I’m still running XP under SP1, because of all the horror stories I heard, and read, after people upgraded to SP2. And I still haven’t upgraded to SP3. Question, with avast!, a firewall, and scans with Malwarebytes, and some others mentioned here, how important really is it to upgrade to the current SP? I’m just afraid it’ll cause more problems that it might help.
SP2 & SP3 are Security Patches to the OS and should be downloaded and installed.
While I understand some had problrms, I had no problems with either one of them.
Hi Pam…
Along with what Charley has said, they also include additional features and of the three, SP2 is the most extensive. For more information on these packs…
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp_sp2.asp#fw
There are two points of concern here. From my personal experience with installing SP2 on various systems, there is more “weight” felt on older systems with less resources. It isn’t too much but it’s noticeable. I’m assuming this will carry over to SP3 from SP1. Also, there is, or perhaps used to be, a bug with SP3 that causes reboot loops on system with AMD processors. If your system has this brand of processor, then you will need to download and install this patch before upgrading to SP3…
http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/windows-xp-sp3-amd-stop-0x0000007E.html
Hope this helps. 
Best Regards…
Thanks CharleyO and ardvark. I know I should do the service upgrades, but I just don’t want to end up spending tons of time trying to fix stuff if it does create problems. I’m not bad with computers, but not an expert by a long shot when it comes to fixing issues that might come up.
Ardvark, my computer is five years old, but it still does fine for what I need (except for the “bugs” I’m trying to work out.) It’s a Dell, Intel Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, 640 MB RAM, XP Pro, 2.33 GHz processor speed. I’ll check the links you provided–thank you!
Hi Pam…
With your specs, you should be just fine, speed wise. Like I mentioned though, if you have an AMD processor and upgrade to SP3 without the patch I mentioned in my last post, you could very well have some serious problems! 
I don’t know if Microsoft has fixed this bug in SP3’s code.
What is the model and model number of your Dell?
Best Regards…
Hi ardvark,
It’s a Dell OptiPlex GX260T.
Hi Pam…
Very nice avatar.
Probably the easiest way to find out is to go to the device manager and click on the “+” symbol next to “processor(s).” What does it say?
Best Regards…
Stupid ppl spreading FUD are worse than anything else. Thats why Vista never succeded and thats why bunch of ppl still run first version of Windows XP (no service packs at all). Just forget about them and upgrade to SP3.
I have 3 systems and one is an old PIII 500MHZ 512MB RAM that is running XP Pro because that was what I could purchase for it to support its SoundBlaster audio and adapter.
It was in the recycle area of my apartment so basically it was free except for the operating system that was Win98SE and riddled with malware.
I have kept it up to date with all the service packs and it runs surprisingly fast for its vintage and with SP3 I noticed a small performance increase.
It runs MBAM, Windows Defender and WinPatrol with the hpHosts and MVPS HOSTS files for protection.
I had no problems upgrading to SP3. I tend to update stuff within two or three days of updates/patches becoming available, unless there are a lot of horror stories concerning an update appearing, which there weren’t with SP3.
I believe the AMD issues was concerning a particular type of computer - HP IIRC- that came out of the factory with incorrect drivers for the processor.
What I like to do, and recommend, is to download the entire installer file for the SP, and save it to a folder of downloads, preferably on another partition, or external drive, and install it from the download. It makes re-installation much easier if it’s ever needed.
I agree People spreading FUD are worse than anything else. However I think Vista’s problem was that it did have many problems in the beginning. Most are already fixed, of course, but people still remember those issues and refuse to upgrade.
To PamJ: There is nothing wrong with XP SP3 that I know of (I’ve even installed it on several AMD Athlon 64 systems and never ran across the reboot bug)
Thank you!
It says the same thing I posted up a few posts ago: Intel Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz. Is there something else I’m missing?
@ PamJ
Not only are there more security holes in XP SP1 that have been closed in XP SP2 & SP3 making your system more secure, if you have SP1 then there are no security updates available to you for some applications as most now require that you have at least XP SP2.
You would also only be able to have IE6 on your system, with XP SP2 you can upgrade to IE7 or update IE6 to SP2. With XP SP3 you would also be updating IE6 to IE6 SP3 which closes security holes in your browser (if you use IE to browse), but since IE is an integral part of your OS being used for many things other than just browsing you are closing possible holes in your operating system.
