Upgrade to Windows XP SP3 - Comments Page 5

I installed SP3 on XP SP2 C2Duo4400 in mid June and have no problems so far. Don't see any performance speed up, but discovered some improvements with some old games like Unreal, Mobile Forces, Blade Of Darkness with earlier run too fast and I had to switch to one core. Now I don't need to...

Just upgraded to WinXP Prof SP3 through auto update on a Dell Optiplex GX280 Pent 4 2.8 Ghz, 512MB Ram.

Everything is OK so far, seems there is a slight improvement in speed. RDP program has changed...seems more like vista, other than that, all is OK.

Thank God I have not updated to sp3.

I have downloaded SP3 & so far so good except for the countdown from 30 days for the Windows WGA verification. Is there any way to get rid of this?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Did you do the WGA verification? That should make it go away.

After installing SP3 my computer kept rebooting and I had to fresh install.

Installed SP3 on all of my network computers. Employees were very happy with the new speed they got. No problems at all with SP3. Great update!!

Well I should have known better... I was again duped by MS updates. I upgraded through the update service SP3 on a XP Pro Machine. Now e-mail, Internet services and most any program I open delays (3-12 sec) which is horribly frustrating trying to get anything done. One of the most important programs I use is CS3 Master Collection and I get crash errors using most any part of that collection, especially Bridge. I've searched every where to find ways to get SP3 uninstalled. So far I cant find any useful tips on getting it uninstalled so I can revert back to SP2 (where everything was running fine)
As a note; I have tried the most popular ways to uninstall. None work.
1. restore point
2. add/remove
3. recovery console
4. cmd line at run

any suggestions? other than format and start over? My machine has mass amounts of programs I use as part of my work flow everyday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: What happens when you try option (1) or (2) above?

I downloaded SP3 and lost Control Panel file. I had no firewall and discovered this when i went in to check if it was turned on. Used System Restore and all seems OK. However during installation Spybot informed me I had malware on a file and i instructed it to delete. Could that have caused it?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not really sure what "that" or "it" refers to in your question. Are you wondering if the presence of some malware prevented SP3 from being applied correctly? I suppose that's possible. The only way to know is to try again now that the malware is gone.

Response to, EDITOR'S NOTE: What happens when you try option (1) or (2) above?

1. restore point (processes as though its going to uninstall, then error message (takes about 30 min) pops up indicating file not found, SP3 not removed)
2. add/remove (same type of error, seems as though its going to uninstall and then fails, file not found)
3. recovery console (I installed recovery console to HD and is available at start up, message windows indicates recovery window starting but hangs and never starts)
4. cmd line at run (this is a short cut to add remove in GUI)
5. also have tried using recovery from XP disk at boot up, but hangs at "blue window" no options and never goes any further.

PS I have seen blogs about the size of the restore catching so all my restore points where gone once I loaded this SP3, I wasn't given an option for creating a larger catch size so I lost all my previous restore points.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ouch. I'm out of ideas... but I read elsewhere that Microsoft has a free SP3 tech support hotline: 866-234-6020. Hopefully you can avoid having to re-install XP from scratch.

I recently installed SP3 on my laptop as well as my desktop pc's and find that I now cannot connect to my ISP (a call to their helpdesk proved fruitless) via my router at home. However I have no problem connecting from work. My son, who works elsewhere, experienced the same thing. This problem ONLY occurs while running SP3. When we uninstall SP3 then connectivity resumes. I am forced to run SP3 at work and therefore have to get my home setup working. Does anyone have any suggestions ?