Windows XP SP2: Bugs, issues, and troubleshooting

So, where was I... the first casualty of XP SP2 is...

SOLIDWORKS 2003... the little bastard just locked up on me and won't even launch after a full reinstall...

"Hey Uncle Bill, about this problem"... they really know how to pick 'em—exactly what I need right now, apparently...

Interesting... now even opening a folder takes a few seconds—sometimes even minutes!

But hey, there’s a fix... FORMAT C:

A fresh install of SP1

Some idiot talked me into installing this garbage 😠

I tried an uninstall, and now this thing has completely lost its mind..
It froze up on me for five minutes right after the uninstall, then started acting weird with all these errors—claiming there was some kind of kernel error..

So I went ahead and restarted, but now it won't even boot back up.😁
The screen just flashed blue and spat out some text, but honestly, I didn't even want to read it.. one line said

Well, that’s what I get... format c:

I'm done messing with this for now... at least until sp3.😁

Are you looking to get your hands on SW 2004...?

🙂 🙂

YEAH... I WANT 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

My computer keeps acting up on me! It’s super frustrating. Every once in a while, when I'm just doing basic stuff—like clicking on a file and opening its properties—the whole thing just freezes up. It doesn't happen every single time, which makes it even more annoying because it's so unpredictable. After a bit, if I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the Windows Task Manager, the entire system crawls at a snail's pace. I've found that if I manually kill explorer.exe, things speed back up, but that feels like such a temporary fix. Am I going to have to reboot or log off every time this happens? Does anyone know how to actually fix this for good? I checked my hard drive and I still have about 6GB of free space, so I don't think it's a storage issue. Thanks for the help!

Luckily, I haven't run into that specific headache myself. The only weird thing I’ve noticed is that explorer.exe tends to crash and restart every once in a while—it’s totally random and happens over pretty long stretches of time, too. Honestly, I didn't see that happening back before SP2 was out.

I’m really not feeling like starting a whole new thread here (though if a moderator wants to jump in and whip one up for me, they can—just shoot me a PM), but let’s be real: XP SP2 is becoming this "necessary evil" for anyone stuck using Windows who hasn't upgraded yet. And I'm not even talking about those rebellious home users; I mean the massive corporations managing hundreds or even thousands of desktops at once:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5...=zdfd.newsfeed

Forget about that SP2. It’s honestly just a massive headache...
Just stick with SP1 and call it a day. I don't really get why we have to force these endless updates onto our systems if everything is already running smoothly.😕

I'm with you on this one—SP1 is more than enough... as long as you've got a solid antivirus running, you shouldn't run into any real trouble.

rustyrider40 said:Forget about that SP2. It’s nothing but a headache.
Just stick with SP1 and call it a day. I honestly don't get why people insist on installing every little update if everything is already running perfectly fine.😕

Honestly, it feels like my machine is just an outlier. For me, SP2 isn't causing any issues whatsoever.😁

No123 said:Seems like my rig is just built different. SP2 isn't giving me any crap at all.😁

Yeah... same here... guess I'm just special, huh?😁

Bryan Kern6🤔

Alright, I've gone ahead and merged those two separate threads about SP2 into one comprehensive master list of SP2 issues (if a moderator could kindly take a quick look further down 😁), because I’ve certainly got a few grievances of my own to add to the pile:

At the office, everything is running smoothly enough—not that I ever get much downtime to actually mess around with my workstation 😁 🙄—with the sole exception of one specific program that is clearly having a meltdown due to incompatibility with SP2 (Look@LAN—what a shame), but things at home have been a bit more erratic:

1. - As others have already pointed out... I’m seeing the occasional stuttering from Windows Explorer, particularly when I try to open a folder packed with tiny files or something heavy sitting at several GBs in size.

2. - Now, for the much more aggravating issue: Java 1.4.2 _05
I first caught wind of this a couple of weeks ago when I noticed Internet Explorer would just abruptly crash out of nowhere whenever I had a window active with JAVA running (it was during an AOL chat session 😁), though at the time, I foolishly assumed Internet Explorer was just being its usual unreliable self 😬
Yesterday, I decided to push my luck and test it with Firefox just to see if the result would be the same, and wouldn't you know it? Firefox simply folded under the pressure and crashed after a short while—no warning, no nothing (just like Internet Explorer—no error messages, no "send report to Microsoft" prompts, just total silence)
It seems pretty obvious to me now that we're looking at a messy symbiosis between JAVA and XPSP2, and frankly, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to fix it.

I did spot that there's a version of Java 5.0 (1.5.0) RC1 available (I actually went ahead and downloaded it, though I haven't pulled the trigger on the installation yet 😁), but I'm hesitant to install it because I really don't feel like dealing with the headache of a fresh XP installation; it took me nearly two years of agonizing over the decision to finally set up my current system 😬.

Alright, let's get this show on the road.

ALCXWDM.sys

This message is what crashes my XP and sends me straight into the "deep blue" screen.

So, I thought maybe VIVO was the one acting up... but nope, turns out it's the same old story.
I’ve downloaded every single driver for this graphics card... still crashing. Same old story.
I downloaded every single AC97 driver out there... nothing changes.
...uninstalled everything... system's still crashing.

And then what?

I'm running SP2 and haven't had a single issue. Period.

Anyone got an idea what's actually going on here? I'm hitting a wall with these WDM drivers on SP2. If they’re the sole culprit, why does everything still fall apart even after a full uninstall and pulling the hardware entirely? It makes zero sense.

I'm sitting here typing on SP1, and there’s zero chance I’ll ever actually see SP2... I've tried installing it on a clean setup five times now—praying to just about any god out there to make it stick.

Here’s what’s been breaking since I installed SP2:

1. My dial-up connections have completely vanished. They aren't there, and I can't even set up new ones because I keep getting hit with some stupid error message. Now I'm forced to rely on that "rasphone" utility from system32 just to get online.

2. Every single time I shut down my PC, all my system restore checkpoints disappear. 😲

I'm not sure if this is directly tied to SP2, but these issues started popping up the moment I made the switch.

There’s something just fundamentally off about this one... at first, it was running like a dream... but after five days, everything started lagging until it became totally unusable.

I'm telling you, unless you absolutely have to install it, don't bother...

I’ve heard that if you install a version of Windows that already includes SP2, everything runs smoothly without any headaches.
A buddy of mine installed it yesterday and says it's performing perfectly so far. I'll wait a few days to see if it starts acting up before I make a call. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thomas Hughes16 said:I heard if you just install a version of Windows that already has SP2 baked in, everything works perfectly without any headaches.

I’ve used an installation where SP2 was already implemented. I set it up on four completely different machines, and not once did I run into a single issue.

How much did that setup of yours run you? It feels like you went a bit overboard, unless you actually need it for work or something...