atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Computers & Programming Computers, Software, Accessories XP Service Pack 3

Has anyone accepted this windows update? If you have, is it safe ? I'm not sure I like the sound of it since my SP2 is working fine.
Mark

I installed Release Candidate 1 on a laptop a few weeks ago. Apart from moving a few of my settings around, it's been working fine. I will install the final version ASAP. Probably because it uses Vista network security schemes, it disagrees with Remote Desktop version 6. If you have that, it's best to uninstall it beforehand and then reinstall it using Windows Update.
Actually, it's best to install the whole pack using Windows update, since that way it will better match the PC manufacturer's under the hood customizations.
The info on this page is worth looking at:
MS technet XP SP3

I've installed it on my home computer. Seeing nothing unusual so far.

You may want to read this prior to the upgrade.

https://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9083318

I never loaded IE7 because of the problems people on this board had with it. After reading that, I won't be loading the SP3 - I will download and save it if I can, just so I have it for future use. Thanks.
Mark

Ive installed on several clients' PCs that had yet to upgrade to ie7. To my surprise SPK3 did not upgrade ie6 to 7, still had to go to win updates for the ie upgrade.

As far as IE7 concerned, been running it on my machines and numerous other clients with no problems.

some people here were having trouble connecting to telephone systems after the IE7 upgrade, maybe thats all worked out now, hopefully someone will chime in and let us know. There must be a reason why so many people want to go back to IE6 after moving to IE7
Mark

In my experience, nobody that I know who upgraded to IE7 wanted to go back to IE6. Personally, I always recommend the upgrade for a host of reasons. There are 3rd party programs, include phone/vm admin software that need workarounds for IE7, but as more of these programs are getting updated, I expect them to catch up.
What the computerworld article describes is a pretty common scenario:

1. Upgrade IE6 to IE7 and keep the old IE6 files in case you want to backtrack.
2. IE (all versions) uses/needs other important operating system files
3. Update operating system (including the files needed by IE)
4. Backtrack down to IE6 from IE7
5. Crash because IE6 can no longer hook up to the operating system files it was using before as it is expecting the older ones.

Solution:
1. Disallow downgrade from IE7 to IE6 after the OS has been updated
and/or
2. Uninstall OS update then downgrade

Several months ago, I upgraded my computer's Adobe Flash player to 9.0.115.0. After that, I was unable to watch youtube videos full screen.

This may be a coincidence, but ever since I downloaded SP3, I can, once again, view youtube videos full screen.

IE7 was a bit quirky at first but it works pretty well now. it's a change you'll have to make at some point...

as far as SP3 goes, i've installed it on quite a few of my customers' computers without problem EXCEPT yesterday i found a Vostro 200 that didn't like it at all. killed all the USB ports... and Vostros, like many new PCs, have no PS/2 ports - leaving us with no mouse or keyboard. fortunately it was a new machine so i just wiped & reinstalled XP w/ SP2.

my advice is to wait on SP3 for a couple months... let other people beta-test it.