gHacks technology news » service pack 3

Microsoft issues Windows XP Service Pack 3 Update Fix

Martin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:01:44 +0000

User reports began to spread on the Internet who encountered a blank device manager and network connections after upgrading their Windows XP system to Service Pack 3. The problem was largely attributed to software that was monitoring the Registry for changes, many Symantec customers had problems with a feature called SymProtect that would cause the post-installation problems.

Symantec issued a patch on June 5th and Microsoft released a patch as well a few days ago that should solve the issue for users who are experiencing blank device managers and are missing networks in the network connections menu.

Users now have the choice to use the Microsoft patch or the Symantec fix to correct the issue. Using the Symantec fix however makes only sense if a Symantec product was installed on the system during the upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, sp3, symantec, windows-xp

Symantec Registry Fix for Windows XP Service Pack 3

Martin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:34:25 +0000

Users with a recent Symantec product faced several problems after updating their computer from Windows XP Service Pack 2 to the latest version, among them removed network connections, an empty device manager, unusable wireless connections and thousands of bogus Registry entries. This was apparently caused by the toolsymprotect, a part of many Symantec applications, that is protecting those applications against malware. It did that so well that it prevented the Windows XP installation routine from deleting temporary Registry keys which in turn caused the problems for the users.

Initially Symantec blaimed Microsoft solely but admitted that symprotect was involved as well. The tool SymRegFix.exe has been designed by Symantec to remove the bogus Registry entries and correct the errors that have been caused by them on the user’s system. The software has to be downloaded to the local computer and executed from there, it will fix the Registry automatically.

Symantec users who have not updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3 yet will be delighted to hear that Symantec added a solution to prevent the situation to live updates of their products. If the Symantec product is fully updated the problems will not arise and symprotect does not have to be disabled during Service Pack 3 installation.

Tags: service pack 3, symantec, symantec registry fix, symprotect, symregfix, windows-xp

Symantec: Disable SymProtect before upgrading to Windows XP SP3

Martin — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:40:46 +0000

If you are running the Symantec products Norton Internet Security 2008, Norton SystemWorks 2008, Norton 360 or Norton AntiVirus 2008 on a machine with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and want to upgrade to Service Pack 3 you should disable the SymProtect feature before doing so or your operating system could go kaboom. More precisely users would be left with an empty device manager and network connections window. This is apparently caused by a large number of bogus Registry keys starting with special characters that have been added to the Registry during the update.

Reese Anschultz, Sr. SQA Manager of Symantec Corporation, posted information on how to disable the SymProtect feature in all Symantec products in a support forum. Symantec is currently developing a tool to clean the Registry from those extraneous registry keys. Unfortunately no information were posted when the tool will be available but it will most likely be in the coming week.

The problem apparently spawns from the fact that the Microsoft tool fixccs.exe is adding temporary keys to the Windows XP Registry during the update which cannot be deleted due to the SymProtect protection which prevents changes to the Registry.

Below are the instructions on how to disable SymProtect on the various Symantec products.

To help prevent this issue from occurring, you should disable SymProtect prior to installing the Windows XP SP3 upgrade. This setting, in Norton Internet Security 2008 and Norton AntiVirus 2008, can be found within the Options page as “Turn on protection for Norton products.” In this case you should uncheck the box prior to the upgrade. After the upgrade is complete, please remember to re-enable this feature. It should be noted, however, that this workaround only addresses issues with Symantec products. You may still run into similar problems with other products affected by this XP SP3 upgrade issue.

For Norton SystemWorks 2008 you have to go to the Advanced Options UI that is under Settings. Next, click on “Norton SystemWorks Options” and select the General tab. Lastly, uncheck the box that says, “Turn on protection for my Symantec product”.

For Norton SystemWorks 2008 Premier you can use either the previous instructions or the Norton AntiVirus instructions.

What I don’t understand is that companies are always changing the location of the options and menus. That’s not user friendly. Microsoft for instance is always changing the location of the options in Internet Explorer.