The same is true if you use Outlook Express as updating to XP Sp2 or SP3 also closes security holes, so I think you can see it is a no brainer update to XP SP3, in doing that it incorporates all updates including SP2 (so no need to install that first).
I’m using Vista from day one and apart from slow file copying and awful initial NVIDIA gfx drivers i haven’t noticed any problems at all. And i really like Vista. It’s rock solid, fast and looks nice out of the box.
Upgraded to SP1 as soon as it was released with no problems. I’m sure i’ll update it to SP2 the very moent it’s available.
I guess at this point anyway any problems with SP2 have been fixed, so they won’t be an issue in SP3 (since SP3 includes SP2 upgrades).
I forgot to mention that every since the Norton issue that some of you know about, there are certain things on my computer that “don’t work right.” Should I try to fix those before doing the SP3 upgrade?
-Windows Media Player won’t work, even when I completely delete it and download again from the site. Error message reads: “Internal Error,” etc.
- System Restore doesn’t even come up. Under “System Properties” you can turn it on or off, but when you go in through System Tool, a blank window comes up.
- “User Accounts” under Control Panel comes up blank.
- “Search for Files and Folders” comes up blank.
- IE is weird, as some sites won’t come up at all, others load “weird,” and others are fine. Been using FireFox
- In my scanner program (HP), if you go into the menu to do certain tasks (scan, save, etc.), they work fine. But if you click on the icons to do those same tasks, nothing happens.
- Certain e-mails in outlook I can print fine; others won’t print. ( I copy them to the desktop and print from there.)
All these, and I’m sure more I’ve forgotten or don’t even know about, became an issue after the Norton thing. Most don’t bother me, or I’ve found a work-around. My thinking is that trying to clear these issues up first might be better??
Oh, and I’ve run Malwarebytes and SUPERantispyware. They did find a bunch of things, but most were adware cookies (one trogan thing), and nothing noticeable has changed with the above issues since the infected files were quarantined. I’m also using Revo Uninstaller for some old stuff, and to try to remove the Norton leftovers.
I would agree RejZoR about Vista. I have been running it for over 18 months now with no problems, most of the gripes at the beginning were with third party drivers not being up to the required standard and I don’t think you can blame MS for that as information was provided early. As a point to note Avast was Vista compliant long before other AV programmes, and if they can do it why not the rest ? Suffice it to say I would not go back to XP. With XP I was reformating every 6 months or so as it slowed down to a crawl ( I experiment with a lot of beta programmes)
No, for some reason, I managed to let that completely escape me. Ooooops! ;D
You won’t need the patch for SP3. However, because of the problems you’ve had with removing Norton and the trojan you’ve mentioned in your last post, I can’t in any way guarantee your success with any SP (there was a day when that meant “Southern Pacific” to me ;D :P) upgrade. It might work better or it might actually be worse, I don’t know. :-\
Others might disagree with me but I think you might do better with the SP’s if you backed up your files and installed a fresh copy of XP.
Best Regards…
I would try a system file repair.
SFC /SCANNOW
Use Run and then paste the above command on the run line and hit enter. Make sure the WinXP disk is in the
CD Rom Drive. This will check the system files against the original install and make sure none are missing or have been corrupted.
You will need to run Windows Update after this is completed.
Hope that’ll help.
I do not disagree as the latest infections even have become so malicious that even a full FORMAT can not remove them as they infect the Master Boot Record ( MBR ) and the only way to remove them is to delete the infected partition then add it back with FDISK:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867
I’ve love to try this. So, this will compare the Windows files on my computer against the Windows OS disk that came with the computer. Does it automatically make corrections, or ask me if I want to make corrections, or does it just alert me if there are issues?
And Windows Update, there’s another problem with that that I completely forgot about until I started messing with something today, and is another reason I haven’t updated–It defaults to go though IE, and IE is one of things that’s messed up. It even says on Microsoft’s website that you have to have a certain version of IE. (Which is why I switched to FireFox, which I actually like better.) Can I safely try to update IE from Firefox? I mean, if you never had IE and wanted to get it, you’d have to be using another browser to download it.
If the suggested of checking the OS disk against my computer actually corrects things, it may fix IE and then the whole IE issue would be moot anyway.
Thanks!