XP SP2 - Thumbs Down - Asymptomatic

Pat's been pestering me since April or so to install Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Now that it's finally available through Windows Update, I decided to install it. After letting the "Download complete, ready to install" window sit annoyingly unminimizable on my screen while I completed my work for a few hours, I finally clicked the install button. It didn't take SP2 too long to completely screw up my system.

Basically, when it rebooted I was met with the dreaded Blue Screen Of Death. Some driver issue. I couldn't get Windows to tell me what driver was causing the problem specifically, I couldn't get the boot logger working, and although any trifling signs that I did find all pointed to the Promise SATA controller on my motherboard, the drive was completely acessible in Safe Mode.

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In essence, SP2 crippled my computer and necessitated more downtime and troublshooting than I was willing to put up with. I think I rebooted the machine about 8 times for various reasons, including getting version numbers from the hardware during bootup and switching between safe mode and normal mode to test new configurations. I'm tired of rebooting. My computer worked under SP1, and I think that an "insecure" working computer is better than a "secure" BSOD. I must admit that the BSOD makes the system pretty secure. It also makes the system pretty darn worthless.

Thank goodness for system restore.

I'm now back at SP1, working just fine. Although I have noticed that Windows Update has somehow managed to update components without my approval within the past month. For example, Windows Update is now much different looking than it once was. There are windows with little shields on them that I never had before. Also, my Internet Explorer (which I only use when testing, which I was doing tonight, so I am currently annoyed) is behaving oddly - not displaying the javascript debugger when I click on the menu command, and sometimes not even showing the menu command. At one point, I ventured into the Internet Options, and found only one tab (Security) with nothing on it. But when I did get that window to appear, there seem to be a lot more security levels than I remember there ever being. Once again, that's something I just noticed while looking for a useful feature, not something that I'll ever use.

So there. I tried the stupid Service Pack. It sucked. I put everything back to the way I had it. I doubt I will try installing SP2 again soon, if ever. A perfect-every-boot Knoppix disk is just sitting here waiting...

Pat

Dec 31, 1969 07:00pm

Well, I tried, what can I say? I suppose that you're now on a basically unsupported system. I'm sure that doesn't bother you, since you were never convinced that SP2 would do anything for you anyway. At least you tried, though. I appreciate that.
In my opinion, it's worth the time to diagnose, but fixing such issues has gotten less appealing as I've gotten older, so I can understand not wanting to continue the effort.
Were I to really care, I'd get your hardware list from you and get them to try it, but I honestly don't. Chances are mostly likely that you have something crazy installed on your machine that was trying to do something really stupid. For instance, if this is your AMD64 machine, there's probably a driver that's trying to run code from a page not correctly marked executable.

I seriously doubt that anything I'd say to you would convince you of how important SP2 is, since none of my arguments so far seemed particularly compelling to you. Here's my last ditch effort:
I can't possibly stress enough the importance of getting SP2 installed on as many machines as possible. I don't have the ability within me to describe the impact. I don't know that I've ever seriously given you unsolicited computer advice on what you should do, but now I have.
It is true that you are probably safer than most people, because you're well educated in the computer ways. You may be running firewall software, have a hardware firewall/NAT, have installed a real-time virus scanner, running a browser other than IE, run as non-admin, have locked down your wireless, and never install anything. All very good starts, but you can never be completely secure, you can only do as well as you can. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive. Security is a weakest-link-type of problem, and your best hope is defense in depth. This is true of all aspects and incarnations of security.
SP2 is one of the best things you can do as a Windows XP user, especially since you have a processor with NX suport. Many aspects of SP2 will be lost on you, as they're meant to help "normal" (aka non-computer guru) people make better, more informed security-related decisions, but that is not to say that it has nothing important to offer you.

Anyway, I've spent enough time on this. That's the last you'll hear from me on the subject.