Tags: service pack 3, symantec, symprotect, windows-xp

Fix for Restart Bug after installing Windows XP SP3

Martin — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:49:32 +0000

Users with AMD processors that have been trying to install Windows XP Service Pack 3 might be greeted with a bluescreen error message after rebooting their computer that begins with STOP: 0×0000007E (0xC0000005 and contains the error text SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. The computer restarts and the bluescreen error is displayed again. This is an endless cycle but thankfully though HP has found out about the cause for this problem and is presenting a solution on their website.

Service Pack 3 for Windows XP apparently copies an Intel power management driver to the computer that was not there before which is the cause for the restart bug. Things like these can happen but I’m wondering why non of the public beta testers have encountered this error before.

You can only use the following information if you use a non-Intel processor and encounter the previously mentioned restart bug after installing Windows XP Service Pack 3. I’m going to list two possible solutions, one from Microsoft and the other from HP.

HP solution for XP SP3 Restart Bug:

Boot Computer in Safe Mode
Use Windows Explorer to browse to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers
Right-click intelppm.sys and rename it to XXXintelppm.syx
Restart Windows

If the computer is unable to boot into safe mode do the following:

Press F8 during startup and load the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console
Type the number that corresponds to your Windows installation
Log in as an administrator
Type cd c:\windows\system32\drivers at the command prompt
Type rename intelppm.sys XXXintelppm.syx
Restart Windows

The Microsoft fix for the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Restart Bug:

Boot the Computer into Safe Mode
Press Windows R, type regedit, hit enter
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Intelppm
right-click the Start entry in the right pane and select modify
Enter 4 in the Value Data box
Close regedit, restart the computer

Tags: restart bug, service pack 3, sp3, sp3 bluescreen, sp3 error, sp3 restart bug, windows-xp

Steps to take before you install Windows XP Service Pack 3

Martin — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:12:30 +0000

Microsoft released a Knowledge Base article detailing the steps that users should take before installing the latest Service Pack for Windows XP. The article itself is divided into two parts with the first part detailing the steps to take before installing Service Pack 3 while the second part lists possible error messages and problems users can run into when installing it.

Microsoft suggests a minimum hard drive space of 1500 Megabytes on the system partition when installing the Service Pack from the Microsoft Download Center or 1100 Megabytes when installing it from a shared network drive. The page lists two updates that, when installed, will make the installation of the Service Pack fail. Those updates are the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit and Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) 6.0 MUI pack (Update 925877 for Windows XP).

If you have installed one or both you need to uninstall them to install the Service Pack. Last but not least it is required to make sure that security software like antivirus applications do not interfere when installing the Service Pack.

The page lists the most common error messages that user receive when updating Windows XP to Service Pack 3, among them are:

You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to install Service Pack 3.
You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files
Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied
You do not have permission to update Windows XP
Digital Signature Not Found
Setup could not verify the integrity of the file Update.inf
Failed to install catalog files
The software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing
Service Pack 1 Setup could not verify the integrity of the file
Internal Error
This Service Pack requires the machine to be on AC Power before setup starts.
Service Pack 3 installation did not complete
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied to Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied to Windows Embedded for Point of Service
Setup has detected that another update is in progress.

The blogs and forums are full of users who report problems after trying to upgrade Windows XP to Service Pack 3.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, sp3, sp3 troubleshooting, Windows, windows xp sp3, windows-update, windows-xp

Standalone Windows XP SP3 Download List

Martin — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:58:29 +0000

The Service Pack 3 for Windows XP has finally be added again to Windows Update and the Microsoft website and every user has the opportunity to download and install it. I never liked Windows Update and prefer to download the patches, which includes the Service Pack 3, as a direct download so that I can burn it once on a CD or DVD and distribute it to every computer that needs the update.

To make it easier for you I have collected the download links for the most important language versions of Windows XP Service Pack 3. A complete list can be found at Tip and Trick.

The ISO is provided for system administrators who have to distribute the Service Pack to several computers. There should not be a problem however to distribute the executable version of the service pack to multiple computers as well as long as they are all using the same language version.

