Thread: SP2 is a pain in the ***

SP2 is the "Idiot's Service Pack".
Microsoft wants to make sure you know that you don't have all the latest tools and features installed that they think you should, even if you don't need them.

I just spent an hour helping a friend's aunt get that crap uninstalled. It just decided to start DLing in the background, without asking first, which hogged her AOL DIALUP connection for a good two hours, then took another 30 minutes to install, only to completely kill the start menu, and her printer. When I mean it killed the start menu, I mean that the whole taskbar was gone, save for a tiny sliver of it at the bottom of the screen. There was no way to get it to popup. Windows key, CTRL-ESC, the works, it was all fried. On top of all that SP2 was all popping ****e up about "YOU DON'T HAVE A FIREWALL INSTALLED!!! YOU DON'T HAVE ANTIVIRUS!! OMG!!1!1!!one"
She didn't need a firewall (dialup, duh), and she had Norton AV 2004 installed. Stupid service pack. Anyone who knows what they're doing with WinXP does NOT need that damnable thing. I have a router (firewall) and Symantec's Antivirus installed, and I have yet to have cause to worry about ANYTHING. Of course, NOT using Internet Explorer helps alot, but cmon people. SP2 is making our service tech filthy frigging rich in service commissions. All damned day long we have a stream of people bringing in their Dell, HP, Gateway etc systems to have them re-loaded after getting nailed by that voracious, annoying turd. ACK!!!!

Thanks for this thread btw, I needed to vent a little myself....

Originally Posted by deadweasel

... Anyone who knows what they're doing with WinXP does NOT need that damnable thing.

Untill you get owned by one of the massive security holes it's designed to patch.

They need an SP2 light version. Fixes security holes but leaves the baby face stuff turned off.

To be honest, I don't have a single problem with it on any of my own systems. I've had 1 client computer not take SP2 well.

This leads me to believe that something has to be broken in your system to begin with, for you to run into problems.

Originally Posted by fluffy2097

Untill you get owned by one of the massive security holes it's designed to patch.

They need an SP2 light version. Fixes security holes but leaves the baby face stuff turned off.

To be honest, I don't have a single problem with it on any of my own systems. I've had 1 client computer not take SP2 well.

This leads me to believe that something has to be broken in your system to begin with, for you to run into problems.

Not broken, incompatible. Too many weird conflicts with all the mess of drivers possible to be installed...

Good idea about SP2 lite though. Too bad MS isn't in the habit of listening to its customers.

I'm sorry but most of you don't know what you are talking about.

The alerts can be turned off in the control panel.
Automatic updates is turned on or off only if you tell it to.

And yes, even on dialup, you need a firewall. I got a worm on dialup
10 minutes in, and that was at 14.4k on a cell phone.

A lot of you guys problems is you guys like to tinker and **** with
things you shouldn't, and when you install patches, it ****s up.

Go figure.

Originally Posted by frodobaggins

I'm sorry but most of you don't know what you are talking about.

The alerts can be turned off in the control panel.
Automatic updates is turned on or off only if you tell it to.

And yes, even on dialup, you need a firewall. I got a worm on dialup
10 minutes in, and that was at 14.4k on a cell phone.

A lot of you guys problems is you guys like to tinker and **** with
things you shouldn't, and when you install patches, it ****s up.

Go figure.

Sorry my friend, have to disagree on this one.

Auto Updates are re-enabled when you apply SP2, whether you tell it to or not. I have to disable those stupid nags, which popup even if you don't need them.
A firewall will NOT stop you from getting a worm. It will, however, keep someone from talking to a trojan on your machine and taking direct control of it. Antivirus software is the only way to block worms, viruses (virii?) and trojans. Regardless, if you have dialup, you don't really need a firewall, since your IP changes with each connection, and it's not worth a cracker's time to try to take control of a dialup-connected machine anyhow, unless he/she has some personal vendetta against the victim.

Bottom line is that SP2 will completely fark a machine that was plain jane vanilla install, but there's no telling what hardware configuration causes it. We have been crawling all over this issue in the lab, and since MS won't even acknowledge our issues (we're an OEM for them too, go figure), we worked long and hard to determine that the problems with SP2 are directly related to conflicts with specific drivers. Here's the "funny" part: if you are running hardware that is running drivers that are not "Microsoft Certified", you are more than twice as likely to be brought down by SP2. This includes a large majority of video cards by both nVidia and ATI, as well as every current Creative Labs soundcard, EXCEPT those built specifically for big box MS OEMs, such as Dell and HP. What's hilarious is that since Dell and HP (among others) offer the capability to customize your box when you order, you stand a good chance of getting hardware that uses drivers that will conflict with SP2.

