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.

I installed SP3 this morning and so far everything works normal I'll let you know if it starts doing strange things.

The only real issue I have seen with XP SP3 is that if you are doing a clean reload (repartition the drive and reload all of the XP OS) you should activate Windows before loading up SP3. Otherwise it will not activate afterwards and you will end up calling in to MS to do so.

SP3 really does make your computer more secure.

Here's an articl from PC Pitstop

My motto is "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

-Hal

XP SP3 is working fine for me. Dont really notice anything different.

I think PMCook had also commented on the issue justbill posted on, then I tried to reply and messed up my comment - haven't figured yet how to properly edit my posts. There goes the quality of my advice. My post disappeared anyway, so I guess no harm done, but I think PMCook's was mistakenly erased as well. Anyway, this issue has nothing to do with SP3 - it was around with SP2 as well. It has a lot to do with sloppy/lazy practices and cost cutting by PC manufacturers, HP prominently in this case. They built their machines using unsupported configurations, something that Microsoft had warned about in the past (I mean 3 years ago almost)
I'm typing this on an HP machine, one we've recently helped install for a major client, and we specifically advised against HP AMD-processor models for this reason. I don't have anything against AMD, just wanted to save the client's inhouse CGs unnecessary grief.

Something about SP3 and updates in general. First SP3, has very few new features, and the ones that it does have make XP more efficient and secure. Basically SP3 is a collection of all pertinent security, performance and stability updates since SP2, applied in a coherent manner.
Microsoft, just like Avaya, Siemens, Nortel, Toshiba, Apple, IBM etc etc has very specific reasons for making updates available. It also, like the other companies, provides very specific instructions on how to apply them, as it also provides very specific instructions on how in general its product is to be used, and the limits of its liability.
I'm always surprised when people who are knowledgeable about technology of any kind, treat a very complicated structure such as a modern general-purpose computer operating system as if it was a coffee maker (inside computer joke: a very widely used computer language called java was originally commissioned to provide the OS for advanced coffee makers and other such appliances ). Would any Avaya professional take Avaya's updates lightly? Would they not go over the bulletins and advisories with care, maybe talking to a rep etc etc before making a decision on whether to pass it down to their clients? Would they decline an update out-of-hand because some telephone users have (or think they have) some issues that may or may not be related to the update?
Years ago we were called into a medical practice whose computer system had almost collapsed after the application of many no-nos and bad user practices over the years. We fixed it up - it involved upgrading as well, and instituted proper usage policies. The senior partner was not happy to see our bill and insisted that Microsoft was to blame. That after years of abusing the product. I asked him if he knows what happens when a modern OS boots up - he didn't, obviously. So I asked him what happens when humans "boot up" daily when they wake up, and he rattled off a complicated series of procedures we go through in nanoseconds - diagnostics, corrective routines, comms functions etc etc before we even open our eyes.
Then I asked whether such a complicated system as the human body, on which he's an expert, should not be taken proper care of and be left at the whims and hearsay of all and sundry. He didn't misunderstand me. He paid us and they hired a fulltime CG.

Please look at this:
National Vulnerability Database
This is the page with the recent items (scroll down). The most enthusiastic readers of this and similar sites are hackers and cybercriminals of all stripes. They don't have to waste time and energy into finding a vulnerability, they are published and decribed in detail already. The bad guys know that the average PC/network will be unprotected against some vulnerability for days, weeks, months after it becomes public - because, among other things, people won't apply the proper updates. It doesn't take long either - if you know a business is in real estate, they may be using "EMO Real Estate Manager" (that's vulnerability #CVE-2008-2265). It's so easy, it's like stealing from a church.

Sorry for the long post. There goes my lunchtime.

I just installed it as well. I don't see much of a difference either.

What were you expecting?

This week I finally got around to slipstreaming SP3, IE7 & MP11 into an XP Pro install CD. It's saving me at least an hour on new PC prep times...

PC pitstop's take on SP3 still not good.

I have never done any slipstreaming...do you have a link that explains how it works?

sph that was an awesome post***** (5 stars)

The thing is , it is broke, people just do not realize it...

Jeff, take a look at nLite.
https://www.nliteos.com/

I had to use it to slipstream some drivers in. Some of the newer computers have hardware not recognized by the XP install disk.

I have installed it for several of my clients. One thing I found it makes changes to the print spooler. I had users that were getting print spooler errors but after installing this SP they are working fine. It does not install IE 7 and you can stay with IE 6

That is correct, IE doesn't change, the issue regarding IE is that if you have IE7 installed and want the ability to back rev it to IE6, you must uninstall IE7, apply the SP3 patch, and then reapply IE7. The SP3 install because it makes so many changes, removes the the ability to back rev any existing installed MS patches, not just IE.
I find it funny that the SP3 install is larger than the actual install files for XP!

The majority of SP3 issues are related to drivers and the HP-AMD issue because of the way HP desktops were loaded. The AMD HP laptops don't seem to have the issue as they were loaded from a different base install.

The AMD HP issue is because the image that is used has the registry entry for the Intel driver, but doesn't have the intel driver on the disk. SP3 checks the registry, sees the entry, and loads the intel driver. This causes the system to BSOD and reboot. This was discovered by someone else, you can see the 0x0000007E stop error if you press F8 and choose the option to not reboot on failure.

You may be able to get into safe mode and remove the intel driver registry entry which will prevent the driver from being loaded and allow the system to boot normally.

Jesper Johansson\'s blog has all of the information and a small program to check if your system is susceptible to the issue, and then it fixes it by removing the registry entry.