Windows XP SP3 English EXE
Windows XP SP3 English ISO

Windows XP SP3 Chinese Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 Chinese Simplified ISO

Windows XP SP3 German Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 German Simplified ISO

Windows XP SP3 Russian Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 Russian Simplified ISO

Windows XP SP3 Spanish Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 Spanish Simplified ISO

Windows XP SP3 French Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 French Simplified ISO

Windows XP SP3 Dutch Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 Dutch Simplified ISO

Windows XP SP3 Swedish Simplified EXE
Windows XP SP3 Swedish Simplified ISO

Tags: service pack, service pack 3, service pack 3 download, sp3 iso, windows-xp, xp sp3

XP SP3 and Vista SP 1 available through Windows Update

Daniel Pataki — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:24:11 +0000

I awoke to find that the new service packs for Windows XP and Vista are available through Windows Update Center. This will make installation much easier, although for XP users there’s less in it than there is for Vista people who could experience a significant speed boost.

The XP SP3 brings a lot to the table that has already been released as fixes or other Windows updates. Some features that are totally new are that activation is not required, Network Access Protection, Black hole router detection and a few more. Most of these are backports of Vista, but if you do have XP, why not download it?

Vista SP1 contains all kinds of updates, with solutions to many problems, additions and other fixes. For a full, detailed list read the Microsoft white paper on Vista SP1 and get downloading!

Tags: microsoft, service pack 1, service pack 3, Windows, windows-vista, windows-xp, xp sp3

Official Windows XP Service Pack 3 Download Links

Martin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:31:44 +0000

The Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be released to the public tomorrow. A lot of users have already downloaded the service pack from various unofficial locations like download portals and the Bittorrent P2P network. Many users however were very cautious and decided to wait until the service pack would be available through official Microsoft channels. Tomorrow users can download the service pack by using Windows Update.

Downloads will surely be rather slow after the release and it does make sense to download the service pack 3 for Windows XP early. Cautious users will be delighted to know that the official download links of service pack 3 have been revealed and that it is as of now possible to download the Service Pack 3 directly from Microsoft servers. (Thanks to Tip and Trick)

Available are service pack releases for various languages. All for 32-bit systems only though. The languages that are available are English, German, Russian, French, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. All downloads are directly from Windows Updates. If you have been wary before downloading the service pack there is nothing more to fear by using this official download.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 English
Windows XP Service Pack 3 Simplified Chinese
Windows XP Service Pack 3 German
Windows XP SP3 French
Windows XP SP3 Russian
Windows XP SP3 Japanese

Download speed is fine. I’m getting about 330 Kilobyte per second currently.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, sp3, sp3 download, Windows, windows-xp, xp sp3

Ask the Readers: Windows XP Service Pack 3 Experience so far ?

Martin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:09:48 +0000

Delayed by more than a year the final service pack for Windows XP is already spreading like fire on the Internet although it won’t be available through official Microsoft channels before April 29th. Several major software portals like Softpedia and Major Geeks are already hosting the service pack along with your friendly pirates from The Pirate Bay and other Bittorrent sites. Supply is there and I’m pretty sure that some of you have already installed the new service pack for Windows XP.

I would like to know about your experience with it. Did the service pack install fine, did it throw up errors, did you encounter errors after restarting the system ? What is your experience working with the service pack. Did you notice any changes, additions, odd behavior afterwards ?

I had some troubles downloading it from various websites. I’m not giving up though but two downloads so far did not complete successfully. Now it’s your turn to let me know what you think of Windows XP Service Pack 3. Was it worth the wait or a complete waste of time ?

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, Windows, windows-xp, xp sp3

Windows XP Service Pack 3 leaked

Martin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:57:17 +0000

Some decisions that Microsoft makes are hard to understand, at least for me. Take the monthly patch days that provide security updates to various Microsoft operating systems and applications. Sometimes those patches are known weeks before they are released and that makes me wonder why it takes so long to release them. If Microsoft knows about security vulnerabilities the chance that criminals know them is at least feasible.

