Problems with Service Pack 2 to Windows XP

[michaeljbrooks 0]

The service pack seemed to install properly and re-boot, and at the boot-up screen where Windows XP asked whether to turn 'automatic updates' on or off I chose off since I never want Windows to access the Internet without my permission.

After the 'automatic updates' window disappeared there appeared a bright blue blank screen where Windows XP 'froze' for a half hour or so until I finally re-booted.

After re-boot Windows XP got to the login screen where I input my password as usual.

My chosen Windows XP background screen appeared but the desktop icons and task bars would not apppear.

I could bring up the Windows task manager window so I shut down Windows XP and the identical behavior appeared the next two times I tried booting up.

I booted into 'safe mode' and un-installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 using the 'Control Panel-Add or remove programs' function.

It is fortunate that I am distrustful of Internet updates and always download update programs that can be removed and re-installed solely under my control.

My computer is now operating fine as it was before I installed service pack 2.

I concluded that Windows XP Service Pack 2 is not ready for prime time yet.

[Jasbo 0]

lemme get this straight....just because sp2 didn't work on your

particular computer configuration you conclude that sp2 is not ready for prime time? if that was a criteria then we would never

see any progress and we would all still be running dos....sheesh

[belto 0]

i am a beta tester and sp2 has had no problems except in the beginning and it would conflist with MSN Software but they since fixed it. maybe you computer has a lot programs that sp2 will not allow to run because of the risks associated with them, did you try any of your programs? or did you try again and get the express install file because it is available now or go to windows update site?

[peterh 1]

Please noe, I have installed SP2 on a XP Pro with SP1 installed. The first time it booted it took a LONG time for the system to boot and a long time for the Desktop to appear. I think this is normal as the Prefetch stuff needed up[censored] with new SP2 files AND configuration updated after logging in with an Administrator account.

After booting, I would leave it alone until the desktop appears, may take 15-30 mins depending on speed of your system.

 

After installation, everything was fine. Majority of the programs I use work fine. There are some new security dialogs in IE, and new icons in the Control Panel.

 

[Down8 0]

Originally posted by Jasbo:

Quote:

lemme get this straight....just because sp2 didn't work on your

particular computer configuration you conclude that sp2 is not ready for prime time? if that was a criteria then we would never

see any progress and we would all still be running dos....sheesh

That is actually the definition of not being ready. If it doesn't work, especially if it causes major problems, then it's not ready.

 

Conversely, just b/c it worked for you doesn't mean it is ready. I've heard too many of this exact same story, so I'm waiting until I see an SP2a up for grabs.

 

-bZj

[kycuddlelove 0]

I downloaded and installed service pack 2 for win os xp and it crashed my computer and deleted windows operating system. It is definitely not ready yet.

[tsonta101 0]

Originally posted by kycuddlelove:

Quote:

I downloaded and installed service pack 2 for win os xp and it crashed my computer and deleted windows operating system. It is definitely not ready yet.

 

What are your software/hardware specs? List in evere possible detail please

[ScinteX 0]

just a thought but where was this SP2 update from? I had a similar problem with RC1 where it really wrecked something to the extent where the RPC service couldn't start... = a rebuild

I have however had no problems as such with SP2 Final -apart from DEP being off by default but there we are!

 

I also went for the the full 266Mb download and not the slipstreamed one- maybe this helped since it might be possible that the odd update was showing as installed but might not have been properly installed.

 

You could try using Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer just to clarify the integrity of the installed patches and then go from there.

 

 

[tholdswo 0]

MichaeljBrooks

 

I had exactly the same problem as you, my Windows XP background was just blue and the desktop icons and task bars would not apppear. Left this for a while too.

 

I booted into 'safe mode' and un-installed Windows XP Service Pack 2.

 

My windows installation is working ok now, but Service Pack 2 left some problems with the taskbar that I think I have now sorted.

 

Not ready for release...

[mastaodasta 0]

Service Pack 2 is no way ready to be released. I installed it on my friend's computer and his computer got really screwed up. It's now stuck in a endless cycle: Boot Screen, Windows Loading Screen, System Reboot. He doesn't have the recovery console installed so I cant delete it. I'm hunting around for an XP install disc to install the recovery console. If anyone knows how to do it with the files in the i386 folder(b/c i still have access to the i386 folder on my computer) I'd appreciate it.

 

I Repeat SP2 is not ready!!!

