Problems with Windows XP2

S

sherib

Registered User
Messages
448
I regularly have problems with my PC - error messages, programs not responding, asking Qs about drivers to mention a few. An English friend in the US helps me out or else someone on AAM does. Recently he told me he has problems with Windows XP2 and sent me an extract from The New York Times of 10th April 2005:

The professional caretakers of corporate PC's seem rather leery of Microsoft's promises these days, spurning the most recent package of security improvements and bug fixes offered for Windows XP. Last week, AssetMetrix Research Labs, a research firm based in Ottawa, released the results of a survey of 251 North American companies, measuring the adoption of Windows XP. Only 7 percent of companies had actively embraced the latest improvements, Service Pack 2, released six months ago. The improvements, it turns out, introduce software-compatibility problems. These can be overcome with tinkering but not without aggravation and additional cost for fixes that should not have been necessary in the first place.
Click to expand...

I wonder if someone knowledgeable might comment. Now that I think about it I only updated to SP2 around three months ago and things were smoother before that. Or maybe it's a coincidence.
 
I wouldn't read too much into articles like that. Corporate IT people (especially in large organisations) are always conservative about rolling out changes to installed platforms. The company I work for is only rolling out XP SP2 to us now for example. On the other hand I have been using other PCs with XP SP2 installed with no problems for a good while now. There are some specific issues with XP SP2's interaction with some programs and some other application compatibility issues.

The problem with PCs (and, increasingly, other microprocessor based consumer devices) is that there are so many possible combinations of configurations (e.g. firmware, software, drivers, user settings etc.) and things that can potentially go wrong and that they (with the possible exception of Macs - I'm not an Apple zealot but just stating what seems like the obvious) have not yet reached the same status as most other consumer electronic appliances (i.e. switch them on, use them, switch them off - that's it - like, how many times do you have to reboot your TV or upgrade the firmware/software up to now?). If you are having problems then, while XP SP2 could well be the cause, other changes in the meantime could also contribute to the problems. Can you be a bit more specific about the problems that you have with your PC - e.g. by posting specific error messages or detailed descriptions of the problems and how to reproduce them?

Hope this helps.
 
agree with Clubman, Sp2 problems so far are mostly limited to the firewall and changes to the browser security. Sounds like you might different problems.

What driver errors do you get, also what hardware is invloved, PC and peripherals? Regularly updating drivers is a necessity, Pc or MAC, I'm afraid.

I prefer MAC at home but I hardly have too much hassle with MS at work. Of course at work people tend to do a lot less tinkering on their Pc than at home, the playground for new gadgets :)
 
Funny enough, it turns out that our own corporate XP SP2 rollout has the firewall enabled by default (even though we're already hardware firewalled with a Cisco PIX box so the desktop firewall is effectively redundant - I think that enabling the XP firewall is an oversight on the part of our IS people) and this has caused FlexLM license server checking for some tools to stop working. Even with local admin rights to our PCs we can't seem to switch the XP firewall off which is a bit odd.
 
Slightly off-topic but the register has this story, part of which says;

...Next Tuesday marks the expiry of a Windows XP SP2 blocker tool. When Microsoft released SP2 in August 2004 it offered firms the opportunity to "hold off" the automatic installation of SP2 while still receiving security patches for eight months. That suspension expires on 12 April. Janet Gibbons, Windows client product manager, said that because most corporates used their own deployment tools to impact of the automatic delivery of SP2 via Microsoft's Automatic Update service would "not be huge"...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the comments. If I had known what I know now, I would not have downloaded SP2. Was told SP2 doesn't remove well which I was considering. The article mentioned by sluice22
story
Click to expand...
says exactly the same as the one in the New York Times. If only a quarter of those companies surveyed upgraded to SP2, what hope has a non-expert got? Was also told that Microsoft's next operating system, Longhorn, not out till 2007, won't have these problems. Not much good now.

I use ZoneAlarm's Firewall, recommended on AAM, and found that even when I had inadvertently enabled Windows Firewall as well, it switched itself off and I left it that way. So that can hardly be causing a problem? I will try to make a note of the error messages but it's usually programs not responding, then the Tasks Manager comes up and it takes ages to get back to normal. Everything is slow to respond and I'm pretty fed up with it. Most of the programs I've added are to do with security - excessive zeal after reading A Clean PC! I removed a few of them and that did improve things a while ago.

Wavejumper mentioned drivers; I went to the Microsoft site but couldn't find any to download. I wouldn't know what drivers would be needed anyway or where to find them. I would appreciate if someone could give me some pointers on that if it's not asking too much? From wavejumper's link, it looks like "fixes" are due for release soon. Do you think this will solve the problems?
 
Did you run Windows Update to check for critical system and driver updates other than XP SP2? Are you sure that your problems only started when you installed SP2 as there was some doubt about this in your original post?
 
Yes, I do run Windows updates and have automatic updates enabled. There haven't been any critical ones for a while but Thursday night there were about five or six. I've never seen drivers among them. There is a Driver link which I clicked on but nothing happened. As I said, I wouldn't know which drivers were needed and would depend on the system recognising what's needed. Is that how it works?

Can't be 100% but nearly certain I didn't have these problems before SP2. Over Easter I was close to crashing and only got going again because I had made a set of six boot up disks. I wouldn't be able to do anything with the c: prompt. Soon after upgrading to SP2 (maybe downgrading is more appropriate!) I did start installing programs mentioned in "A Clean PC" and probably overdid that. Along with SP2 maybe that started incompatibility problems?

I would appreciate being told how or where to update drivers since they don't seem to be automatic. Thanks again.
 
Driver problems are only a possibility but in the absence of hard evidence there is no reason to suspect these, or anything else such as XP SP2, specifically. Diagnosing problems such as this involves a process of elimination and an effort to narrow down the problem as specifically as possible. Unfortunately this is difficult to do remotely or by proxy such as via a bulletin board. Is there anybody with good technical expertise in Windows who could help you out more directly? Failing that I would certainly consider the possibility of a reinstall (having backed up user files first) as a last resort.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top