Should I Bother Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3?

Mon, 2008-06-02 19:57 — gfein10463

My OS is XP Pro with SP2. In addition, I believe I have had all my critical MS system upgrades, other than service packs, installed "automatically" for several years, but it is possible that I switched from prompted to unprompted installation somewhere within that time frame. It is therefore possible that if and when I had the prompted installs option selected, I may have missed some upgrades when they were initially offered, but it is likely that I picked any missed ones up when I manually visited the MS download sight and had my system scanned. At present, I am avoiding Vista.

On the one hand, I read at CNET that downloading SP3 was unneccessary if SP2 was installed and all more recent critical XP upgrades were downloaded. Is this true? In addition, SP3 was difficult or "impossible" to install for some of the CNET posters, and/or SP3 created system problems from which it was hard for some to recover to complete the SP3 installation or to return to XP with SP2. What has been your experience in this regard?

On the other hand, also at CNET, it was mentionned that unless SP3 was installed in the near term, the length of time for which MS would support XP would be much more limited. Is this true?

Hopefully, you can provide me with answers to these questions, and make a reccommendation as to how to proceed under any trade-off that remains.

I would also like to know whether the SP3 download is the same for XP and XP Pro, and the best online source, if other than MS, for obtaining the download.

Thanks many times over.

Average: 4 (1 vote)
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Yes

Tue, 2008-06-03 05:45 — admin

Install SP3. After doing that and making sure your system is running fine, you can uninstall all those pre-SP3 patches to clean up your system.

Why should you do it? There are several reasons and supporting facts.

  1. Practically all XP computers at Microsoft will have SP3 installed, and Microsoft will work on that basis. In fact, all or almost all XP support will be directed at systems with SP3 installed, regardless whether that is formal policy or not.
  2. Your system will be cleaner with one service pack installed, rather than a multitude of patches, particularly if you're not sure whether all of them are really correctly installed.
  3. SP3 may contain some improvements over and above those patches.
  4. SP3 has so far caused few problems. Most people are happy with it.
  5. Should you unexpectedly experience a problem with SP3, you can most likely uninstall it again or, should that unexpectedly fail, restore a pre-SP3 backup. You may also be able to do a repair installation from an XP SP2 (slipstream) CD.

So go for it.

There is only one Windows XP Service Pack 3 that can be applied to both XP Home Edition and XP Professional. There are different download formats though. There is a complete SP3 download and there is a much smaller dynamic installation version that downloads only the needed components during the installation. For a larger number of computers download the complete version, which is quite large.

Still more questions? Check the background information on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Should I Bother Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3?

Sat, 2008-06-07 01:50 — gfein10463

In the interest of keeping visitors to this thread fully apprised on this issue, I suggest they read the writup in PC Pitstop's "TechTalk Blog" entitled "Windows XP SP3 Issues and Fixes Continued" -- which I read after my initial postings here. It was published on May 25, 2008, and its conclusion was "DO NOT INSTALL WINDOWS XP SP3."

The writeup is available via the following link: http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2008/05/25/pitstop-news-flash-sp3-still-no...

Please let us know your reactions to this writeup vs. others with alternative recommendations.

ALERT - NB to this site's staff/editor, Hans-Georg Michna: PC Pitstop is a commercial software developer/distributor. If linking to a blog at its site, as above, violates this site's posting policies, please delete this entry. If not, please delete this alert, and if you can, activate the link.

Gene

Interesting list of problems

Sat, 2008-06-07 10:59 — admin

Thanks for the interesting link.

[No worries, anything goes here, except unrelated advertising (like writing a meaningless comment that links to a commercial web site :-). I will later delete this remark and the alert in your comment. Links are instantly effective when you enter them.]

The problem with this warning is that it is not quantified. Of course there are some problems. Every service pack has led to a series of problems with certain kinds of third-party software. Nothing new here.

You will also always find a few articles recommending not to install it. Nothing new here either. Note that such articles can never be wrong. If you install a service pack and it goes wrong, they can say, see, we told you so. If you install it and all goes well, they can say you were just lucky.

Crying wolf is always simple. Recommending to install it takes a tad more guts. I must admit that I don't bear the consequences if your computer fails, but on the other hand I took my own medicine and have installed SP3 on several computers here. There has not been any problem whatsoever.

Admirably though, the article gives solutions to the listed problems as well, which makes me lean even more towards installing SP3.

The real question is, how many people are affected by such problems and how many have installed SP3 without any problems at all? If the latter are the vast majority, which seems to be the case, then installing Service Pack 3 is still recommended.

By the way, Symantec/Norton was mentioned again. Readers of this web site will know that it has several warnings not to install their software or to get rid of it as quickly as possible. I'm not at all surprised to find Symantec involved here.

But altogether I will stick to my recommendation to install Service Pack 3. If you have an installation that is very valuable and important, you will certainly have a complete backup and will be able to revert completely, should any insurmountable problem crop up. But in the long run you want to have the current service pack installed anyway, even in the rare case that you have to deal with side effects.

Should I Bother Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3?

Wed, 2008-06-04 03:26 — gfein10463

Dear Hans-Georg,

Thank you for your very comprehensive response to each of my individual questions. I greatly appreciate that you, as a member of winhlp.com staff, provided the initial response to my very first posting on winhlp. And, it was an excellent response as well

Based on your thorough "reasons and supporting facts," and your recommendation, I will go ahead and download the the "smaller dynamic installation version" of SP3 after performing the "uninstall (of the) pre-SP3 patches that you referenced.

Per the recommendation of PeteC, a staff member at WindowsBBS.com, I will delete IE7 before I install SP3 and reload it thereafter. To quote PeteC:

"You do not have to uninstall IE7 prior to loading SP3, but if you do not you will be unable to do so after SP3 is installed without first uninstalling SP3. You may not have any desire to revert back to IE6 - which is less secure, but problems in IE7 are often solved by uninstalling it and reinstalling. I like to keep all my options open

The IE 7 issue is down to the changes in IE6 in SP3 - in other words if SP3 is installed on a system in which IE7 is already installed a subsequent uninstall of IE7 would try to roll back to the original version of IE6 which no longer exists. Thus the uninstall facility is blocked. Installing IE7 after SP3 allows for a roll back to the SP3 version of IE6 as IE 7 then is aware of the later version."

Further, a member at WindowsBBS.com indicated that they had successfully followed these IE7 recommendations, and found that the whole process went smoothly from beginning to end.

I hope that after you and your members corroborate these IE7 recommendations, you can incorporate them into comparable future recommendations you make regarding SP3 installation.

Because of your response, Hans-Georg, I look forward to becoming an active participant on winhlp.

Thanks many times over.

Gene

You're welcome

Wed, 2008-06-04 06:04 — admin

Just three little remarks:

  • You don't have to uninstall the patches before installing SP3. It's safer to do that only after you have convinced yourself that SP3 works well on your computer, because thus you can uninstall SP3 and still have all the patches.
  • It's an L, not an i, in winhlp.com. I have taken the liberty to change that in your comment to avoid that anybody gets confused.

    But I like "winhip". Perhaps I should use that too.

  • The winhlp.com staff consists of just one person—me. smile However, everybody is free to contribute, and active contributors get their own personal blog.

Should I Bother Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3?

Fri, 2008-06-13 18:29 — gfein10463

Dear Hans (got it right this time),

Thanks for the continuing dialog in this thread.

My first experience at winh"l"p.com, has been both enjoyable and extremely informative. :):)

I'll let you know if my SP3 download is successful.

Gene

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