service pack 3 worthwhile?

[TechSupp]

Read many of the posts on here about woes of SP3 but most seem to relate to networks etc now its just appeared as an update on my home PC. Is it worth installing? and are there any perceivable benefits of putting it on?

[AngryTechnician]

For the average home user there is little benefit to installing SP3 vs. the individual updates.

 

As with any Service Pack, there is the potential for it to go wrong during the install and cause a lot of hassle.

 

If you use 802.1x or NAP on your network, it's worth it if you want to manage that by Group Policy, which wasn't possible before.

 

My preference at work is to install SP3 on new builds, but I'm in no rush to deploy it to existing XP machines.

[srochford]

It's probably worth remembering that many posts on here (and across most of the web) are "I tried X and it doesn't work; how can I fix it" rather than "I installed Y and it worked fine"

 

That means that if you look for stuff on SP3, you're going to find people having problems rather than the people who installed it without problem.

 

A quick count here shows 8,5000 PCs with XP; of those, about 5,500 have SP3 and I'm not aware that we've had any significant problems with it.

[gshaw]

SP3 shaves quite a few seconds off the boot time as well, just for that it's worth having

 

All our new build teaching machines are SP3 now and run quite a bit quicker with it on

 

Also cuts down on the amount of updates required to install

[CheeseDog]

I seem to be having the problem at home that windows updates have stopped downloading automatically.

 

Manually going to the site works fine.

 

Not really bothered looking into it much further.

[apoth0r]

On my home XP Pro machine I have SP3 and have had absolutely no problems with it.

[AyatollahPies]

I'd hang fire on installing it on sims workstations. Capita still haven't confirmed that it is compatible.

 

Anyone using it on sims workstations with no issues? Mainly admin workstations?

[Sylv3r]

I'd hang fire on installing it on sims workstations. Capita still haven't confirmed that it is compatible.

 

Anyone using it on sims workstations with no issues? Mainly admin workstations?

 

All of our admin machines are running SP3 with SIMS with no issues. Rolled it out and no problems from the start.

[browolf]

my home pc definately seems a bit slower after sp3

[CheeseDog]

I seem to be having the problem at home that windows updates have stopped downloading automatically.

 

Manually going to the site works fine.

 

Not really bothered looking into it much further.

 

Seem to have fixed the issue by doing that manual install.

 

Next update downloaded automatically today.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Didn't notice much difference on my home machine, still havn't taken the leap at work, mostly due to Sims not supporting it. Although I might sling it on the laptop, see if it dies (thought I've also got a copy of Vista Ultimate, which should kill it good).

[TheFopp]

Has anybody else had the Folder Redirection problem with SP3? I've gone back to installing SP2 and pushing through the 114 updates as that way I can at least guarentee that users will be able to see their own redirected Desktop and My Documents when they first log on to a new PC.

[dtakias]

Has anybody else had the Folder Redirection problem with SP3? I've gone back to installing SP2 and pushing through the 114 updates as that way I can at least guarentee that users will be able to see their own redirected Desktop and My Documents when they first log on to a new PC.

 

I haven't had a folder redirection problem with SP3 but I've experienced some weird issues with the spooler service which got fixed by using a different set of drivers...See here

 

Make sure your server is fully updated before rolling SP3 across your network.

[tosh74]

Has anybody else had the Folder Redirection problem with SP3? I've gone back to installing SP2 and pushing through the 114 updates as that way I can at least guarentee that users will be able to see their own redirected Desktop and My Documents when they first log on to a new PC.

 

I find that My Docs redirect works on \\server\username$ but breaks on \\server\studenthome\username

[Tim_H]

Pre-SP3 we were hit by this one:

After you enable the Folder Redirection policy in Windows XP Service Pack 2, the Internet Explorer Maintenance policy may not apply

 

I have also been affected by the folder redirection issue in SP3, this can be solved by using an older version of the file "fdeploy.dll"

 

Copy the fdeploy.dll file from a SP2 install over the SP3 version of the file and things should start working again. It is located in \windows\system32

[Tim_H]

appologies for the double post - IE crashed on me! Edited October 27, 2008 by Tim_H
IE crash!

[Maximus]

One thing to remember (cos I didn't:doh:) is if you're installing SP3 (I think SP2 was the same as well) on a laptop it will fail unless you are plugged into the mains (that's the laptop plugged into the mains not you:rolleyes:).

[garethEds]

We use an SP3 image for our RIS deployment and have had no issues whatsoever.

 

WHen we changed our network over to the LEA from RM we used SP3 from the beginning and so have over 300 machines RIS'ed to SP3. Folder re-direction is working as is SIMS.

 

SP3 also works fine on my Parallels image on my iMac.

 

No issues here.

 

Regards

 

GJE

[PiqueABoo]

Folder re-direction is working as is SIMS.

 

Folder redirection also works for me.

 

Might be wrong because it's indirectly gained, but my understanding is that Capita have said they're not aware of any problems with SIMS and SP3, but for one reason or another won't unambiguously say they support it.

 

Which is irritating.

[srochford]

 

Might be wrong because it's indirectly gained, but my understanding is that Capita have said they're not aware of any problems with SIMS and SP3, but for one reason or another won't unambiguously say they support it.

 

Which is irritating.

 

I hate this kind of attitude from suppliers. Microsoft make beta copies of their software available to companies like Capita (and many others) so that they can check that their software works and they can say so to users. Capita have now had 6 months to test it and come to a decision. If they've not yet done so I'd guess I'm not surprised but it's pretty annoying :-)

 

If they're not saying that it does work and you have problems then I wouldn't be surprised to find them blaming SP3 even if the fault almost certainly can't be linked to it.

[witch]

It's probably worth remembering that many posts on here (and across most of the web) are "I tried X and it doesn't work; how can I fix it" rather than "I installed Y and it worked fine"

 

That means that if you look for stuff on SP3, you're going to find people having problems rather than the people who installed it without problem.

 

A quick count here shows 8,5000 PCs with XP; of those, about 5,500 have SP3 and I'm not aware that we've had any significant problems with it.

 

To be fair, the OP wasn't asking about problems, only if there are any benefits to installing SP3

 

I have updated a lot of machines with it and can see no difference in log-on time or anything really, so I haven't bothered at home

[AyatollahPies]

All of our admin machines are running SP3 with SIMS with no issues. Rolled it out and no problems from the start.

 

Glad to hear it. Would save us a lot of time when we stumble across a workstation that needs 100+ updates.