No Windows XP SP-2 For Me!!!

[jman19999]

Guys,

I want to start out by saying that, with few exceptions, I am a Microsoft basher. This is because so many of their products just do not do what they are supposed to do. As much as I like the new features of new technology, all of us know about reliability problems with their computers since day one. I have been running Windows XP SP-1 on a brand new Dell with no problems. As you may, or may not know, if you run Windows Update or Automatic Update, you are given the opportunity to install this major operating system upgrade on XP called Service Pack 2. Service Pack 2 is a HUGE operating system upgrade overhall that has a bunch of security fixes and features that CLAIM to improve the performance of the Windows XP OS.

I have been reading some of the statistical information about the upgrade. It appears that 75% who have installed SP-2 have reported no problems, 20% have had minor to moderate problems, and 5% have had such severe problems that their computers were no longer bootable after the upgrade. A plus is that things seem to be better with new computers out of the box that are pre-shipped with Windows XP SP-2, than those who have have downloaded the upgrade, or done the upgrade on CD ROM.

The amount of preperatory stuff that is recommended that users do befire upgrading to SP-2 appears to be beyond that of the average Joe/Jane user. It is recommended that you update your virus checker and run a scan. Fine. It is recommended that you clean your system of adware and spyware using a product such as Adaware and Spybot: S & D. Fine. It is recommended that you back up everything before doing the install. Sure. Than they want you to upgrade your system bios and upgrade all your drivers.

That's where it gets ugly. I can not see the average user doing all these things to their system, especially the bios update and the issues with the drivers. THE WORST IS THAT, IN A MOVE EQUATED TO COMMUNISUM, MICROSOFT WILL REQUIRE ALL USERS TO TAKE XP SP-2, IF THEY RUN AUTOMATIC UPDATE OR WINDOWS UPDATE AS OF APRIL 12th, 2005.

I resent it when a company mandates that I HAVE to do something to my system, especially when that product has only a 75% chance of a successful install. That's a 25% chance of something going wrong. The bottom line is that ALL THIS REVOLUTIONARY SECURITY ******** HAS BEEN ADDRESSED BY COMPANIES SUCH SYMANTIC (NORTON) FOR YEARS and MCAFEE. I believe that if you get yourself a good anti-virus and security firewall and keep it updated, you have the same kind of security protection that is provided by SP-2, without doing the OS overhaul. Furthermore, although SP-2 has a built in firewall, Microsoft recommends keeping your existing Norton Security firewall if you have it already set up. It has also been well documented that older software, even Microsoft supported, will not run on SP-2. I still have Office 97 and Quicken 98, and both work just fine for what I use them for. Why should I have to pay a couple hundred bucks for an Office Upgrade and $50-60 for a Quicken upgrade to support a OS upgrade that may not even work right after all of the prerequistes have been met?

Sorry. but I won't run Windows Update after April 11th of next year. Show me one piece of evidence that says that SP-2 can do anything security wise that Norton can't do, give me a 90-95% success rate on the installation updates, have the upgrade out for a year to 18 months with positive reviews and than you'll convince me. But until than, I am staying with XP SP-1 and I get the feeling that I am not alone!

Jeff

 

[Luke T.]

Before someone comes along and makes the obligatory "Use Mozilla" post, I am one of the lucky 75 percent. I installed SP-2 with no problems, but only after I read another topic on here about it a while back. I had just bought a new computer, so that may be why it worked okay.

I have been getting a little window popping up daily that tells me there are yet more updates available for my computer, but I am waiting a while before instalilng them. This is something I learned in the Navy. Whenever an update came out for the software we used on some of our systems on my ship, they always had bugs in them. I always let the rest of the fleet install them and suffer through the bugs and then I would wait for the fix to come out. That kind of patience really paid off during the Y2K bug scare.

So how does one update one's bios? I've heard of people making a bios disk, but I don't know how to do that.

Yeah. I sure miss the old days when we all used typewriters....

 

[HarryKeogh]

Yeah. I sure miss the old days when we all used typewriters....

Luke, just be patient and this whole computer fad will pass.

 

[Hastur]

I have had my Dell for a couple years before I had SP 2 beamed to my computer several months ago and I am happy to report I have had absolutely no problems whatsoever. Norton works fine, OpenRPG works fine, IE works fine, Word XP opens up just fine. I keep a clean house as well as far as anti-virus and a firewall go.

 

[LostAngeles]

I've had some weird post-update moments on my year old Dell laptop. Once it suddenly uninstalled the drivers for my DVD/CD-RW drive, another it reported that my entire hard drive was irrevocavbly corrupted and would not be able to start Windows. I rebooted and it was fine.

