying to update my daughter's Dell desktop before she heads back to college tomorrow morning.

In trying to get my daughter's system somewhat inocculated against what is sure to be an onslot of malware through her dorm's intranet hookup, I attempted to install the newly released XP SP2 tonight. I felt farely confident after having applied the service pack to my own XP Pro installation first. That system at least booted up after the upgrade. Not so for her hapless system.

After the automatic system backup for uninstall purposes (all is right with the world - what? me worry?) and the obligatory "you must reboot" message, the system came up with the nostalgic Blue Screen of Death:

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Windows Logon Process system process terminated with a status of 0xc0000005 {0x00000000 0x00000000}.
The system has been shut down.

After a few hours of searching, monkeying around with the recovery console, and genrally uncharitable thoughts about Washington state in general, I came across the above article.

Bless her heart, my daughter takes the whole thing philosophically and doesn't seem to mind a total nuk'ing & reinstalltion of her system/files. I'd much prefer nuking Microsoft but, in the interest of time, we'll have to go her way. This time.

So, gentle reader, I wish you better fortune than I had - but forewarned is forearmed. SP2 doesn't appear to be completely ready for Prime Time, unless you're a project manager for M$.

A pox on their house.

[Cold Heat]

Did you load the entire thing, or allow MS to do it through the upgrade site that only loads selected portions of the patch after reading the system?

[GeronL]

I am not upgrading, ever!!

[Leroy S. Mort]

Installed SP2 RTM on four computers since it was released and all the installations went perfectly. And I'm not "a project manager for M$."

Installing beta releases, as the authors of this article did, is always risky, but to tag the final release of SP2 with anecdotal FUD isn't appropriate.

[Arkinsaw]

I've been around long enough to know to never to apply a Service Pack on day 1. Experience earned the hard way. Anybody remember the exciting "Doublespace" fun with DOS 5.

[goldstategop]

Never install beta software unless you want to be a guinea pig for Microsoft. The final release of Service Pack 2 should be free of the aforementioned problems.

[NotQuiteCricket]

How did you get the update, since I just went to windows update and XP sp2 was not offered to me?

This crap from MS is bad, because it makes people reluctant to update their systems, meanwhile the internet is overrun with messages from home pcs that have been highjacked.

Looking over the stuff that sp2 "fixed" though, I think that as long as you are a sensible person, and have a firewall like zonealarm (that shows outgoing requests, as well as protects from incoming), use a browser that is not MS, and don't download crap from websites that you don't know, then you should be allset.

Just my opinon anyway.

Yeah the antivirus stuff is iffy in my opinion, as long as you don't open e-mail attachments and have a good firewall/secure browser, there isn't really anway to get a virus.

[M1911A1]

Two SP2 installations on Dell machines with nary a hitch. Perhaps I am lucky.

I used the early release version designed for network deployment.

Backing up files before any upgrade, and as a matter or routine regardless is a good idea.

o conflicts with Norton CE 7.61, but the MS security center feature lists the AV functioning status as "unknown". Big deal, it is there and working.

[LTCJ]

SP2 casulty Ping.

[dalebert]

bump

[Watery Tart]

Bookmarking for later....

[Honcho Bongs]

"Release Candidate" means having the users debug your product.

I downloaded the 272MB version and I've installed it on 5 computers of varying types with no problems whatsoever.

The firewall is easy to disable if you don't need it and the pop-up blocker in IE means I don't need Google's toolbar anymore.

I had been using Mozilla Firefox but I didn't like some of the bugs. It wouldn't return to the same part of a page when you hit the back button and it wouldn't show followed links by changing their color. VERY annoying for eBay users like me.

I'll just wait for IE7 to get tabbed windows.

[COEXERJ145]

I downloaded the full version from the "IT Professionals" part of Microsoft's website. Took forever to install but haven't had a problem with it on my home computer or any PC at work. (Actually amazed about the work PC's as everything seems to cause their Novell software to self destruct.)

[Remington Rebel]

I have been using Sp2 now for about 3 days or so.. NO problems AT ALL! I slipstreamed it onto my winxp pro disk formated then did a fresh install. 0 problems!

[The Bandit]

Windows should be called the install, uninstall, install software.

[montag813]

Have they put out anything for Windows Server 2003?

[chuckles]

I have tried many times to restore from a backup on XP and have failed 100%. I have used backup, Norton Ghost, and Drive Image. I am going to try Nero to make an ISO soon. Does anybody have a foolproof way to get a PC back up after a failure with a backup. I have a dial up and the 40 odd updates take 2 days to download after instaling SP1a, not counting the Norton System works downloads, not counting all the serial number entries on the little chicken $h&t programs I have, not counting all the settings I change to get the right wallpapers, fonts and file attributes I like, and setting the 3 monitors settings. Yes, I tried the settings import feature, got about 50% right. I put my e-mail on another drive folder and my MetaStock data folder on another drive and any other thing I don't want to loose like my documents. XP, of course, has its own place it wants to put all these things. From viruses to blown motherboards and just bad luck, I have had to format C: probably 10 times this year, and it's only August. I would love to have one of those restoral disks to pop in and be up in an hour. I am downloading SP2 as I type, so in about a week of downloading, I will be, of course, doing it again. I'm a geek and can't help myself.

If I could only learn Linux!!! If I could only learn anything,......just anything, at my age.

[Texas_Jarhead]

BUMPMARK for later

[weatherFrEaK]

All computers updated here with full SP2 install and all is fine. Each SP2 upgrade took about 25 minutes to complete, BTW, on fast PCs no more than 6 months old.

[TechJunkYard]

There is a page of user experiences and some workarounds with SP2 posted at the SANS Internet Storm Center web site.

With the huge variety of hardware in use, and the assortment of software that breaks for some and doesn't break for others, it appears that SP2 never goes on the same way twice.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!! To keep track of of observations and experiences with this issue.

I have Windows XP on my computer which is a Dell Dimension 4500S.