Windows 2000 Service Pack ---> 3 <--- Available

[CougTek]

Before wiping your system, you might want to build a new Default User profile, delete your "old" profiles, and then "recreate" them by back into your new accounts.

Thanks Gary, I'll try that later this week.

 

[Tea]

Ahhhh... Thanks, Bartender. Just the drop.

Coug, you don't have a Promise ATA-133 controller in your system by any chance, do you? I gather there is a known problem with the Promise card and SP3.

 

[CougTek]

Coug, you don't have a Promise ATA-133 controller in your system by any chance, do you? I gather there is a known problem with the Promise card and SP3.

Nope, no Promise POS on that motherboard for sure. I installed the SP3 on my Athlon XP + Soltek SL-75DRV2 system. Oh well, since the computer is running 24x7, I don't login/out very often do it might be a while until I do anything to fix that annoying little bug.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks Splash

Love your new name, and icon.

gs

 

[Santilli]

Splash, PS: Kava said 'Hi'

ss

 

[James]

Coming right up your glistening red furriness.

I'd prefer it if you just served your drinks in a glass, barkeep.

 

[e_dawg]

Aaaahhh! Please, James. I just finished eating. I don't need any help with implied visuals

 

[Will Rickards]

8+ hours on dial-up

 

[Platform]

Will there ever be a Service Pack 4 for W2K? Or is this the last one?

There will definitely be a Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 -- probably in 2003.

In fact, SP-3 has about 30 fixes and updates that would have been in SP-4, which are referred to as "Pre-SP4." It took much longer to get SP-3 tested and out the door than what was planned in 2001 when SP-3 was first planned out. There was also an update between SP-2 and SP-3 called SP-2/SR-1, which was basically some critical SP-3 fixes all by themselves without any of the updates that are contained in SP-2.

 

[e_dawg]

Hmm... that's about 500 bugs fixed (judging by the list at timwhit's link). How many bugs does that leave unfixed? Back in Feb 2001, MS admitted that there were 28,000 bugs in Win 2k, and another 35,000 "minor issues". I am not complaining, because W2k works quite well for me... but it is interesting to know that there is still so much that could be addressed.

 

[GIANT]

Hmm... that's about 500 bugs fixed (judging by the list at timwhit's link). How many bugs does that leave unfixed? Back in Feb 2001, MS that there were 28,000 bugs in Win 2k, and another 35,000 "minor issues". I am not complaining, because W2k works quite well for me... but it is interesting to know that there is still so much that could be addressed.

Some of the "fixes" were spelling corrections in help files. Some of the "updates" were things like updated ReadMe or Help files. The Service Packs are very much a mixed bag.

 

[time]

Has anyone found a valid reason to install it yet?

 

[Tannin]

Because it's there.

 

[Tannin]

Well, that was my reason. But I sure hope Will Rickards had a better reason!

 

[Handruin]

It has the code red fix, and a few other MSCS fixes...

 

[GIANT]

Has anyone found a valid reason to install it yet?

I believe one of the SCSI performance fixes was included in Win2K SP-3. The same code fix for SCSI performance is in the upcoming WinXP SP-1. There are a *lot* of updated drivers for this and that as well.

Tannin sez that Win2K SP-3 breaks one of the Promise RAID controllers. I recall the same thing happening with a different Promise FastTrack RAID controller when Win2K SP-1 came out. It seems Promise's coders must live and work in a cave somewhere.

Otherwise, it's pretty much always a *good* thing to install the latest Service Pack when they become available. M$ has upped the beta tester population and the internal quality control by a couple of magnitude since the WinNT4 SP-2 semi-fiasco of 1996/7.

 

[Mercutio]

Let's not say things we can't take back. Do you not remember NT4's SP1 and 2?

 

[Onomatopoeic]

Let's not say things we can't take back. Do you not remember NT4's SP1 and 2?

