Can't install Win XP SP3 on Win XP RTM?

[Gis Bun]

Maybe I misread the whitepaper but according to the whitepaper at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...99-12af-42b2-aab1-b969a62c68a7&DisplayLang=en
, to install Windows XP SP3, you must have either SP1 or SP2 installed and
not RTM. [Granted this is still a RC and the number of people with RTM is
about nil but most SPs are cummulative.

I also read somewhere that IE7 will be part of the SP3 install [i.e. if you
have IE6, the SP will upgrade you to IE7] and so will Windows Media Player 11.

Hmmmm.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Maybe I misread the whitepaper but according to the whitepaper at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...99-12af-42b2-aab1-b969a62c68a7&DisplayLang=en
, to install Windows XP SP3, you must have either SP1 or SP2
installed and not RTM. [Granted this is still a RC and the number
of people with RTM is about nil but most SPs are cummulative.

I also read somewhere that IE7 will be part of the SP3 install
[i.e. if you have IE6, the SP will upgrade you to IE7] and so will
Windows Media Player 11.

Hmmmm.

I haven't really understood the problem with whether or not you have to
already have at least SP1a to integrate/install SP3. First off - most
people will not have to worry over this. The people who do should be
intelligent enough to be able to install/integrate SP1a then
install/integrate SP3 *if all this becomes fact*.

Or is this about the people who have dial-up? I would have to believe that
after the 4 years since SP2 - most of them have that - and if not - then
most of them have SP1a at least. Will there be people who have none of
those installed? Sure - but if they have not gotten SP1a or SP2 yet - why
would they suddenly jump on the SP3 release?

Or is this about the people who wish to integrate the SP into their
installations? Most of the people I know who do this would already have an
SP2 integrated (and quite likely - an SP2+Post-SP2 integrated) installation
media. They won't even hiccup. Or is there some percentage of those people
who like to use their RTM copy and integrate *just* the last SP thinking it
might be a cleaner installation/integration? The latter may exist - it's
based of myth - but they may exist. ;-) ( Oh - they'll complain. IT
people love to complain. ;-) )

As for SPs being cumulative - yes - that has been the past trend. Things
change. Look at Vista and Office 2007. The ability to TRULY integrate SPs
into those two products without some convoluted work-around (not just a
/integrate or some other command line switch like now) seems to have been
lost. Things change. It's just that in technology - things change several
times in one's lifetime instead of maybe just once or twice like other
things.

As for Media Player 11 and IE7 being part of SP3 - everything I have read
from legitmate resources either does not mention those two or says they are
*not* included. They are not in RC2 - would be quite the jump and risk to
throw in two major applications at the end of testing and make it full
release imho. Possible? Sure. Probable? I vote no.

 

[Gis Bun]

Maybe I misread the whitepaper but according to the whitepaper at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...99-12af-42b2-aab1-b969a62c68a7&DisplayLang=en
, to install Windows XP SP3, you must have either SP1 or SP2
installed and not RTM. [Granted this is still a RC and the number
of people with RTM is about nil but most SPs are cummulative.

I also read somewhere that IE7 will be part of the SP3 install
[i.e. if you have IE6, the SP will upgrade you to IE7] and so will
Windows Media Player 11.

Hmmmm.

I haven't really understood the problem with whether or not you have to
already have at least SP1a to integrate/install SP3. First off - most
people will not have to worry over this. The people who do should be
intelligent enough to be able to install/integrate SP1a then
install/integrate SP3 *if all this becomes fact*.

Or is this about the people who have dial-up? I would have to believe that
after the 4 years since SP2 - most of them have that - and if not - then
most of them have SP1a at least. Will there be people who have none of
those installed? Sure - but if they have not gotten SP1a or SP2 yet - why
would they suddenly jump on the SP3 release?

Or is this about the people who wish to integrate the SP into their
installations? Most of the people I know who do this would already have an
SP2 integrated (and quite likely - an SP2+Post-SP2 integrated) installation
media. They won't even hiccup. Or is there some percentage of those people
who like to use their RTM copy and integrate *just* the last SP thinking it
might be a cleaner installation/integration? The latter may exist - it's
based of myth - but they may exist. ;-) ( Oh - they'll complain. IT
people love to complain. ;-) )

As for SPs being cumulative - yes - that has been the past trend. Things
change. Look at Vista and Office 2007. The ability to TRULY integrate SPs
into those two products without some convoluted work-around (not just a
/integrate or some other command line switch like now) seems to have been
lost. Things change. It's just that in technology - things change several
times in one's lifetime instead of maybe just once or twice like other
things.

As for Media Player 11 and IE7 being part of SP3 - everything I have read
from legitmate resources either does not mention those two or says they are
*not* included. They are not in RC2 - would be quite the jump and risk to
throw in two major applications at the end of testing and make it full
release imho. Possible? Sure. Probable? I vote no.

Well, I still kept my RTM copy and the SP1 integrated copy [and of course
SP2 copy].

I did install SP3 RC2 on a lonely Celeron 2.4 Ghz with 256 MB RAM. Nothing
else installed and no AV.

Took about 30 minutes from the initial run to the end of the configuration
after rebooting, logging in and let it do it's finishing touches.

The only things weird I found was that after logging in, it opened 2 command
prompts. One closed quite fast. the other showed about 10 lines - each with
the message that a parameter was incorrect before closing.

Prior to installing, I had 145MB free of memory. After installing I was down
to 99 MB of memory free but it climbed to 111 MB free after about 10 minutes
of leaving it alone. It's now at 115 MB free [more than an hour sitting idle].

IE 6 is still there - which is good since my place as a web page that has
issues with IE 7 [although the page is being reworked as I "speak"].

From the whitepaper, fixes for IE 6 & 7 are included. I suspect they may
wait on the final release of SP3 until after the beginning of April when that
[ActiveX?] control issue that was buggered up a while back is finally
corrected.

Probably just about everyone is on SP2 - with the exception of those who
have an illegal copy and stuck with SP1. Even then, they won't install SP3.