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Some OEM XP loads have issues with SP3

by on13 May 2008

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Not a pain-free installation in all situations

After waiting as long as we have for Service Pack 3 for Windows XP it is hard to believe that problems are just now creeping up with the installation.

With all of the beta testing and even going so far as to pull Service Pack 3 temporarily after release for another major issue, it is almost inconceivable that Microsoft didn’t catch this one, as well. It comes as quite a surprise that some installations of Service Pack 3 are failing and locking computers into an endless reboot cycle.

The reboot cycle on these computers that are failing during the Service Pack 3 upgrade are crashing during the load of Windows XP, which is leading to the endless reboot cycle. While it would appear that there are several issues that are causing problems, those users that have PCs that have an OEM load of Windows XP could be at more of a risk for issues such as this.

It seems that the problem is being caused by what can only be called "poor" configurations of OEM XP loads. The problem seems to be quite prevalent with HP systems that use the intelppm.sys driver to handle power management, but this is a configuration error in some cases because the correct driver to be used on AMD systems would be the amdk8.sys driver, which is the correct driver to handle power management on AMD processors.

The news in this case is good for Microsoft because the error is not directly traced to a problem with SP3, but rather with the HP’s configuration of the OEM load. The other problem that is making the rounds is USB related. While the exploration continues on what the exact root cause of the problems is, it would appear on the surface that the problem seems to be related to USB mice or USB storage devices.

According to some users simply plugging in a USB storage device such as a flash drive will allow the computer to boot normally, but in other cases some have found that switching to a PS/2 mouse rather than a USB mouse will resolve the issue.

Users that have the 8.4 version of the AMD Catalyst drivers installed also appear to have reported some issues. The reported fix is to boot into VGA mode and upgrade the video driver. Multiple hard disk configurations seem to also be another issue that SP3 is grappling to deal with.

While it is obvious that Microsoft is taking some of the heat for the issues in installing Service Pack 3, in this case it does not appear to always be Microsoft’s fault. Poor choices by OEM manufacturers in the configuration of their load of Windows XP on systems also seem to be an important factor in determining the success or failure of your Service Pack 3 upgrade.

Still, it is hard to believe that with all of the testing of the Service Pack 3 prior to release that more of these problems did not show up. As things stand at the moment, it is a real crap shoot in some cases if you will be able to apply Service Pack 3. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does, if anything, to address the issue. Microsoft may be forced to take action even when it is clear that it is not entirely its fault.

Last modified on 13 May 2008
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