SP2 for IT Professionals "for testing purposes only"????

[Luke Jackson]

I've just downloaded and installed SP2 from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...BE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

it is the "Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and
Developers"

filename is WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe
size is 278,927,592 bytes
it is also digitally signed by Microsoft on 4 August 2004 11:06:58

Everything is working well except that at the bottom right hand corner
of my desktop it now says:

Windows XP Professional
For testing purposes only. Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158
(Service Pack 2)

But surely this is a proper release as it is described as such by
Microsoft? If it is indeed the proper final release how do I get rid
of the message? If it isn't, then what's going on??

Any help greatly appreciated,
Luke

 

[R. McCarty]

You have "Show Windows Version on the Desktop" enabled. This
can disabled with Tweak-UI Powertoy for XP under the General
Category.

However, this should only appear on a "Beta" installed version.
What type of install was present before you updated to SP2 ?

 

[Jason Tsang]

Open IE
Goto Tools, Internet Options
Then goto the Content Tab and hit the Certificates button (in the
certificates section)

When that dialog window opens, goto the Trusted Root Certification
Authorities tab, and the Remove the Microsoft Test Root .

 

[Luke Jackson]

My first instinct was to check this, but it is not enabled in TweakUI.
I have tried enabling and then disabling it but it doesn't make any
difference. TweakUI tells me that the Windows version is always shown
on the desktop in beta installations, regardless of the setting - this
seems to be the case although I got SP2 from the Microsoft Download
Center from the link previously posted.

My Windows was originally installed from a slipstreamed SP1 source,
and then updated as usual using Windows Update along the way. No beta
version of Windows or SP1/SP2 has ever been installed on the machine.

Very strange.

Luke

 

[Answer Man]

Houston, we have a problem!

My first instinct was to check this, but it is not enabled in TweakUI.
I have tried enabling and then disabling it but it doesn't make any
difference. TweakUI tells me that the Windows version is always shown
on the desktop in beta installations, regardless of the setting - this
seems to be the case although I got SP2 from the Microsoft Download
Center from the link previously posted.

My Windows was originally installed from a slipstreamed SP1 source,
and then updated as usual using Windows Update along the way. No beta
version of Windows or SP1/SP2 has ever been installed on the machine.

Very strange.

Luke

"R. McCarty" <[email protected]> wrote in message

 

[R. McCarty]

Even though Tweak-UI has no effect I would check the Registry
for the Key setting.
Hkey_Current_User\Control Panel\Desktop
PaintDesktopVersion Value should be 0 (Zero)
In fact that key is present in about 4-5 locations, so I would check
that each one's value is indeed Zero.

 

[Luke Jackson]

Thanks Jason for this. While I'm sure this will remove the message,
won't it also impact upon Windows functionality?

The problem here is that SP2 thinks its a beta version when it really
shouldn't be. I imagine it would be a release version if it is
available from the Microsoft Download Center...

hmm...

Luke

 

[Luke Jackson]

Thanks R.

I have just done a registry search for "PaintDesktopVersion" and all
instances of the key are set to 0.

Luke

 

[Luke Jackson]

I think I have figured out what has happened. I did have a beta
version of SP2 which I thought was the real version, but was not able
to install it because the setup package was not able to verify the
update.inf file, and told me to make sure the cryptographic service
was on. In doing so, it may have installed the Microsoft Test Root
certificate without actually installing SP2. And then when I found
and successfully installed the real version literally minutes later it
saw the Test Root certificate and therefore showed the "for testing
purposes only" message.

I assume therefore that the Test Root certificate is only installed by
beta releases of Windows and that getting rid of it shouldn't make any
difference to release versions. I was put off earlier because the
certificates window told me it was to be used for hardware driver
signing among other uses.

I have removed the certificate and the message disappeared after a few
minutes without even having to reboot.

Thanks Jason and everyone else who offered help.

Luke