Member Avatar for mjdodd

any ideas... totally uptodate good working XP pro on a large computer with no frills except dual boot to Kubuntu.
On updating via the redmond genuine etc etc SP3 installed and then completely crashed the machine and would not start beyond the blue screen of no not death stat up with error at ...! If this is the first timle etc<.

Will start in safe mode but no obvious cause of not boot.

have now restored back to SP2 and all works.
Any ideas why SP3 should be left in the rubbish bin? or is it just another microsoft mess?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by MidiMagic

Dani AI

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Short practical guide for the “to SP3 or not” question — notes that expand on posters' points and give concrete next steps.

Good to test first (as hinted) and to be cautious about prerelease builds (echoing ). Before installing any service pack, make a full image of the system (not just a restore point) so you can recover quickly if startup fails. If the install happens on a working machine, disconnect unneeded peripherals, update chipset/storage/network drivers first, and temporarily remove or disable third‑party security and low‑level networking/VPN clients.

If a post‑install boot problem occurs, collect diagnostics before reverting:

  • Boot Safe Mode or the Recovery Console and enable boot logging to get ntbtlog.txt.
  • Copy any files from C:\Windows\Minidump and the most recent C:\Windows\memory.dmp.
  • Use Event Viewer logs (System/Application) for timestamps around the failure.
  • Analyze dumps with debugging tools (WinDbg) or a simple viewer (BlueScreenView) to identify a driver or module name listed at the top of the crash stack.

Useful recovery steps (in order of non‑destructiveness):

  • Try Last Known Good Configuration.
  • Boot Safe Mode and run sfc /scannow and chkdsk /r.
  • Remove or roll back recently added drivers and uninstall third‑party low‑level software.
  • If necessary, use a full image to restore, or perform an in‑place repair install from the XP media.

If deciding whether to install SP3 later: test on a VM or spare PC, read vendor compatibility notes for antivirus, VPN, and storage drivers, and prefer the final public release rather than early betas. Mentioned experiences in this thread underline why backups and diagnostic capture are the best defenses against a bad update.

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Member Avatar for bobbyraw

if you want to try i suggest you CREATE a system restore point then then give it a shot. i have only tried it in a VM. and it works fine.

And as always Bill will always have a patch for his product. the next version he should come out with is PATCH MICROSOFT the patch of all patches for all and any version of windows.

Member Avatar for mjdodd

it was the restore that got me back to SP2... but I like your thought repatching all of rdmond... hence the Kubuntu...

Member Avatar for jbennet

no no no no no

dont use SP3 atm - wait until its released, at the moment its a time limited beta

Member Avatar for MidiMagic

Is there a way we can patch Bill instead?

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