Will SP2 Crash my machine?

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You missed one of the critical steps before installing SP2 - Run a spyware detector like SpyBot Search&Destroy or Adaware to remove spyware from the computer. Several spyware applications are known to have conflicts with SP2.

You are *so* right. I'll update the article. Thanks, Larry.

I've had a problem installing SP2 on my Advent 7027 laptop (serves me right for buying this I think).

Computer crashes on start up after 15 dots on the "please wait..." page

Contacted the support line on 3 occasions to remedy - been told to clean-boot, told to uninstall AV and Firewall. Nothing helped.

This morning told by support line that Microsoft are going to issues a Service Pack 2A by Xmas as I'm not the only poor chap with problems.

What really peeves me is that my laptop is less than a year-old. Every computer I've ever owned seems to be redundant and stops working within about a year. Whilst I'm not an IT professional I'm certainly not an IT cretin either so I blame Microsoft!

I have just had to do a system restore. Within a few days of installing SP2 I installed Real player but my system kept shutting down & rebooting. After checking through my system and found it was still rebooting, I uninstalled Realplayer and to be on the safe side (in case I had made any other changes & forgotten them), I system restored from a few days before the real player download . It has been fine since with no more rebooting. But the only thing I have noticed is the HDD activity. All of a sudden when nothing seems to be running I hear and see my hard drive red light flickering, then after a few minutes, it stops. Can you suggest anything as this has only started since the xp2 install.
Julie Rice

Hello, I installed SP2 on a 8 month old high end laptop, and started getting problems. I got "delayed write errors", and had to schedule scandisk. This found bad sectors and fixed them. Then it happened again! I copied my website and work folders to another PC, just in time as the laptop crashed again. This time, nothing would make it restart. I tried to re-install XP, and had to repartition the drive. Even this failed, my hard drive is now unformattable and I have had to buy a new one! Could just be a coincidence, but I got a message saying write cacheing had to be disabled before it died. I'm leaving it off until the next release, lost all my emails etc. I ran full spyware, adware and virus checks first, so it wasnt that.

Regarding "Get the latest pre-SP2 updates". This *was* the right thing to do, but now I'm not so sure. Now that SP2 has been around for a while, there have been patches issued after SP2 (such as for the JPG/GDI problem). If you install patches more recent than SP2 and then later install SP2, who knows what will happen?

I've just installed SP2 onto my laptop. Now the thing keep rebooting. I've tried starting Windows in Safe mode but all that happens is it just reboots again. I can't boot from a disc as the Windows came preinstalled on the laptop. I have no idea what to do now and I can't even access the C drive.

since installing sp2 as an automatic update im in a living hell.yep a living hell.my pc will not power up.it just has a little orange light flashing and i dont know what to do.if any one out there has a solution please let me know and if anyone out there works for ms.stay out of my way...unless you can fix it :)

Hi, Windows update started downloading xp sp2. 33% got downloaded before I went offline. Not realising that the windows update would not start sp2 download again. Ever since I've had my computer crash, memory errors. I can't find it, sp2, anywhere on my computer, only in updates and that says cancelled. Need help please.

A day before i've installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 on the next day when i ve tryed to swith on my computer it crushed!!!!It sayed A system 32 file is missing what should i do????I dont have a Windows XP CD.Please Help!!!!!!!

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