Post Service Pack 2, I would suddenly lose my wireless connection. Once I found the "repair" option, that stopped. Although, in retrospect, it might have actually had something to do with the bandwidth stealing hall-twit we found a few days later.

 

[Kopji]

Upgraded to SP2 months ago, no problems. The IE popup blocking is great. Nice firewall, easy to configure, and its free. It can be turned off so you can pay $35 a year for Norton or McAfee if you want.

I'd hate Microsoft more except most of their competition is a bunch of whiny babies with inferior products who think customer service is when they send a whore to your house.

 

[geni]

I want to start out by saying that, with few exceptions, I am a Microsoft basher. This is because so many of their products just do not do what they are supposed to do. As much as I like the new features of new technology, all of us know about reliability problems with their computers since day one. I have been running Windows XP SP-1 on a brand new Dell with no problems. As you may, or may not know, if you run Windows Update or Automatic Update, you are given the opportunity to install this major operating system upgrade on XP called Service Pack 2.

I think I can slafely say everyone here has heard of sp2

Service Pack 2 is a HUGE operating system upgrade overhall that has a bunch of security fixes and features that CLAIM to improve the performance of the Windows XP OS.

The start up loading bar is a nicer colour

I have been reading some of the statistical information about the upgrade. It appears that 75% who have installed SP-2 have reported no problems, 20% have had minor to moderate problems, and 5% have had such severe problems that their computers were no longer bootable after the upgrade. A plus is that things seem to be better with new computers out of the box that are pre-shipped with Windows XP SP-2, than those who have have downloaded the upgrade, or done the upgrade on CD ROM.

source?

The amount of preperatory stuff that is recommended that users do befire upgrading to SP-2 appears to be beyond that of the average Joe/Jane user. It is recommended that you update your virus checker and run a scan. Fine. It is recommended that you clean your system of adware and spyware using a product such as Adaware and Spybot: S & D. Fine. It is recommended that you back up everything before doing the install. Sure. Than they want you to upgrade your system bios and upgrade all your drivers.

Yeah well I ignored most of this and the installation went fine.

That's where it gets ugly. I can not see the average user doing all these things to their system, especially the bios update and the issues with the drivers. THE WORST IS THAT, IN A MOVE EQUATED TO COMMUNISUM, MICROSOFT WILL REQUIRE ALL USERS TO TAKE XP SP-2, IF THEY RUN AUTOMATIC UPDATE OR WINDOWS UPDATE AS OF APRIL 12th, 2005.

It does not seem to involve the workers owning the means of production. How is this communisum?

I resent it when a company mandates that I HAVE to do something to my system, especially when that product has only a 75% chance of a successful install. That's a 25% chance of something going wrong.

You don't have to you are free not to accpet any paches from microsoft (I've got a system somewhere (not contected to the internet).That does not have any of the paches it's meant to have).

The bottom line is that ALL THIS REVOLUTIONARY SECURITY ******** HAS BEEN ADDRESSED BY COMPANIES SUCH SYMANTIC (NORTON) FOR YEARS and MCAFEE.

I belive these cost money.

I believe that if you get yourself a good anti-virus and security firewall and keep it updated, you have the same kind of security protection that is provided by SP-2, without doing the OS overhaul. Furthermore, although SP-2 has a built in firewall, Microsoft recommends keeping your existing Norton Security firewall if you have it already set up.

Yup but guess what? There are a lot of internet users out there who do not protect there machines at all. There result is that viruse3s and worms spread faster through the internet than they otherwise would

It has also been well documented that older software, even Microsoft supported, will not run on SP-2. I still have Office 97 and , and both work just fine for what I use them for. Why should I have to pay a couple hundred bucks for an Office Upgrade and $50-60 for a Quicken upgrade to support a OS upgrade that may not even work right after all of the prerequistes have been met?

Source? In particular a source that shows that office 97 and Quicken 98 do not run on XP sp2

Sorry. but I won't run Windows Update after April 11th of next year. Show me one piece of evidence that says that SP-2 can do anything security wise that Norton can't do, give me a 90-95% success rate on the installation updates, have the upgrade out for a year to 18 months with positive reviews and than you'll convince me. But until than, I am staying with XP SP-1 and I get the feeling that I am not alone!

Jeff [/B]

Fine you are free to do this.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Recently installed SP2, without any preparatory measures (I did not run a firewall, which IS recommended to prepare), and it worked fine. Still does. Like Luke, I usually wait a while before installing upgrades. Of course, if everybody started doing that...

