Curious about XP SP3

Lev = Admin

My thought on this Lev is that its one of those quirks and gremlins that may hit some and not others, does seem as by your fix that the windows installers may have been corrupted so deleting them fixed the constant wanting to install, two PCs affected is strange so see my note below!



[note]
May also have been that MSFT didnt like Oregonians that week as I gather they have a map of world and use the Pin the Tail on donkey method of choosing as country or state to pick on for sending gremlins in any given week, watch out California its your turn next.

 

They are there already, they have a spy who is trying to infect everyones PC with Linux, thing his codename is Adry.... something! But will get more intel for you on that sneeky character.



@Paramonks, Yes some small patches to larger service packs are a bit hit and miss, however in a sample size of global users to each OS used, the % affected are not high, and especially as forums only hear in the majority of cases the negative,

NOW MAJOR CAVEAT to this is the SPs should not cause issues for anyone *period* however and I have run into the issues with SPs et al in that these days with the various permutations in hardware/software no company can really say 100% that a software update will not affect the smooth running of your PC! ( latests noteable to hit is AVG8 and issues its causing for some )

I did 10 clean installs of Vista to test its SP1 during early BTing on that software, vanilla OS and install of SP went fine, it was only when I introduced 3rd party software that in 2 installs when wrong, cause was 3rd party security, namely a Firewall that didnt uninstall correctly and left reminents of files on PC, luckily I was in a position to bug this, give feedback and recieve a fix, which was added to the SP in case this happened to others.. which is why if anyone decides to test a beta ( any beta not just MSFT ones ) and I know many do, if it fails then "bug it" and help the team developing this fix it over griping about said software, this way the devs get a wider cross section of user PC specs and permutations, helps everyone in the end.

I know that in the Vista betas, many signed up to test it thinking like many betas that you get the software and gifts for testing, yes you do... however as many didnt lift a finger to bugfix the software and their possible bugs "may" have ruled out some, they recieved nothing! moaned at this and in came a flurry of bug reports past the cutoff date as beta had finished, I know that this is likely not to happen again in a large beta, if you dont feedback you should be removed from testing.

I know CTPs are different, but still if you decide to install these and hit a bug, feed it back, never know one of the dev team may help you fix it.

I would say to anyone if you have spare PC and you wish to have your voice heard ( and it is believe me ) then actively participate in a beta, doesnt have to be Microsoft products but any of your favoured ones.


Mmmmmm that came out a bit long............

 

Ann, I knew as soon as I posted that acronym, I should have explained ( been typing tech things all morning so using short form to save finger burn ) sorrrrrryyyyy.


CTP = Community Technology Preview
Basically is is when a beta is coming into final phases and many of the BIG show stopper bugs have been worked out in closed beta testing, then comes the CTP to try and get a global picture with many users and their various PC setups, not just the initial small group of early testers.

Companies like Microsoft, do need users who take on and install these CTP betas to feedback as I mentioned, why, well if you have an issue on your PC with say SP3 for XP, your feedback could be valuable in fixing a bug that maybe rare occurance due to permutation of software you have, the fix maybe an easy one or it may go to highlight a bigger issue. Its very possible that the HP AMD/INTEL driver issue may have been caught earlier.....!

On a personal level I have had many bugs and issues even to this day with Vista ( not major ones but irritants ) but I have made my case and bugged or suggested a different approach to these to the team developing this and in many cases the lessions learned from past OSes go into the next, Microsoft are listening to feedback good or bad as they know the PC using community is growning and they need to keep us PC users on side.


*kinda more than you barganed for I know