Yes, I mentioned WinNT4 / SP-2 above. MS rushed it out the door without a thorough beta test, which ended up causing certain various amounts of grief. Fortunately, I was not one of those that experienced problems with the installation of WinNT4 SP-2. WinNT4 SP-1, SP-2, and SP-3 all had their various problems. WinNT4 SP-4 finally got a handle on things -- sort of. WinNT4 was a problematic OS, though still not as bad as Win98 first edition or WinME.

 

[Tannin]

Was anything as bad as Win ME?

Well, DOS 6.0 was pretty bad, so was 4.0. And Windows 3.0 was appalling. Guess I've answered my own question.

 

[Mercutio]

I *like* 98 first edition. I mean, once you strip all of IE out of it, it's really well-behaved for a lightweight system.

ME is that buggy? I know it's ugly and DOS-less, but it's buggy, too? I'd think the very last release of 9x would at least be "less buggy". Wow. This changes my whole world view.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

Win 98 "first edition" -- without stripping out anything (¿ are we talking about using Win98 Lite?) -- was obviously a bit of a get-it-out-the-door-now-and-we'll-fix-it-later product. They did that with Win98 SE, which was fairly decent.

Win ME should have never come out. It should have ended with Win98 SE + a service pack or service release in 2000 to give it one last push into oblivion. Instead, they take the rickety old DOS+Windows ship and attempt to inject more 16/32-bit code into it to make it operate like NT.

I've used WinME enough to know that it's a stinky bow-wow-wow dog. Performance in ME is lacklster and it's not as stable as Win98SE.

 

[Tannin]

I'd think the very last release of 9x would at least be "less buggy". Wow. This changes my whole world view.

As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.

For ever and ever.

Amen.

 

[e_dawg]

Agree 100% with you, Gary. IMO, 98SE is the best 9x OS while ME is possibly the worst. Maximum bloat, mininum speed and stability. What more could you not ask for in an OS?

 

[Mercutio]

Having to boot off a 5.25" floppy?
Automatically granting billg and co. admin rights on your machine (which is something that SP3 does, BTW)?
Multics translation layer?
All-encompassing DRM?
Product activation?
TCP/IP support provided exclusively via AOL?
Read-Once installation media?

I can think of lots of awful things that ME doesn't do.

 

[P5-133XL]

Sorry, I believe W95 when it was first released was the absolute worst both in functionallity and buggyness.

Windows 98 was a signifigent improvement over W95.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

Yes, Win95 was flakey to an extent, but it got a lot better with the "OEM2" version (FAT32, etc.).

 

[Pradeep]

Automatically granting billg and co. admin rights on your machine (which is something that SP3 does, BTW)?
....

TCP/IP support provided exclusively via AOL?

The auto updating of the OS by MS can be turned off.

As for AOL, I won't be able to sleep tonight with the nightmares. Can you just imagine, you disconnect the network cable and the whole computer just hangs, forcing a hard reset.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

Automatically granting billg and co. admin rights on your machine (which is something that SP3 does, BTW)?

The auto updating of the OS by MS can be turned off.

Yes. I keep telling people that you can turn this off if they want to. It isn't hard.

 

[Cliptin]

As for AOL, I won't be able to sleep tonight with the nightmares. Can you just imagine, you disconnect the network cable and the whole computer just hangs, forcing a hard reset.

What is this AOL stuff of which you speak?

 

[Pradeep]

LOL, no need to panic Cliptin, I was just joking about what would happen if Mercutio's list of terrible things were to really happen to win2k.

 

[Mercutio]

A joke you must've missed.

Autoupdate is kind of scary, especially with the now-standard practice of rolling all the critical updates into one big ball. What am I downloading, again?

 

[James]

I've found the best thing to do is run Windows Update Services on a server, so your client machines only get the updates you want, plus you only have to download each one once.

Minus points :
- The system requirements for the server itself are pretty fierce. ("An Intel X-86 or compatible P700-level processor, 512 megabytes (MB) of RAM, and 6 gigabytes (GB) of available hard-disk space.")

- It only supports clients running Windows XP Professional, XP Home, 2000 Professional and 2000 Server. Yet another incentive to upgrade everything from Win98 to a real OS.

 

[Mercutio]

FreeBSD???

