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.

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The issue is caused by security changed to the Terminal Service ActiveX control in Internet Explorer which is now disabled by default. Thankfully a workaround was posted already, here are the steps to fix the problem and enable Windows Home Server Remote Access again.

Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons to enable the Terminal Services ActiveX control again. If you see the Terminal Services control and are able to enable it you are done. If you cannot see it or cannot enable it you need to delete two keys in the Windows Registry instead which will also enable the Terminal Services ActiveX control again.

HKCU \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Ext \Settings \{7390f3d8-0439-4c05-91e3-cf5cb290c3d0}
HKCU\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Ext\ Settings\ {4eb89ff4-7f78-4a0f-8b8d-2bf02e94e4b2)

Once you have deleted those two keys the activeX control should be enabled again in Internet Explorer.

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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

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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.

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The reason for this behavior is that the system would revert back to an older version of Internet Explorer 6 that would not contain the patches applied by the Service Pack. The Windows XP Service Pack 3 updates the version of Internet Explorer installed on the system during installation of the Service Pack.

The only possible way to uninstall Internet Explorer 7 that has been installed before installing Service Pack 3 is to uninstall the Service Pack first and then Internet Explorer 7. Microsoft suggests that users of IE6 should update their system with Service Pack 3 first and install IE7 afterwards. This would ensure that the browser could be uninstalled normally.

I’m sure that not many users will run into this problem but some surely will. An alternative would be to switch to another browser like Opera or Firefox if you do not feel like uninstalling the Service Pack to uninstall IE7 is worth it.

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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.

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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.

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