SP2 Killed my computer

[envy]

Just installed SP2, rebooted, and it just stops at the "windows is starting up..." screen. Its been there for ages now, my computer is usually lightning fast....see sig... I havent been able to get back in to windows yet...
Any ideas? Thanks :bang head:

[Mr B]

Just installed SP2, rebooted, and it just stops at the "windows is starting up..." screen. Its been there for ages now, my computer is usually lightning fast....see sig... I havent been able to get back in to windows yet...
Any ideas? Thanks :bang head:

You did back up things before doing this, right??

Can you get in in Safe Mode?

B.

[Lummoxx]

I heard it was slow there...could take 30-45 mins while at that screen.

Personally, I haven't tried SP2 yet.

[Mr B]

I heard it was slow there...could take 30-45 mins while at that screen.

Personally, I haven't tried SP2 yet.

Running w/ it right now. Fresh install of it slipstreamed into a new install CD.

Got the file right from MS themselves. No lags on my system at all. The tech guy at my school put it on his lappy, same routine, with no problems.

We tried putting it onto one of the school PC's (an older IBM P/// 600 rig) as an update (not fresh install) and it hosed the system.

Most of the issues I'm seeing seem to be people installing it without formatting and reinstalling.

It's known that this SP has issues. If you're gonna give it a try, test it on a spare hard drive first (if possible), and definitely back up anything important if you put it on your main rig!!

And get the file directly from Microsoft.....I've seen a good many who didn't have problems too. And depending on the source of it (other than MS), god only knows what else might be slipped into it.

[MadSkillzMan]

if u had a CUSTOM BOOT SCREEN u may be screwed. i found out that u MUST backup ur originial boot.ini, AND put the old one back into play before you upgrade.

personaly, SP2 caused me nothing but problems, and i did it right after a fresh install. it refused to allow any od DISCREET's softwware to be installed....it claimed it couldnt find the files that were on the CD. it also lagged it. SP2 im never going to.

[Audioaficionado]

I dunno why some get hosed systems even after a fresh install of XP. I installed it over two existing XPpro sp1 systems and had no issues so far. My main rig, Xeon duallie, had a 5 month old XP installation before applying the IT net install SP2 downloaded from Microsoft. I think is has someting to do with the combination of hardware and drivers required. I had to downgrade both computer's nVidia graphics drivers to the plain vanilla Microsoft versions to get some apps and games to work again. I think I'll try the nVidia drivers again in a while after nVidia fixes the problem from their end.

One thing I did differant is to extact the SP2.exe into the i386 folder and install from that folder by lighting off the i386\update\update.exe.

[deathman20]

Havn't had a problem so far. Installed on a semi new formate of 4 months old now, and 2 other systems that are over 2 years old from the install of XP. They work perfectly right now.

[diggingforgold]

Asus A7N266-VM
Athlon XP 1700+
32MB Integrated GF2 Graphics
40GB Maxtor
16x LiteOn DVD

Fairly simple computer. I used the network install since I wanted a hard copy to save on a disk somewhere so I could keep it handy for any computers that I would need to update.

After installing and restarting, Windows apparently froze up. After about 10 minutes of no activity, I hard-rebooted. After logging in on the welcome screen, I had to wait about 20 minutes to get Task Manager to finally appear. Another 10 minutes later I finally got explorer to load completely and show my desktop. Starting FireFox took an additional 5 minutes.

Why is this computer so freaking slow!!! It had the fastest bootup time of all the computers in my house, and has never given me a single problem (except for onboard nic).

I've heard plenty of dell users have shows similar problems, so I know I'm not alone. But I installed SP2 on my main system (specs in sig) with no problems at all. I noticed some increase in performance, too.

[schismspeak]

I don't know what to tell ya besides forget it, I just installed it with the cd I just got in the mail from microsoft, I don't know how long it took as I left my pc for over an hour and forgot about it, but it was finished when I got back, rebooted, took an extra 2-3 min to get into windows the first time, but works just fine now. It does load 3rd party drivers and stuff, so it is probably a driver glitch or something. It really isn't necissary as long as you keep the pc up to date with security fixes, but I wouldn't be happy if it hosed my system either.