Hans

 

[asthmatic camel]

No problems here downloading and installing SP2 either; my PC is far from new and my level of expertise is limited.

So Microsoft improve a product, especially its security aspects, which have been moaned about endlessly, and then get slammed for it? There's no pleasing some people.

(That's just what Jesus said, Sir.)

 

[Soapy Sam]

Geni- I had to uninstall SP2 from a new laptop two months ago, as I could not get Office 97 to install on it.
My home PC has SP2 (on an XP home upgrade over ME). I use VCOM's systemsuite utility package. The uninstall and move functions have failed after I installed SP2 - I occasionally get a dialog box objecting to a system file incompatible with 16 bit applications, though Systemsuite 5 is not 16 bit.
I also had to download a patch from M$ to get my Canon scanner to work after installing SP2.

Of course, I do not see what good it may be doing, or what disasters it may have saved me from, but I was conspicuously short of such disasters before I installed it.

Uninstalling from the new laptop was easy- just used the factory default reset CD. Doing it on an older PC with a lot of installed software might be harder.

Edit to add. AC- I suspect you underestimate your ability. I'm very much a self taught poker and tinkerer too- I claim no special know how, but I suspect the average knowledge on this forum is significantly higher than the average in the general user population, which is rather the point of the o.p.

 

[asthmatic camel]

Edit to add. AC- I suspect you underestimate your ability. I'm very much a self taught poker and tinkerer too- I claim no special know how, but I suspect the average knowledge on this forum is significantly higher than the average in the general user population, which is rather the point of the o.p.

Maybe Soapy Sam; I bought my first ever PC about 3 years ago and started from scratch with 98SE. I later upgraded it to 2000 pro which was an hideous nightmare. I spent endless hours trying to find drivers which would work with the O.S. Not much fun but a good way to learn a thing or two!

In comparison, I've found XP Pro a breeze to use; without exception, all my ancient peripherals were automatically installed and ready to use. This, I must say, pleased me somewhat, as I'd expected another few weeks of misery and frustration.

The only real gripes I have are the backwards compatibilty issue with programs and the fact that when I upgraded a few items of hardware, XP told me it wouldn't work unless I called M$ to confirm I had a legitimate copy. Now THAT annoyed me.

 

[Ove]

Installed SP2 on a 3 yr old Compac recently without problems, YES i've had to turn a lot off but there are some very nice features particularily the pop-up blocking in IE.

What made me shake my head in disbelief was the firewall. The update asks if you have a Firewall but regardless of that it installs AND activates Microsoft Firewall and you'll have to disable it afterwards (TWO firewalls are NOT a good idea unless you love a really really slow internet connection ).

But this is ONE feature that allways has pi**ed me of in M$ programmes. They "assume" a lot of things, assume that i want to store my documents in "My documents" and save my pictures in "My Pictures" with neat little (resource consuming) picture icons on the folder

But i'll keep on using it, why? simply because the alternatives just aren't good enough. My computer has to be a combined, office machine/playing console/internet browser so any Linux or whatever simply won't do. To use an old phrase, Microsoft is the worst software, except for all the others....

 

[0rz]

But i'll keep on using it, why? simply because the alternatives just aren't good enough. My computer has to be a combined, office machine/playing console/internet browser so any Linux or whatever simply won't do. To use an old phrase, Microsoft is the worst software, except for all the others....

Most Linux distros come with KOffice and or OpenOffice.org and you can buy yourself StarOffice MUCH cheaper than MS Office.

Not sure what you mean by "playing console", but there are emulators for consoles and even a site devoted to converting some of the best new release games to a Linux environment.
EDIT: The site in question has been closed, but all the developers now have the tools to convert to a Linux machine. Games can be bought from a reseller.
http://www.lokigames.com/

Linux browses the internet better than Microsoft by a mile.
A variety of browsers and a great default on the KDE environment. Unlike Internet Explorer, should something really bad happen, chances are you'll only have to make a new profile and move stuff over. Not to mention most forms of malware won't work at all.

 

[richardm]

Most Linux distros come with KOffice and or OpenOffice.org and you can buy yourself StarOffice MUCH cheaper than MS Office.

It would be interesting to see an independent review of these vs. the equivalent Microsoft products and see how they compare.

Not sure what you mean by "playing console", but there are emulators for consoles and even a site devoted to converting some of the best new release games to a Linux environment.
EDIT: The site in question has been closed, but all the developers now have the tools to convert to a Linux machine. Games can be bought from a reseller.
http://www.lokigames.com/

A fair number of people have trouble running the latest games even on the OS they're designed to run under, what with PC hardware being so disparate. Good luck getting them going under an emulator (notwithstanding the performance knock).

