SP4 IE problems and In-Place Upgrade

[snagswolf]

I made the mistake up upgrading to SP4 without archiving,
and now my Internet Explorer only will connect to some
sites. Most sites I try to go to (including
microsoft.com), IE just sits and spins and shows a blank
page.

So, I want to remove SP4 and go back to SP3. Reading
through these discussions, it looks like the only way I
can do that is to do an In-Place Upgrade back to the
original versions and then re-apply the fixes up to SP3.

The In-Place Upgrade is described in this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=292175

which includes these directions:

1) Insert the Windows 2000 Setup CD into the CD-ROM
drive, start the computer, and then press a key to start
from the CD-ROM.
2) On the Windows 2000 Setup screen, press ENTER to run
the To set up Windows 2000 now, press Enter command.
3) Click Accept to accept the License Agreement.
4) Setup should now detect your installation. NOTE: If
the Setup program does not detect a previous installation
but just continues to the partitioning screen, there is a
problem. An in-place upgrade may not be possible.

Unfortunately, in my case I have some kind of funky
Maxtor driver that's needed for the OS to recognize the
hard drive. Therefore, when I boot from the CD (or to be
more specific, from the floppies created from the CD),
the Windows setup program tells me it can't find the hard
drive.

So, my question is, do I have to boot from the Windows
2000 Setup CD (or disks) to do an In-Place Upgrade? Or
can I just bring up Windows, and go to the Setup CD and
start the setup from there? Will the setup program
recognize that the OS is already there and reinstall it
correctly? Or will it install a second copy of the OS?

Another question: Does anyone know what SP4 does to
cause this IE problem in the first place? It seems like
other people on here are having the same or similar
issues. Are there any hotfixes for SP4, or workarounds,
that can solve this problem so I don't have to go through
the trouble of reinstalling my OS?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Tommy]

After I installed SP4 to 2 PC's, I found out there are
more problems than what you have with the IE. First, file
copying by dragging from folder to folder does not seemed
to work. Second, when I tried to back out SP4, the Add and
Remove Programs in the Control Panel does not work.

I proceed to do NT 2000 repair. Windows 2000 professional
is back to normal after I ran the repair. However, my
windows advanced server can't be repaired this way because
the C: root directory appears to be protected from writing
to it. Necessary files can't be copied to the root
directory. As a result, repair failed. It seems that the
only way is to reformat the hard disk - a total loss of
data on the C drive. Estimated installation time 16 hours
provided that I can find all the device drivers to do the
re-installation.

Well, everyone knows the conclusion - DO NOT APPLY SP4.