Tecknomage said:
RANT ON
Now you know how Microdunce screwed us with SP3 by NOT offering to
SELL users a WinXP SP3 Setup CD (full setup like you would buy at a
store)!
Yes: They did. They offered a free CD plus small S&H charges for a
long, long time. So do a gazillion other places if you know how to tell
a good site from a bad one. They are still offering the free download
which one can burn to CD themselves, and I did find a CD available, but
it had an ISO image on it.
"Upgrading" to SP3 made your original WinXP Setup CD useless for the
Repair options it provided.
It did no such thing. For the very few instances it matters it's easy
enough to roll back SP3, then SP2, and even SP1a if you only have a raw
XP CD.
Note I said "sell." They would not have lost money on this.
Whatever that orphaned sentence means.
I'm not trying to piss you off; it's just that it's still very easy to
download OR get it on CD, and it didn't do any damage rencering anything
"useless". I know you're probably just venting but it is a bit of
misinformation for the uninitiated.
RANT OFF
There is only one option that for users who installed SP3.
Google > Windows XP Pro SP3 OEM < and see if you can find a reseller.
Good luck. Amazon carried it for awhile, that's how I got my CD.
I just did a search; didn't specifically notice amazon, but lot of other
places still offering it.
There is such a CD which is a full WinXP Pro SP3 Setup CD. We OEM our
specialized systems using this, but already know the CD will
eventually become unavailable and our customer CANNOT use Vista nor
Win 7. We will be using the "Vista Business downgrade to WinXP Pro"
option.
Yes, that's an XP purchase option. At many of the bigger places you
have to ask for it but they'll pre-install it too: But MS won't let them
advertise it as being available. Dell and Gatway used to do that also
but I don't have recent experience.
But that is no help to you since you have WinXP Home, so you got
doubly screwed by Microdunce.
No, there is very little difference between Home/Pro except in a few
Security settings availability and the ability to support a large
network. Pro is a waste of money to those who only surf, email, do a
little graphics work and probably run MSOffice. Microsoft sold what
they said they had for sale. Much as I despise Microsoft's practices
and forced obsoletions their marketing words and hype have always been
spot on. It's up to the buyer to know their own requirements vs the
capabilities of what they're buying.
Also, any download links others provided is to the SP3 Installer which
just installs SP3 (not a full WinXP SP3).
That's patently untrue nonsense: I have provided a download link for SP3
where you can download the Full IT version of SP3 which means it's not
specifically for a particular XP computer, but all XP computers. There
was even an ISO image there but I didn't notice a download link for it
and didn't look for it. ISO's often give people problems because they
don't have burning ware that will handle ISO de-compression.
On top of that, there are a gazillion other places you can buy the
full CD OR download the code, just as MS indicated was OK to do with the
SP's! Many reputable sites still carried it.
In case someone doesn't know what you meant, the poster is talking
about the situation where you don't download the SP3, but instead it's
installed on your computer in real time straight from their servers,
saving you from having to do the physical install of it. I used to do
it both ways: I download a copy to disk, then I go back and let them
install it for me while I go have coffee or something. Now I just
download whatever it may be and install it myself because it's a lot
faster and checks out the download as having been uncompromised too, by
corruption, whatever.
If you can still boot to your system, try uninstalling SP3. See if
there is an entry in Add/Remove Programs. If that works (good luck),
need I say, DO NOT install SP3 again.
SP3 includes hundreds of updates since SP2. SP2 likewise for 1 or 1a.
SP3, other than a few small additional capabilities, includes everything
since SP2. And then of course, SP3 has its own updates, not all of
which are possible to add to SP2. So by not installing SP3, one is
limiting the benefits they have available to them. Anyone who reads and
follows the SP3 instructions for installation will have no problems with
SP3 unless their machine is compromised to begin with.
If there is no entry in Add/Remove Programs, try Microsoft Help (and
this group) for other methods to safely uninstall SP3 without loosing
your configuration or apps.
If it's not in add/remove, then look for the uninstall package listed in
c:\windows. It's there and easily identified visually. The groups ARE
of course a good source of information and what I've said here can be
clarified there. Watch out for the imposter and some smart-asses
though.
HTH,
Twayne`