[mdma132 0]

I have let windows autoupdate itself to SP2 twice now, and get the same problem

BSOD just after 2 seconds of the WinXP bootup screen.

When I startup in safe mode and check out the event log, I'm seeing that everytime I try to load normally, it's failing to load : processor driver & fips driver. A very strange problem I think as I've installed it on a few machines in work and these seem fine (P4 +AMD xp)

My specs are here: http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/xtreme_2.htm

Has anyone else had problems like this?

[Jerry Atrik 0]

i have never had anything but bad luck installing a service pack over an existing installation. so as a rule i never do.

 

i've done a clean slipstreamed install of sp2 beta or final and absolutely not 1 problem. even the old p3 600 laptop is flawless

[calcnerd 0]

SP2 is defintely not ready.

 

No idea what happened. I installed SP2 yesterday, and it went through flawlessly. Then, after it was done & asked me to restart, pulled up my XP login like usual, then just sits at my desktop wallpaper. No processes load, no quick launch items load, won't even load my start menu. Then, the I get a blue screen of death. Restarted hoping it was just a glitch. Same thing again. Tried to see if I had a restore point. None available. . At this point, I'm getting aggravated, so I went back & repaired XP with my install CD. This got me far enough that I could get my start menu up, my desktop icons up, and myself online, but still no processes running, etc. i booted in safe mode & tried an uninstall, but it didnt show up under add/remove programs. argh. I'm fearing a reformat. Any insight? Thanks in advance.

[Sampson 0]

This is what Microsoft advises though you seem to have already done much of this yourself: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;875355

[thymios 0]

Originally posted by kycuddlelove:

Quote:

I downloaded and installed service pack 2 for win os xp and it crashed my computer and deleted windows operating system. It is definitely not ready yet.

Yeah right...I installed also sp2 and my cat died and also the electricity went off. Come on!

 

 

 

In my computer winxp sp2 works fine so far. I installed it also on my work computer and it's ok there too. I've heared though many people complaining about sp2 making their machines slow or having installation problems. I guess some of us are lucky to have "compatible" sp2 hardware while others are not.

 

Obviously a software company cannot test such a major OS update on every singe hardware combination that exists in the world. And since no earth software is bug free it's very reasonable for some or even many users to have problems.

 

Regards

[JonnyG 0]

Originally posted by mdma132:

Quote:

I have let windows autoupdate itself to SP2 twice now, and get the same problem

BSOD just after 2 seconds of the WinXP bootup screen.

When I startup in safe mode and check out the event log, I'm seeing that everytime I try to load normally, it's failing to load : processor driver & fips driver. A very strange problem I think as I've installed it on a few machines in work and these seem fine (P4 +AMD xp)

My specs are here: http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/xtreme_2.htm

Has anyone else had problems like this?

 

Mdma

 

I have exactly the same problem with my MESH, can't read the BSOD because it's only there for a millisecond before rebooting...I've now given up. MESH advised me to uninstall the video card adaptor in safe mode and reboot. I've done this but still no luck.

 

Let me know if you find a solution

 

Jonny

[thymios 0]

If you want to view the BSOD then boot in safe mode and then go to mycomputer->properties->advanced then on the "Startup and Recovery Section" click settings and then on "system failure" unclick the "Automatically restart" option. Hope it helps

[mdma132 0]

JonnyG

All I could do was boot into safe mode and restore to an earlier date. I tried F8 safe mode with networking but explorer kept trying to crash and send error reports(lameacm.acm was the cause of these) If I din't click 'send' or 'don't send', I was still able to browse around, use regedit, event viewer etc to try come up with a solution. Tried older cpu drivers, new amd64 one from AMD www to no avail plus what is fips???? all I could come up with was summat to do with cryptography?¿? so I thought maybe a couple of services needed disabled/enabled but still the same BSOD. Pain in the butt this, would like to see this processor running a little bit quicker in 32bit XP.

 

[Rothguard 0]

just finished a clean install of xp loaded in office 2003 and norton system works 2003 and all was going well then installed xp sp 2 and tried to restart but it loaded to the xp splash and re-boots over and over again i tried safe mode but it get s to a file called mus.sys and falls over again any suggestions?

 

[Jerry Atrik 0]

easy

see above, make a new integrated install cd (slipstream)

search for the ultimate slipstream guide on these forums and reinstall.