 

[James]

"Real" in a Microsoft sense.

 

[Santilli]

SP 3, sucks on scsi...

I've got between 20 and 10% slower drive test speeds, with the current scsi
"Fix" then I did with SP 2.

Not real scientific, but close.

See the thread I started...

s

 

[Pradeep]

Well you could always uninstall SP3 Greg. You did choose the backup files option?

 

[Santilli]

I did on the faster computer, but...

I never suspected anything like this, so the slower computer, w/o scsi has the service pack 3 on it, and I would have to reinstall. No need. Works fine, and the person working on the computer is more intrested in stability then speed...

s

 

[Santilli]

Kind os shocked...

This is the first 'mac like' sp that I've run into.

First time anything that was in anyway important to me was a step backwards in a sp, instead of forwards.

It's kind of funny that the same scsi 'fix' is supposed to be in the new XP service pack, too.

Glad I'm not running XP...

So, I guess that means 2000 is 2 steps ahead of XP in scsi performance...
s

 

[Platform]

One problem that I've run into with SP-3, is that when setting up a new system with Windows 2000 (no service pack) and upgrading the OS straight ot SP-3, Internet Explorer 6 doesn't want to work with the new version of Windows Update (V4) -- which is essentially the same version that WinXP has always used.

After applying SP-3, I found that Windows Update would repeatedly come back with a "Ox800A138F" error. Then I found out that the way to fix the problem was to re-install Windows Update V4, by downloading a CAB file at:


http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/cab/x86/unicode/iuctl.cab


This .CAB file needs to be unpacked once it's downloaded. After unpacking its contents, right-click on the IUCTL.INF file and "Install" it. Reboot the system. Now, Windows Update will work properly!

 

[Groltz]

The following was posted at The Register:

...Or you could just install SP3 without agreeing to the supplementary EULA. How do you do that? We're glad you asked. Ordinarily we try not to get to close to encouraging or helping people to crack software, but we think this case is a tad different. As we said earlier, SP3 is to a great extent an exercise in fixing bugs in something you have already bought, and it is an outrageous imposition (OK, we didn't say that earlier) for Microsoft to seize more rights for itself as a condition of those fixes being applied.

A helpful tipster directed us to a cute product called Enabler, which you will find here. Enabler is one of a number of handy things on this worthy site, and seems to do quite a number of handy things itself. But what it does that's important from the point of view of people wanting to install SP3 is allow you to click OK after you've checked "I do not agree" to the supplemental EULA. Note that you use it at your own risk, don't blame us if, etc (insert draconian Register EULA here).

This, seeing you're in too much of a hurry to read the instructions, is how you do it. Run Enabler, then start the SP3 install. Click on "I don't agree" when you get there. The OK box is grey, right? OK, go to Enabler, and scroll down until you get to the entry for Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 Setup Wizard. Double click on it, expand the tree then go to the entry that says &Next> (Button). Right click on this, and click on Enable. Now return to the SP3 Wizard, and you'll magically find you can click on Next even though I do not agree is checked.

Wonderful, isn't it? And as far as we can figure out you're not doing anything wrong either. Well, not much. It does say above the supplementary EULA that to continue with setup, "you must accept the agreement." So Microsoft's lawyers could argue that you're not licensed to use SP3 because you haven't agreed. Which is approximately the same territory as the wording in the WinXP EULA which says you're not licensed if you don't activate it in the approved way (so you could have paid for the product, but by using a workaround for product activation you'd be invalidating your licence anyway).

Microsoft's lawyers are not going to come after you for warezing a service pack, and we doubt very much they'd come after you for installing a copy of WinXP without agreeing the licence (NB we don't know if Enabler would allow you to do this, and we're not about to reinstall XP again today just to find out). So you're probably in the clear anyway?

Well, not exactly, because if you've installed a Microsoft product without agreeing to Microsoft helping itself to data from your machine, then legally speaking it's your move. You may be in breach of your licence agreement, but Microsoft will be helping itself to this information anyway despite your not having given it permission to do so. So you're going to have to sue. Good luck.