JohnC said:
I have downloaded and uninstalled SP3 3 times to confirm that it
upsets the internal clock setting it back to 1st Jan 1901 on
startup. Any ideas regarding a fix?
Patiently wait until Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) is no longer in
"release candidate" status and obtain the 'automatically released to the
general public and supported version'?
If - for some reason you feel it necessary to install pre-release/beta
software on your machine and not use the proper reporting tools/forums
provided - that is completely up to you.
Being a pre-release product - there really is not a direct support
option available. You have a few options, however:
Start here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsxp/0a5b9b10-17e3-40d9-8d3c-0077c953a761.aspx
Which can lead you:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=103822
and the forums set up specifically for the pre-release product:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17
And of course:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...2b2-aab1-b969a62c68a7&DisplayLang=en#filelist
Where you can download it in different languages OR download a script that
sets a registry key on your system so you can get Windows XP SP3 Release
Candidate 2 from the Windows Update web page directly.
I do not recommend installing the pre-release (release candidate 2
currently) on any
machine you are not willing to rebuild from scratch.
Hope that helps!
More specifically for your problem - check for an updated BIOS flash file
from the motherboard manufacturer. It could be you are many versions behind
and while this particular issue may not be listed in this case (as they
probably do not put out fixes for pre-release software either) - you may
very well benefit from that upgrade followed by several hardware driver
updates (motherboard chipset, video card, sound card, network card, etc.) in
Windows XP itself before applying SP3 RC2. You may also want to properly
prepare your machine further with a full antivirus scan, antispyware scan,
uninstalling unused applications from the control panel (add or remove
programs) and CHKDSK/DEFRAG.