Linux browses the internet better than Microsoft by a mile.
A variety of browsers and a great default on the KDE environment. Unlike Internet Explorer, should something really bad happen, chances are you'll only have to make a new profile and move stuff over.

There are, of course, more internet browsers for Windows than the one provided by Microsoft.

Not to mention most forms of malware won't work at all.

That's true. That is probably the biggest problem with Windows. Of course it's exacerbated by windows users refusing to update their systems - admittedly to fix a problem that shouldn't have been there in the first place, but then even Linux has occasional updates to patch security problems.

 

[iain]

OpenOffice.org vs MS Office

I can't give a great review; but I've got current experience of both. For home (and my little IT consultancy business) I've used OpenOffice on Linux exclusively for the last two years. My wife, a non-IT person, has also being using it and nothing else.

At client sites, I've been using various versions of MS Office on Windows.

Look & Feel

OpenOffice.org has a very similar look and feel to MS Office. Some options are in different places and there are a few quirks in both, but for most users the learning curve to switch from one to the other will be very shallow. I've never had a problem using both.

Features

For the 95% of us who are non-power users (e.g. don't do VB scripting), both suites have much the same features. I'm trying to think of things I've had trouble doing in OpenOffice over two years and I can only think of two : printing off address labels for a mailshot and creating an advanced data-entry page. The first was a weakness in OOo which I think has been sorted out; the second was probably due to my own incompetence (I don't know how to do it in MS Office either).

There are some features which one has that the other doesn't. Apart from VB Scripting, the only one I can think of for MS Office is the grammar checker (oh - and Clippy). OpenOffice has built-in "save as PDF" and "save as Flash" options which are quite nice.

MS Office has a database which OOo doesn't (though there are several excellent open source databases available like MySQL, PostgresSQL and Firebird ). OOo has a drawing application.

File format support

OOo supports open, documented, XML based file formats. That means that if, in 50 years time, someone finds an OOo file but OpenOffice.org itself is long gone, extracting the information from the file is trivial and could be done with a text editor. It also means that any other application can accurately read and write OOo files with a suitable filter.

The MS Office file format deliberately makes it difficult for other applications to read. Already, people can find new versions of MS Office can't read files created just a few years ago.

However, the reality is that the MS Office formats are currently the standards. OOo is pretty good at reading and writing MS Office format documents. For example, my accountant sends me an Excel spreadsheet to put my account figures on. It has lots of cross references and complex formulas, but works fine on OOo.

More complex docs (especially with complex layouts, lots of graphics) often don't come out perfectly, though so be aware of that limitation.

Documentation

The help for both MS Office and OOo is fine - neither is perfect, but good enough. There are OOo books around, though of course not nearly as many as for MS Office. There is also a lot of help you can find on the web - the OOo website has help forums and help information. Overall, I haven't found much difference in the quality of documentation and the difficulty of getting hold of it for each product.

Platform support

MS Office runs on Windows and Mac. It can also be run on Linux with Crossover Office. OOo runs natively on Windows, Linux, Solaris, *BSD and a few other platforms. It runs on Mac with a bit of extra software. The next big version of OOo (version 2, due out in March) will run natively on Mac OS X.

 

[garys_2k]

Updated five PCs here and all went without a single hitch. Some are quite old, others are almost new. I did disable the firewalls, though, as I use a hardware firewall for the whole LAN.

 

[Ove]

richardm you beat me to it, thanks.

Only want to add that i refuse to believe that a game would run BETTER if run with an emulator.

Games can be bought from a reseller.

And that would be cheaper right?

 

[iain]

Personally, I wouldn't use Linux if I were a big games player - I'd probably buy a games console.

Having said that, there are loads of games that are available on Linux : see The Linux Game Tome (aka the Happy Penguin) for details of most of them.

On the emulator issue, when a Windows app is run under Linux using something like Wine or Crossover Office, it isn't done with an emulator.

The guys at Wine explain it better than I can :

Some people mean by that that Wine must emulate each processor instruction of the Windows application. This is plain wrong. As Wine's name says: "Wine Is Not an Emulator": Wine does not emulate the Intel x86 processor. It will thus not be as slow as Wabi which, since it is not running on a x86 Intel processor, also has to emulate the processor. Windows applications that do not make system calls will run just as fast as on Windows (no more no less).

Be aware though : because of this approach, there are a limited number of Windows apps that run under Wine or Crossover Office on Linux.

According to this page there are 553 Windows games known to work to some extent with Wine + Linux.

For example, the comment on "Call of Duty" (which I can't verify in any way) is that it runs better under Wine than under Win XP.