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Hello everyone,

I notice that some of you had trouble downloading and installing Service Pack 3 for XP, though these issues seem to have been largely resolved.

I have installed it on one PC and it seems to be trouble-free so far (touch wood), but I wondered if any of you had had any other problems with SP3 after installation?

Thanks

Ben, News Ed

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Problems? Plenty! Here are some comments from a reliable geek on another forum:

I have read with interest some of the postings regarding the SP3 update.
Following the experiences I have had I would like to post the following for people to (if they wish) take note of. (They can of course ignore it entirely).

First
Turn off your windows automatic updates.
The reason for this is that you will get SP3 attempt to download and then install itself. (this is even if you have the auto install disabled).

If you have BT BB, Vodaphone BB, AOL BB then do not bother downloading as SP3 does not like these at all, you will spend hours trying to connect afterwards.

If by some act of fate you do install XP3 the only sure way to get rid is to do a system restore to at least a week before.
It will still go through the act of on boot up having to allow windows to remove all relevant files.
But beware it doesn't remove them you will have to do that by doing a cleaning process, and this is a long winded affair unless someone knows a quicker way of deleting all files.

XP SP3 does not like at least 90% of motherboards in use and for some reason it just does not like any over 5 years old.
XP SP3 does not like AMD 64+ CPU's.

XP SP3 does not like certain types of RAM.
XP SP3 does not like a range of the older graphics cards.
XP SP3 does not like some Lexmark and Epson printers, the drivers become corrupt and therefore do not work properly.

Certain modems will not work on XP SP3.

I could continue in what I have discovered for myself by allowing windows updates to download and install the b/**&y thing.
I have spent all night sorting out a mass of these problems and I am not a happy chappy.

It would appear that MS have released this with so many bugs and glitches in that it is still in a very low Beta stage. (but that is my opinion).

I have read a couple of reports today by googling that show a lot of people are unhappy with the latest update.

Some even compare it to the initial Vista in what it will or will not allow you to run on your PC and what hardware/software it will or will not allow to be compatible.

My (Riki) conclusion: why bother? My XP Pro is running perfectly and I am certainly not going to risk anything with some dodgy update.

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Riki*

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