The only way that we have found, in our lab at least, to successfully guarantee a proper working SP2 installation is to install a new OS, fresh, that has SP2 already embedded from the CD. At that point, nearly everything works just fine. Upgrading to SP2 creates the biggest nightmare I have seen direct from MS' bench yet.

Other than that, cool OS.

Originally Posted by frodobaggins

I'm sorry but most of you don't know what you are talking about...A lot of you guys problems is you guys like to tinker and **** with things you shouldn't, and when you install patches, it ****s up.
Go figure.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one. I don't mind the new security pop-ups and the new security control panel, I always have some form of Anti-virus installed anyways. What I think is complete bull**** is that it's a FACT that applying SP2 has broken hundreds of apps. Also, many third party "non-MS approved" drivers are crapping out (bluetooth and video cards, most commonly). Microsoft won't do anything about that they would rather say everybody else fix your software to work with ours because we have a monolopy on the PC world, everyone bow down to us. So basically everyone out there submit to Microsoft, or else your hardware/software won't work properly. Frodo, you say it works perfectly on 60 computers, well I would guess that these 60 computers are at your work (or do you have 60 computers at home)? If there at work chances are you run a handful of apps, of which most are probably made by Microsoft (Word, Excel, Access, etc). I'm just guessing here and assuming that your work environment is similar to mine. Well SP2 works fine at my computer at work, probably because it only has MS Office on it and maybe a couple other apps. Well 3 computers that I've installed SP2 on so far at home that I use for lots of things (DVD/CD Burning, Divx/MP3 encoding, Web design, PhotoShop, etc.) have all had some sort of problem when SP2 was first released. Of course now that it's been out for a while some of the issues have been fixed thanks to the software developers (no thanks to MS).

Software Vendors were warned, more than a year in advance, what would need to be
change for compliance with SP2.

why not some compatibility mode? it seems that wouldn't be too hard, considering all the other work put into sp2. Certain programs arent supported anymore, certain drivers dont wanna work

Originally Posted by frodobaggins

Software Vendors were warned, more than a year in advance, what would need to be
change for compliance with SP2.

Sure, no problem, but then, not too many developers are privy to precisely how MS does many things at the core level. MS says "you need to change this and this to be compliant with SP2". Developers do so, but then, they can't (or won't) afford the stupid mess of money MS wants to have them "certify" the drivers/programs, and nobody can deny that MS would find a way to punish those who didn't pay. Come on, I've been using top-name hardware for years now, and under XP, ALL the drivers trigger a "not certified" warning. Crap.

You know, too many people rely on Windows as their primary OS for MS to be pulling this crap. I have had many really ****ed off customers, thinking that it would be a good thing to let their business machines handle auto-updates, then come in to work and find all the machines are suddenly completely useless. Those people come to us for help, and we call MS trying to get some answers, and we've been run around in circles endlessly about it. Some of the techs over there claim to be unaware of any problems, others say they know about it, but can't do anything about it, and a couple of them tried to get credit card info from me so they could charge me for the help desk calls!!! (As a private user, I would expect that, but we are a contracted OEM, and they aren't supposed to charge the poor employee calling them).

Anyhow, MS shouldn't be making changes to the OS that many many many people use, without having made sure that it would work properly. I for one have had it up to here with their using me as a beta tester. I didn't pay the exhorbitant amount of money for a home desktop OS just to have it fail when I needed it most, simply because the developer wants to control my installation so tightly, and refuses to test their product thoroughly.

Last time I EVER buy an OS from them again. If I EVER install Longhorn, after its final release, you can bet that I won't have paid for it, and I likely won't keep it installed for long anyhow.

*Glad to have a Linux box handy for those unexpected update situations*

PS: For those who read this and assumed "here's another Linux fanatic", yes I like Linux, but I still love Windows the best. I just can't stand how MS is managing their development track, and their business practices. Yes Linux r0x0rz, but Windows pwns IMO