Microsoft!!!! AAAAGHHHH!!!!

wintermute

wintermute

Joined
Oct 18, 2007
Messages
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Has anyone besides me had problems installing Service Pack 3 for XP? In the middle of the install, it says it can't copy syssetup.inf and gives me the opportunity to browse for it, which I do. There's the file, right in the directory it was looking in, so I select it and ht retry. Same message pops up, over and over. I finally hit cancel, which terminates the update and restores the backup it made. After this happens the first time, the computer's still working fine, albeit w/o Service Pack 3.

Being a glutton for punishment, I try the whole thing again, same result, except after restoring the backup, I get the Blue Screen of Death. Uh Oh!

I reboot. The desktop pops up, but looks a little funny, like the theme colors have changed to the default. No big deal, seems like most of my settings are okay. Then a message pops up saying that critical system files could not be found and that copies or earlier versions had to be installed. Uh Oh, I reboot again, same message. And my network isn't working. I reconfigure it so that it says I'm connected to my wireless network, but still, I can't get to my router or the network. I try to get into my network connection properties to edit settings, but it says that I can't access my network adaptors (I understand that) and that I should make sure that my Network Services are enabled (whatever that means). I go into my device manager and sure enough, there's nothing listed for Network Adaptors.


GGGGGAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Is anyone else having this problem? I have no idea how to fix this without going to the image of the hard drive I made 3 years ago when I first got the computer and doing a massive amounts of updates. I e-mailed Microsoft support. Hopefully they have some sort of answer.
 
consider yourself lucky i've got a dell and it killed my computer, even to the point that i couldn't perform a restore without my program disk which i didn't have{don't ask}. I can't remember what it is but microsoft has a 1 800 up for install problems with sp3 since they've had so many problems with it. personally i just opted to not install it and continue with other updates. good luck and remember microsoft is either incompetent or evil or both.
 
It installed on my six-year old scratch-built machine with no memorable problems, and stabilized all my USB devices nicely. Sorry to hear you are having problems.
 
Try Windows Service Pack X = Ubuntu Linux

After installing it for dozens of people, many of whom are in their 40s and 50s, I have yet to hear a single complaint.

After all, you can even get it preinstalled on Dell computers... it's about as legit as an Operating System gets.
 
No problems with service pack 3 for me so far. Uneventful installation.

Have you tried a System Restore? (not sure if this is the best option, might wait until more tech savvy folks weigh in,)

You should probably restart in safe mode before you do this.

Click the Start button, then click Run. Type msconfig. Then click Launch System Restore. Click "Restore my computer to an earlier time." Click through the dates on the calender, and you'll probably see the restore point that Windows created before the failed upgrade attempt. Select it, and click the restore button.
 
I installed on this very computer - no problems at all. Of course with Microsoft everything is a crapshoot .....
 
65535 said:
That's why I went Mac.
Click to expand...

you can also go the less expensive and more powerful way, and install a good Linux distribution on the same PC.
I didn't believe it was possible to replace totally Windows with Linux, but now I just have some computer games that don't run under Wine (Linux program for running windows apps). I recommend aMSN to replace Live Messenger, it has almost all the features of Live Messenger. Don't forget to install Firefox too.

The last Kubuntu release (8.10, released yesterday), rocks! very cool looking with KDE4, and should be as good as the precedent one on the other points.

I had a windows crash about 3 months ago, and since I had installed a dual-boot with Kubuntu (for work), I went the lazy way and let Windows as it was, just went on Kubuntu when I needed to use the computer. I now have reinstalled XP but only go with it when I have to play games that are problematic under Wine.

KUBUNTU ROCKS!!! (Ubuntu too if you want a more user-friendly interface)
 
The PC Pitstop site has an ongoing series of articles on SP3, and just issued an update today. They still do not recommend installing the software. There are are problems specific to certain HP models with a particular motherboard/cpu set, problems with ASUS motherboards, various wireless cards, etc.
There are patches available for some of this, but not all.
Their site should have this article up on the front page.

I've used PC pitstop for years as a handy online system checker and source of information; they have a number of good utilities. They will scan your rig online and advise of any problems prior to installing SP3.
 
Thanks everyone. I got a response from a very nice tech at Microsoft tech support, unfortunately, they pointed out that I have two issues and they have to deal with one at a time. Even more unfortunate, they described how to properly install SP3 first, not dealing with how messed up my OS is. The problem with SP3 is exactly what I thought it is: (at least the install) does not play with 3rd party protection software.

This has confirmed what I'm planning to do with the next computer: going Mac. Although with the way Apple's releasing OSes, one wonders if they're getting bloaty too.
 
Anyone puffing around the linux/inix at me I wanted a Mac laptop. Teh is sexay.
 
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