Continued Warnings about XP Service Pack 2

[Greg Meyer]

Again,



Some further testing and comments about the soon to be released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP...



The suggestion about creating an image of your machine seems to be a reasonable idea if you have access to Norton's Ghost or similar software. The problem is that you won't know about problems until you have downloaded and installed SP2. It's a sort of catch 22 for users. Professional help to recover a crashed system can run into hundreds of dollars. At a very minimum, if you keep important records on your computer back those up to asnother computer or disk.



I'll (and I am sure others) will be around to help you out but that may not be enough.
http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=23905071

 

[Carl Meyer]

Also, you can use your system restore function in system tools. Has saved me many times. It allows you to restore your computer to an earlier time when it was still safe. Restores everything completely and leaves no residual effects - awesome feature. And of course, have your important documents backed up on some DVD's or CD's just to be safe.

 

[Greg Meyer]

Good thought Carl... but be sure to create the bootable floppy for the ASR (Automated System Recovery... Start>Accessories>System Tools> Backup )and be ready to restore from there. System restore won't get you out of a "blue screen" without the floppy. Your backup may require a pile of floppies or an external or zip drive...

 

[Carl Meyer]

Your Windows XP disk is also a startup disk.

 

[Corey Carrico2]

Yet another embarassment for MS. With Linux getting better and better for the desktop they have to get on top of these things. I run Sun Micro's Java Desktop (SuSE Linux) on my notebook, it is not quite mainstream user friendly yet but is getting very very close.

 

[Texas Transplant]

Just a note. Earlier this year after having some pretty bad Windows XP problems on my wife's computer, I was going to go back to the system restore.



However, System Restore functionality, was one of the things that was cooked (along with many others). Wound up doing a repair install, and having to decode the disk again.



Tex