Are Win2k Service packs essential?

[Tom-boy 0]

This issue has probably been answered before, but I can't find it, so here goes:

I've had some serious probs with Win2k lately. Lost the hard drive twice, the other went completely kaputt, and I've also had a couple of crashes/re-installations of Win2kPro. I'm beginning to think it's the service packs that does it. I've read somewhere, that if you don't have the 'official' disk, the SPs can cause problems. Mine is a copy from a friend of mine. Now when I don't have the SPs, everything is running smoothly, whenbefore with SPs I had to reinstall Win after 2 days, at worst.

So, the question is, are these probs related to the not-so official disk and/or SPs, did I just forget something when installing the SPs, is there a way go around using them and are they really necessary; security and reliability wise? I would need to use the ACT 2.6, which you can't anywhere else but from SP3, so this is kinda important.

[pmistry 0]

I always thought of service packs as only being necessary if you needed the fixes that are included in them. It seems like your system doesn't need any sort of fixes. However, I can see the bind you are in with the need for ACT 2.6. Maybe someone here on the forum knows a workaround for it so it will work on pre-SP3. Or perhaps you can snag an older copy of the kit.

[Tom-boy 0]

Yeah, I agree with you about the absolute necessity of Sps. 'If it ain't broken, don't fix it'. It just that MS pushes these things pretty agressively, so it kinda gives you the feel that you're gonna die if you don't get them, heh.

The ACTs, both 1.5 and 2.6 are total pain to get anywhere,believe me: I've tried.

I'm still wondering, though, whether the crashes and HD damages have anything to do with the copied Win2k CD and the SPs. Apparently, the pirated XPs really don't like SPs. I dunno, that's just what I've heard.

[Christianb 8]

First off service packs are extremely important if you don't want people to hack your system. We no longer live in an age where the only way to get virusses is by downloaded a questionable application off a bulletin board. Rather people can use programs they wrote to try every IP address until they find a sucker, and then do anything and everything they want to that system. Hackers keep finding new holes in it windows and it's perpetually up[censored] interfaces. Although Linux would have the same problem if people used it and or knew how to develop for it.

 

The only protection is to stay recent on "known" security flaws so that the ammount of known holes will be greatly reduced. Since most hackers just use known flaws. As far as your HDs failing, that should have absolutely nothing to do with your SP. It probably means you own an IBM, WD, Maxtor or Fujitsu drive. If it's any of the following tell me the size and speed and I might be able to be more help. Also if you're HD is new it would behoove you to use a newer SP, because the older SPs don't support a EIDE caache size larger than 2MB. If your IDE interface is serial that may be your problem, that's bleeding edge technology and I wouldn't expect it to work right just yet. Personally I'm going to wait another year or two before adopting that technology.

 

As for the fact that your system won't boot, you'll have to be more specific as to your error messages and what you did last. My guess is either you're installing corrupt drivers/software or you have a hardware failure of some sort. Judging by the severity of your descriptions you may have a bad HD and your power supply is probably tits up .

 

Anyways your probably is almost guaranteeably not related to the SP level. Do you have a non-onboard IDE COntroller or Raid controller? That could also be problematic, especially if you haven't installed updated drivers specific to your device that supports SP3.

 

Good Luck,

Christian

[adamvjackson 0]

Quote:

The ACTs, both 1.5 and 2.6 are total pain to get anywhere,believe me: I've tried.

Thanks to the generousity of several people, I now have archived ACT 1.1, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.6. If anyone wants them, let me know. If redistribution of the older versions is not allowed, or someone objects to my distribution of these, I will remove them immediately.

[DosFreak 2]

The only difference from 1.5 to 2.6 is documentation and 2.6 is a consolidated 2k/XP install. Oh, also qfixapp.exe is missing from the start menu in 2.6 for some odd reason.

 

Also SP's are all of the hotfixes that are available on the MS site bundled and tested with each other (more throroughly than the single hotfixes) along with Application Compatibility updates and some drivers.

[Tom-boy 0]

Well, my Maxtor is something called 'Maxtor 40,9 DMA-133 7200 rpm'

that doesn't say much, but in the system management it says also

'Maxtor 6E040L0'.

The last one that busted was also Maxtor, Fluid DMAX+8.

Error messages? Take a pick. Eeverything from almost always booting giving something about having to check physical memory (my OS is in Finnish, so I can't translate all the tech jargo, sorry), to cannot find harddrive, I/O error with some hardware, though Windows says eveything's OK.

Powersupply is brand new, bought this thing in Oct1st.

I don't believe it's the drivers, either. Latest Detonators and Dx, Sound Blaster Live straight from the CD as well as CD-R drivers. This is quite odd, since the software is exactly the same that I used in my previous comp without any failures. But, of coursem the good ole way is to take out some software one by one and see what happens.

Even though I said that I'm not too sure about the necessity of Sps, I'm aware about the security fixes they include and actually feel kinda naked without them. That's why I'm asking here; I'd rather would have them but being totallly sick and tired of fighting with the box all the time, I'm also ready to ditch them, if it helps. But as Christianb said, it shouldn't be the culprit. I dunno, I'm not too comp literate, have to admit.

[pmistry 0]

There are new drivers for SB Live cards, that work well on Windows 2000 and XP. They really fix alot of issues, perhaps you should give them a whirl.

[Christianb 8]

Hi Tom-Boy,

I think I may have just found your problem. Why don't you try not installing DirectX 9 and see what happens? There is absolutely no need to have the latest version of directX until you have a game that actually uses it's updated features. In the mean time it'll just slow down your system and presumably degrade stability as more code means more complexity, greater choas, and additional processing. First I would try uninstalling DirectX and if that doesn't fix it then you might try re-installing and not using DX9. You may even want to try DX8.0a vs DX8.1 since they have a different feature set and that could be part of the problem.

Good Luck,

Christian

[DosFreak 2]

Quote:

Sound Blaster Live straight from the CD

SB drivers straight from the CD...I can hear the axe falling riiiiighht now.

[Christianb 8]

Who makes your CD-RW and is it working at the moment?

[Silver-Dagger 0]

I have read that several people were/are having problems with SP3 when they install it with an already installed and pached 2000 install. I have had better results when I slipstream the SP with the install disk. Just a thought.

[adamvjackson 0]

Quote:

I have read that several people were/are having problems with SP3 when they install it with an already installed and pached 2000 install. I have had better results when I slipstream the SP with the install disk. Just a thought.

This got me thinking a bit... I personally had better luck with a slipstreamed install of XP SP1, and I think all the recent installs of Windows 2000 that I've done were slipstreamed, too. What type of problems had people experienced with patching an existing Windows 2000 install? What previous SP, if any, were already installed?

[Tom-boy 0]

Great! A lot of good ideas here. I also got to think it might be something to do with either Dx9 or SB Live drivers. I've heard that SB has had some serious issues with it and definitely noticed downgrading in performance with DX9+ the latest Detonators. Graphics in otherwise many good games (graphic wise) turned really cheap looking. For trying something different, I installed bit older Detonators (40.82) and it worked better, because uninstalling Dx is such a drag. But I'll take a shot for installing 8.0 (which worked be tter than 8.1, IMO)) and update the Sb drivers and see what happens.

My CD-RW is the cheapo Phillips PCRW4816. Otherwise it works fine, but sometimes the writing speed is slower than it should be capable of.

My SP3s were installed directly over win2kPro from MS.