SP2 Adventures (aka Life with SP1.5)

From: Joe Glotz (joe_glotzz_at_y_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/15/04 

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:50:43 GMT

A number of my clients were eager to update to SP2, and with more than a
little apprehension I agreed. Hell, I had already tried it out on a XP
Home and XP Pro system and was not all that disappointed (the BHO feature
in IE was worth the price of admission alone.)

The first installation on a highly tailored XP Home box went without a
hitch. A veteran of many Windows ME battles, my confidence was high.
Bill's Guys may have actually pulled this off.

The next installation, a WIN XP Pro, nearly out of the box and
appropriately trimmed, made for a very long day.

I have been around long enough to know to back up 'critical' data and
this was no exception. These are Bill's Guys we are dealing with, and the
owner was quite understanding if not just plain out irritated by the
process of making sure every single file of interest was burned to CD.

I plugged in my SP2 update and the lengthy update went without a hitch,
well, until it was time time to restart the computer. And then there was
a shutdown error...

...you know the one, some complaint from Explorer, and then several ones
thereafter...just a shutdown glitch as many of us have seen before...

...but this one wouldn't leave.

After the restart and all of the fanfare, the Explorer error reappeared,
as well as after the next restart. This was not looking good for the home
team.

Without batting an eye, the computer was started in Safe Mode (the
holiest of ground) for a quick examination of the situation and a system
restore if needed.

The Explorer error was relentless. There wasn't even a 'Start' button to
work with - even in Safe Mode. A restart and to the Safe Mode command
prompt looked promising. No errors. System restore here we come...

...but there wasn't a single restore point left.

Of course I am looking at a mostly dead computer at this point when the
owner has a revelation that there was a whole bunch of pictures that
'we' had missed in our backup. Needless to say he didn't quite understand
my disertation on the role Explorer plays with a computer and that file
access was not the easiest thing to come by at that point.

And of course it was 300 Mbyte of family pictures.

Oddly, IE would work with a little prodding and the Internet would come up
to some extent (no graphics). I could access the files on the computer
through IE but the CD burner wouldn't recognize a disk to burn if it's life
depended on it.

It was back to basics more or less. Enough of SP2 was there to allow an
install of an old FTP program. My concerns over the firewall were unfounded
since it is still a mystery what it is a firewall from. In mere hours I had
the files uploaded to my personal server and the games could begin in
earnest. You just gotta love a dial-up modem and pay by the hour.

The Win XP installation disk was no sooner in the drive and 39 minutes
later (Microsoft minutes) the installation was 'repaired'. Oh yes, the hour
and change trying the service pack uninstall and registry edits before that
are not worth mentioning. I am sure Bill's guys were just having a little
fun with those suggestions.

And 'repaired' even as a new meaning or two, especially running Service
Pack 1.5. Pergatory comes to mind for one.

Some of the OS worked, and some of it balked and flickered. Hey, it's
normal for Windows on a three month old computer to take 6 minutes to load
right?

To cut to the chase, it took 6 hours for the update and to get things back
to normal.

I'm kinda dreading the call tomorrow from this guy asking why he is getting
a Windows 98 splash screen. I think I'll tell him to call Bill's guys next
time.

p.s. please excuse the spelling errors and alike - I, too , am running SP2.