 

installed it on our newest dual xeon engineering workstation yesterday. 17 min from c partition format to first system boot.

 

it's got a quadro pro graphics card and the nvidia drivers really agree with sp2.

[mandrake01 0]

Installing SP2 completely screwed up my video drivers. I have an Asus A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe motherboard with an Asus brand Geforce4 Ti 4200 AGP8x. At first, only minutes after installing SP2, I received a blue screen error with the affected file being nv4_disp.dll. I quickly checked Asus and Nvidia website for updated drivers. After installing updated video driver, my display has deteriorated with pixel dots all over. I reverted back to my original video driver version which helped reduce the numerous pixel dots but problem persists. I even upgraded the nForce driver set for the motherboard as well as the Bios version to no avail. Finally, I completely rebuilt my system with Windows XP including SP2 and to my disbelief, the problem remains. Even during bootup POST, the screen has messed up display with colored vertical bars obscuring the text. I refuse to believe that my hardware is failing since this appears to be driver related. Anyone experience anything like this?

[PTS 0]

Do you by any chance use Norton products? I have two identical machines here at my home. One is using Mcafee products, and the other, Norton. The Mcafee machine installed SP2 without any problems, but the other gave me the exact same problems you are seeing. When I got to the desktop that was missing the Icons and TaskBar, I simply Ctrl-Alt-Del and rebooted. After that it was also working fine.

 

 

Mcafee and SP2 Rock. Norton Antivirus 2003 and SP2 suck big time.

[Roark 0]

Ok here's an interesting problem that I've had trouble finding an answer to...

 

After installing SP2, everything seemed to work fine.

 

I soon discovered, however, that IE was acting strangely. I'd click on a link, and it either loads the page or just says "Done" at the bottom without loading. About 50% chance of either happening. Pages that were coded to open up into a new window opened blank and "Done." So for a few days, I just dealt with it. It'd take a couple clicks to open each link, but it was just annoying and not serious.

 

A few days after, I installed Firefox to see if that would be any different (to see if problem was IE itself or some type of new SP2 firewall or security issue). Same thing happened.

 

Anyone have any idea how I can fix this?

[TechChick 0]

Originally posted by Roark:

Quote:

Ok here's an interesting problem that I've had trouble finding an answer to...

 

After installing SP2, everything seemed to work fine.

 

I soon discovered, however, that IE was acting strangely. I'd click on a link, and it either loads the page or just says "Done" at the bottom without loading. About 50% chance of either happening. Pages that were coded to open up into a new window opened blank and "Done." So for a few days, I just dealt with it. It'd take a couple clicks to open each link, but it was just annoying and not serious.

 

A few days after, I installed Firefox to see if that would be any different (to see if problem was IE itself or some type of new SP2 firewall or security issue). Same thing happened.

 

Anyone have any idea how I can fix this?

 

 

Have you tried to disable the pop-up blocker in sp2?

 

[snakeplissken 0]

I installed XP SP2 on my comp, no problems during install. When I rebooted, however, a black screen appeared with a selection of startup options (last known config, etc.). I selected normal startup and when it got to my bootskin screen (yes I already know about issues with bootskin), it froze. I restarted, the same option screen appeared and I chose 'last known config'. Since then I havent had any problems that I'm aware of with XP SP2.

 

My friend's comp is a COMPLETELY other story. I feel bad, cuz I suggested he download SP2. He got the exact same problem I originally had, except his never was able to load to Windows at all. We also have IDENTICAL systems, bought 5 months apart from the same computer shop. After we repaired Windows using the original XP disk, he did finally manage to get back in. XP SP1 seems to have installed itself over SP2 as it is not in the Add/Remove progs list. He's also experiencing a variety of problems now:

 

1. Brand new Syncmaster 19" LCD monitor is on the fritz, with an inch black bar on the right hand side (never occured before the SP2 install, and no idea what's causing it).

2. Internet Explorer crashes randomly.

3. Cannot access Control Panel, receiving an error message.

4. Windows loads abnormally long now.

5. Windows Media Player won't play video, only audio (again not a problem before the SP2 install).

 

After reading so many issues and frustrations with XP SP2, and taking into account my own experience, I can only conclude that these problems must be very widespread and this upgrade was definately not ready to be released. Microsoft doesn't care, they just want to make money, regardless. Does anyone have any suggestions regarding any of these problems? Thanks in advance...

 

Snake