The same can be said for Windows XP Service Pack 3. Instead of distributing it to everyone at once Microsoft decided to supply it to users and manufacturers over the course of weeks. Is there any reason why this is done that way ? Interestingly though “pirates” get those releases more often than not earlier than other users. Why do pirates come first most of the times ?

Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been leaked and is now available on various Bittorrent websites and surely on ftps and other P2P networks as well. Why is it that honest users always seem to be at the end of the chain ? One could argue that companies can distribute their products any way they want and while this is surely right it will disappoint at least some of their customers.

Microsoft is releasing Service Pack 3 for Windows XP on April 29th to all customers.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, sp3, windows-xp, xp sp3, xp update

Windows XP SP3 Release Date announced

Martin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:07:56 +0000

Who would have thought that Microsoft would be able to finally release the third service pack for Windows XP. This service pack, long awaited by many, was delayed so many times that it seemed it would be never released. Many users suspected that the delay was directly related to the release of the first service pack for Windows Vista, a clever marketing move so to speak to make Windows Vista more appealing to the users who were still using Windows XP.

Windows Vista does need all the help it can gets in my opinion with many users sticking to Windows XP, switching to Linux or waiting for the new incarnation of the Microsoft operating system codenamed Windows 7.

~~Microsoft was finally able to publish~~ The release dates of Windows XP Service Pack 3 leaked to Neowin who published them on their website. Still no official word from Microsoft about them which further proves the point in my opinion. End users will have to wait another 13 days before they are able to download Windows XP Service Pack 3 from Windows Update or the Microsoft website.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, windows-xp, xp service pack 3, xp sp3

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Issues

Martin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:47:52 +0000

Microsoft published a release notes page together with the Refresh download of Windows XP Service Pack 3. The first part of the release notes lists the new and previously available functionality in this Service Pack. The second part however is more interesting in my opinion, it lists several issues that users might experience with this new Service Pack of Windows XP.

Six issues are listed on the Microsoft website that deal with the following: Out of disk space message when trying to install the service pack 3 on Apple computers, slipstreaming the service pack with Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N, Remote Access Server Quarantine Enforcement Client (RASQEC), font families Cambria and some versions of Arial not printing correctly, For testing purposes only. Build 2600.xp_sp2_gdr message because of an existing pre-release version of Remote Desktop Client 6.1 and an issue with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002.

The issues seem to me to affect only a small part of the Windows XP user base except maybe for the issue with the installation on Apple computers.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, service pack 3 release notes, sp3 issues, sp3 release notes, windows-xp

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 Refresh

Martin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:46:10 +0000

I do not know how you feel about the current situation but I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the Service Pack Release spree that Microsoft seems to be in lately. Just a few hours ago they released the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 Refresh to the public which is available in Windows Updates.

It seems that one needed a special Registry key from Microsoft to download this new Service Pack Release Candidate for Windows XP. This is not necessary anymore, at least not on my end. The Service Pack 3 was offered to me even though I did not make the changes to the Registry.

The Service Pack 3 is also available right from the Microsoft website with a size of roughly 315 Megabytes. Only the English, German and Japanese updates are available right now but it surely will not take long until the two other languages (French and Spanish) are added as well.

The same website also contains the Registry key that needs to be added to Windows XP to download the Service Pack 3 in Windows Updates.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, updates, Windows, windows updates, windows xo

Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2

Martin — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:43:12 +0000

The Registry key for Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2 is now officially available at the main Microsoft website and can be downloaded by every user. Microsoft previously made this release only available to beta testers who had to add a key to their Registry to make the download appear in Windows Update.

This time everyone may download this Registry key to be able to download the second release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 3. Service Pack 2 must be installed before users will be able to download Service Pack 3 via Windows Update.

