How to get up to date Win XP CD?

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Tiny Tim

I bought a Win XP Pro upgrade pack when XP was first launched in October
2001. Since then I've created a slipstreamed CD incorporating SP1 in order
to speed up my quarterly machine rebuilds.

I have a wireless network card that has been causing problems of system
freezes at random intervals but only when running at 54Mbps. The card vendor
cannot reproduce the error and has suggested I may have a faulty or out of
date Windows XP CD image. I have applied all available Windows Updates but
the card vendor says that I may have a legacy problem from my original
upgrade CD.

My question is, is there a way I can get an up to date copy of my XP Pro
upgrade CD through legitimate sources without having to buy a new licence? I
just want to run on my existing laptop, not install elsewhere.

Thanks,
Tim.
 
Hi Tim,

Um, no, you can't get an updated version, but mostly because there is no
such thing. There are only two releases out there: the RTM (which may be
modified by the system vendor), and the one that incorporates SP1a. No
currect release includes any other updates, and the card manufacturer,
excuse my language, is probably full of sh**. There is no reason whatsoever
that your slipstreamed version should be a problem unless you created a bad
image initially, but you would have known this the first time you used it.
How can you verify that? Install the original release image, then install
SP1a - does the problem still occur?

And why the quarterly rebuilds? Highly unnecessary unless you are into
testing products. I suspect that the problem is more related to faulty
hardware (possibly due to overheating). The fact that they cannot reproduce
it with their own equipment is a good indicator that it's a hardware
problem.


--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
Thanks for the reply. I think the hardware vendor may be clutching at
straws, but so am I.

Going off topic, the problem is that the wireless network card works
perfectly in my laptop under Win Me or Win XP Pro if the AP is set to
operate at 11b speeds only.

If I set the AP to run in mixed 11b/g mode or 11g only then the card will
run perfectly under Windows Me on my laptop, but if I build it with XP then
it will freeze at random intervals, sometimes for a few seconds and
sometimes permanently, requiring a power cycle to recover. I have tried the
card in a different laptop running Win Me and it is fine in that, and in
another laptop running Win XP and it is fine in that also.

Thus it appears the card is capable of working at both 11b and 11g speeds
under Win XP and Win Me, so the card is probably not faulty (it is my second
card, in case the fault was with the card). It will also run fine in my
laptop at both speeds under Win Me and at 11b speeds under Win XP - so I
presume my hardware is OK too.

So the conclusion I reach and the card vendor reaches is there is something
in the software environment that is problematic and this narrows down to
being the OS build on my machine, given that the drivers work OK on another
XP machine.

The card is a 3Com 3CRPAG175 and the laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8000. I saw a
recent set of drivers released on the Windows Update site and downloaded
these. The problem seemed to go away for a bit but is now back with a
veangence and even seems to be affecting my laptop at 11b speeds. 3Com have
offered me a refund but I thought I'd give it one last try to crack the
problem.

My slipstreamed CD was built from my original XP Pro Upgrade CD and an MS
SP1 CD that I had mailed to me. I don't really know what other straws to
clutch at. Any other ideas?

I rebuild every 3-4 months simply because I faff about with a lot of
shareware and stuff, most of which is junk, and so my machine gets bogged
down over time so I like to give it a good cleanup once in a while. There
are no actual problems with its operation other than with this one card.
 
Tiny said:
I bought a Win XP Pro upgrade pack when XP was first launched in October
2001. Since then I've created a slipstreamed CD incorporating SP1 in order
to speed up my quarterly machine rebuilds.

I have a wireless network card that has been causing problems of system
freezes at random intervals but only when running at 54Mbps. The card vendor
cannot reproduce the error and has suggested I may have a faulty or out of
date Windows XP CD image. I have applied all available Windows Updates but
the card vendor says that I may have a legacy problem from my original
upgrade CD.

My question is, is there a way I can get an up to date copy of my XP Pro
upgrade CD through legitimate sources without having to buy a new licence? I
just want to run on my existing laptop, not install elsewhere.

Thanks,
Tim.
Click to expand...
Have you checked with Microsoft? I know they are this huge behemoth,
but I actually got free online help (twice!) from them for XP issues
recently. They were prompt and followed up after the fixes both times to
see if all was OK. It couldn't hurt to see if there is a newer version
that they could send to you-there may not be-it may still be a hardware
or driver issue
 
Just an FYI, the puchaser of a retail version of WinXP is entitled to two
free support incidents.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
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