Hi all

I updated my laptop to xp sp3 a couple of months ago when it popped up in the usual automatic update thing. However, ever since I installed it, it has been running really slowly, freezing all the time, and freezing during bootup. It has been no better in Safe Mode.

Tonight I have reloaded windows on to it so it is back to sp2. I know it sounds a bit drastic but there is nothing on the laptop at all, the only thing it is used for is internet! It is now running perfectly again, but am I leaving myself open to any viruses etc by not loading on sp3?

Thanks

Rich

 

i would update to sp3, run a defrag afterwards and you will be ok

 

cheers, i tried a defrag, i did everything to try and fix it!!

 

Thats wierd, ive got it running on an old laptop with an old celeron processor and its not slow(the only slowness is down to the laptop itself)
Lightening on my desktop

No idea why you cant run it but you need to really as you will be leaving yourself open to threats which have been sorted within xp3, plus you wont be able to update nothing at all until you do the update, and you cant run the lastest internet explorer either

 

well i've put ie7 on and it is ok. my mum put sp3 on her laptop, and she commented on how slow it has been running ever since! I might put it back on and see what happens.

Rich

 

I didnt think you could install I.E 7 on sp2

 

No you don't, Windows XP SP2, SP3 or Vista as is with all new Microsoft software such as Windows Media Player and indeed most new software now. IE7 was released before Windows XP SP3 as was IE8 Beta.

As for the slowing the PC have never come across this before I did hear that XP SP3 was a bit unstable after it's release but think that was just talk and have never experienced any problems with it.

Are you sure it's defently SP3 and not something that was on PC as you now have clean install you could try and again and always uninstall from Add/Remove if you get problems again.

If you ever had Windows XP pre SP2 release you would have noticed alot of difference visually but also new features such as the Security Center and big security changes such as Windows XP Firewall being enabled by default just to name a couple of minor ones.

With XP SP3 visually you will not notice no difference, there are two major background changes that do not really affect end user.

1) Support for IPV6 (Internet Protocol version 6)
2) Support for WPA2 (WI-FI Protected Access 2) Basically new wireless encryption technology.

There is also another feature added called NAP (Network Access Protection)

It's basically just added features that Windows Vista has.

It is good practise to run the latest service pack and if not will just sit in the system tray with the yellow shield waiting to be installed and this can hamper the performance of the PC as Windows Update hammers system resources. You can of course select to not be notifed of the download by clicking the shield and checking the box and just manually download later if you want.

Kind regards,

Martin.

 

I still run IE6 on SP3 on one machine. IE7 on SP2 and IE8 on Windows 7

Couldnt tell you the last time I run any security patches on the machine I am currently using but I havent had any issues at all.

 

when you put SP3 on you ideally need no less than 512mb of system memory where as you could get away with 256mb on SP2

 

SP3 is FINE.

I run 4gb on my xp laptop (well 4gb physically as xp 32 bit only addresses 3gb) and its great - different story with vista tho lol

Something sounds not quite right, although I do build my machines with SP3 slipstreamed

 

Well, put sp3 on earlier, and touch wood, all is fine this time! Not really sure what happened to it last time, but it seems to be ok!

Thanks for all your help

Rich

 

Good stuff, as I said above SP3 would not have caused the issue it would have been something as your PC but since you have since system restored the PC you now have a clean install (Or as clean as the manufactur's builds can be) thats if you did a system restore and not a re build from scratch, in any case any problems would have been removed.

Kind regards,

Martin.

 

Ive had problems similar with SP3 To the point where I wont be rolling it out via WSUS to our clients

Updates only are fine but on notebooks in particular especially older models ive had issues.

I still run SP3 myself on my machines and had no problems but it's not 100% reliable