[Syx]

I've installed SP2 on 3 computers and they're all running great, I just today got the SP2 CD in the mail from microsoft.

[Carskick]

I installed SP2 on my signature system, and after disabling the firewall, my PC actually boots faster than it did with SP1. My only complaint with SP2 so far is that WC3 seems to be a little less smooth in some instances.

[dark_15]

hmmm... odd... I had a Dell Latitude CPT, a shuttle XPC SN85G4, and a Dell optiplex 260 install SP2 fine. The XPC and Optiplex were slipstreamed, and the CPT was on a 6 month old image that had tons of programs and software installed on it...

...And I've YET to see a problem...

[diggingforgold]

After the first 3 reboots, my a7n266-vm is back to working quickly again. Dunno what happened... but it seems to work find now.

[Sucka]

I've been running it (msoft released version) since day one on 2 machines without problems, i tried installing it onto my laptop once from a 4 month old XP Pro install, and another time with a slipstreamed install......both screwed my laptop. I see no reasoning behind this, another one of those weird things...

[NinjaWreck]

I'm sure everyone telling him their computers are working fine with SP2 installed isn't helping. Why does this always seem to be the trend when someone asks for help?

[MadSkillzMan]

i agree, but he hasnt responded with any updates.

[Nerull]

Well if they check back on this thread, this is one main reason why SP2 has hosed some systems.

Spyware Could Bungle XP SP2 Update (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1642449,00.asp)

"The company is warning users of the Windows XP operating system to check for spyware before downloading the free massive security update, called Service Pack 2.

Barry Goff, a group product manager at Microsoft, said some spyware could cause computers to freeze up upon installation of the update."

[Audioaficionado]

Hmmm... you could have a good reason why the hit or miss problems are ocurring. I'm always scanning for and blocking spyware including any Microsoft plants :p I didn't have any problems on the two I did.

[c627627]

Got the file right from MS themselves. No lags on my system at all. And get the file directly from Microsoft.....I've seen a good many who didn't have problems too. And depending on the source of it (other than MS), god only knows what else might be slipped into it.

WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe digital signature testifies to its authenticity, doesn't it?

[Audioaficionado]

WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe digital signature testifies to its authenticity, doesn't it?
More than one of us posted md5 signatures that all agreed for the downloaded WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe. It won't be corrupted as it is a self extracting compressed file like a zip file and should be immune from anything forcing it's way in. However if you have spyware aready running on your machine, it could muck up the copying of the files by SP2 update.exe and leave you with a broken system. I shut off all apps except system services before starting the installation. Including almost everything in the system tray except Zone Alarm Pro.

[c627627]

Right. I thought Mr B was referring to somebody slipping something into the Service Pack 2 exe itself, so I was asking if the Digital Signature (which we would have to manually check) would protect us from that.

Of course, any minor or major update and for that matter any small or big piece of software in existence should probably not be installed without having a Drive Image/Ghost backup of the system from the time when things were functioning OK.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=214369

[Mull]

I have downloaded sp2 from m/s updates and have had no problems. I also got my free cd just for a backup,took about 10 days. There f/w and p/u blocker seam to work just fine.
Mull

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

I'm was on windowsupdate and I saw that SP2 was finally available to me. I decided to install it on my laptop first jus to test it out. It took an exceptionally long time to start up for the irst time, but no more than 5 minutes or so. It's a 2.4GHz P4 laptop.

SP2 seems to be running ok on here, but I noticed it's a bit slower. Certain things seem to take longer and they don't respond to my commands nearly as fast, things like deleting a file take up to 20 sec just for a delete confirmation, and startup time is longer.

The security center is a bit annoying and they added alot more complicated features to the network connections and firewall, took me till this morning to get the wireless connection to work right. I had to update StyleXP to work w/ SP2, but other than that, it's at least running.

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BTW, how do I download a slipstream copy of SP2. I have SP1a on CD and I want to do the same for SP2.
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[I.M.O.G.]

Sticky at top of forum:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=325065

:)

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

Ty