A word of advise. This is still a release candidate and not the real Service Pack 3 which will be released later this year. You should also note that you need to uninstall previous betas or release candidates of Service Pack 3 before you can install the release candidate 2.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, windows-xp

Direct Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 downloads

Martin — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:26:27 +0000

Enough with all those registry keys that had to be changed and dozens of restarts before users were able to download the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate 1 or the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 1. This is all a thing of the past because Microsoft finally added both Service Packs as direct downloads on their website.

Please note that those downloads are still Release Candidates and not the real official Service Pack which will come out in the next year. I would not advise to download and install it unless you really now what you are doing and have backups of your settings in case something goes wrong.

Microsoft did release a document entitled: “Installing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Things to Know Before you Install” which should be read before upgrading the system. It basically states that users have to uninstall prior installed versions of the Service Pack 1 before installing the new one, that the copy of Windows Vista has to be genuine, that this release is a time limited software which will no longer operate after June 30, 2008 and that it is a pre-release version of the upcoming Service Pack 1.

Four Download Links are available for the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 depending on the language of your installation and whether you use a 32-bit or 64-bit edition.

Download link of 32-bit Windows Vista Service Pack 1, 5 languages (English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese)
Download link of 32-bit Windows Vista Service Pack 1, all 36 languages
a href=”http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/f/7/2f7155c9-00f3-4bf0-be92-d308da28d69e/Windows6.0-KB936330-wave0-X64.exe”>Download link of 64-bit Windows Vista Service Pack 1, 5 languages (English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese)
Download link of 64-bit Windows Vista Service Pack 1, all 36 languages

Only one download for the Windows XP Service Pack 3 download is available which points to the English Service Pack.

via My Digital Life

Tags: service pack 1, service pack 3, windows-vista, windows-xp

Download the Windows XP Service Pack 3

Martin — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:40:33 +0000

Microsoft will be releasing the Windows XP Service Pack 3 in the first half of 2008 which means that users have to wait several months before they can install the new Windows XP Service Pack on their computer. As with most other Microsoft releases that are not yet ready for the prime time the Service Pack 3 can also be downloaded early.

Not by all users but by beta testers.. and you. The process is similar to the one that was used to get the Windows Vista Service Pack early. Create a new entry in the Windows XP Registry and use Windows Update to download the latest service pack for Windows XP.

Thankfully though there is no need to download and reboot the computer three times, a reboot is actually not needed at all.

Here are the two commands that you need. (you actually can bypass the first one if you have not installed the Service Pack 3 before)

reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\XPSP3 /f 2> NUL
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\XPSP3 /v RCPreview /t REG_SZ /d 1c667073-b87f-4f52-a479-98c85711d869 /f

Create a batch file (or download it here), put those lines into it and execute it. This creates the necessary key that makes Windows Update believe that we are one of the few that are allowed to download the Windows XP Service Pack 3. It should appear in the list of Updates right away.

Please Note: This is a Release Candidate. Do not download it if you do not know what Release Candidate means. It could break your system. The size of the service pack is roughly 80 Megabytes.

via [Dailyapps]

Tags: service pack 3, windows tips, windows-xp

Pre Beta of Windows XP Service Pack 3 leaked

Martin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:30:15 +0000

Microsoft was never good at keeping files and releases for themselves. It is normally only a matter of hours until the first scene release of a popular Microsoft alpha, beta or final version hits the net and gets spread around like crazy on p2p networks, the Usenet and ftp.

Several rumors concerning the service pack 3 for Windows XP made their round on the Internet as well with Microsoft being as secretive as possible about a release data and contents of the service pack. A pre beta version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 was released two days ago by the group Win Beta, in their nfo they state:

This is the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Build 3180. Think of it more as a pre-beta build of SP3 than an actuall beta build.
Full Build tag is: 5.1.2600.3180 (xpsp.070718-2058)

The size of the current Windows XP service pack 3 is around 340 Megabytes. I did not download the service pack 3 which means that I can’t tell you anything about the contents.

This means that we finally got proof that a new service pack for Windows XP is still in the making.

Tags: microsoft, service pack 3, windows-xp

gHacks technology news » service pack 3

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