PC? Re: Service Pack 3

Since we're pretty much a Mac household, I'm not fully up to speed with PC's these days.<br><br>My youngest son has a 8 year old Dell that was handed down to him via his older sister, via her Mom, via my old work computer...Yeah I know, I'm cheap.Maybe someday the economy will recover, and Santa can hook the kid up with a Mac...lol.<br><br>I've upgraded the operating system a few times so now it is running XP with service pack 2. He keeps getting a prompt via the auto update to download andinstall service pack 3. I've heard quite a few horror stories associated with this upgrade (what a surprise, a PC horror story)<br><br>My question is...<br><br>Has anyone here done the service pack 3 upgrade, and if so how did it go? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Did it make any difference?<br><br>I'm kind of inclined at this point to turn off the auto updates and leave things well enough along. If it's not broke, don't fix it...lol.<br><br>~Joe<br>

Don't download the SP3 !!! If you continually install the "usual" updates, SP3 is overkill for anything the average user requires. SP3 is alsohuge taking the better part of an hour to install when my wife (not knowing any better) downloaded it with her usual update listings.<br><br>After the install it really bogged down her system - so I uninstalled it .... and in the process, the uninstall caused her anti-virus and a couple otherprograms to quit functioning. I spent over an hour in Microsoft chat with a technician who ultimately couldn't help me get things back to normal. If you dodecide to download it, create a restoration point before you do as a safety.<br><br>At that point, I went to the MS site and did an online scan of the system which detected some critical updates that were needed. I downloaded the updates andmiraculously, everything came back fully functional.<br><br><br>Mark.

Thanks Mark,<br><br>I kind of suspected to hear just what you described. When I went with the service pack 2 upgrade, I encountered pretty much the same hassles you did, just notas bad.<br><br>That's all I need to hear. I'm leaving well enough alone.<br><br>~Joe<br>

Well. I am certainly glad that you asked this question, Joe. And I am even happier that Mark replied to it. My situation: I am smarter than the average bear when it comes to computers. So by no means do I download every MS update. When it came to the latest service pack, since SP1 and SP2 were very important, I assumed SP3 was just as crucial. So I downloaded it. And yes, it took an hour. The result? No horror stories at all. However, startup and shutdown take a long time. I can live with that, but would rather not if given the choice. More importantly, it takes up a little over 1GB of space. I now have a precious few 6GB left on my operating drive. After reading Mark's post, I searched the internet to see how important it really is. The only definitive article I found was the white paper written by Microsoft itself. After reading it, I couldn't find anything that said I really needed SP3. It seems to be only a conglomeration of previous updates. If you do as Mark suggests and install any crucial security updates that you may not already have, it seems like you'd be fine without it. By the way, Joe... you don't have to turn off updates. You can simply select that you not be notified again of this update (or any other). I think I'm going to uninstall it and recover another 1GB of space. Unless anyone has anything to add to the contrary?

<blockquote> By the way, Joe... you don't have to turn off updates. You can simply select that you not be notified again of this update (or any other).</blockquote>Thanx Gregg,<br><br>And just where would I go to to select not being notified. I'm having trouble finding it.<br><br>Thanx again,<br><br>~Joe<br>

When you get the pop-up box indicating you have new updates, tick the box(es) for the ones you DON'T want, then tick the box at the bottom that indicatesDO NOT NOTIFY ME OF THESE UPDATES AGAIN.<br><br><br>Mark.

<blockquote> When you get the pop-up box indicating you have new updates, tick the box(es) for the ones you DON'T want, then tick the box at the bottom that indicates DO NOT NOTIFY ME OF THESE UPDATES AGAIN.</blockquote>Thanx Mark,<br><br>But what if I don't get any "DO NOT NOTIFY ME OF THESE UPDATES AGAIN." boxes to tick?<br><br>~Joe<br>

Just make sure you UN-CHECK the updates you don't want before you download the ones you do.<br><br><br>Mark.

Joe, It depends upon your settings. If you have your settings set to notify, but neither download nor install, then when the CHOOSE UPDATES TO DOWNLOAD box pops up, then you actually <u><em>deselect</em></u> (untick) the boxes. Then hit CLOSE. A new HIDE UPDATES box will pop up. Tick DON'T NOTIFY ME ABOUT THESE UPDATES AGAIN. Then click OK. If you have your settings set to automatically download (but not automatically install) updates, then when the installation box pops up, choose CUSTOM rather than EXPRESS. Then <em><u>deselect</u></em> (untick) the boxes and hit CLOSE. A new HIDE UPDATES box will pop up. Tick DON'T NOTIFY ME ABOUT THESE UPDATES AGAIN. Then click OK.

Thanks for the help everyone. Finally got it resolved.<br><br>Joey