XP Updates

[Dick Mahar]

Is it possible to receive XP Home Updates without having the Update Manager
turned on? I want to get automatic updates, but wish to go through life without
downloading SP2. I am doing fine without SP2, with my own firewall, AV, and
Spyware programs. However, I would like to be able to get the other XP
Updates.....TIA..Dick M.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

SP2 is a solid, secure release. It is a major "Critical Update"
for Windows XP and updates about 5 million lines of code,
enabling much stronger security, stability, and affords a tad better
performance benefit.

You may wish to view the following:

Top 10 Reasons to Install Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/topten.mspx

Learn About Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/preinstall.mspx

What to Know Before You Download and Install Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/sp2_whattoknow.mspx

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Is it possible to receive XP Home Updates without having the Update Manager
| turned on? I want to get automatic updates, but wish to go through life without
| downloading SP2. I am doing fine without SP2, with my own firewall, AV, and
| Spyware programs. However, I would like to be able to get the other XP
| Updates.....TIA..Dick M.

 

[Slartibartfast]

SP2 is a solid, secure release. It is a major "Critical Update"
for Windows XP and updates about 5 million lines of code,
enabling much stronger security, stability, and affords a tad better
performance benefit.

I don't doubt what you say Carey, but you must surely be aware that some
people have had real problems with it.

In my own case I bought a new computer, installed XP and then tried to
install SP2. Upon completion the machine went into a perpetual boot-up
loop. We were unable to get into Safe mode; in fact we were unable to do
anything. We had to reformat the disk and start over.

Since then I've put a lot of applications and data on the computer and I
can't face all the work of putting it all back if it all goes wrong again.

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Upon completion the machine went into a perpetual boot-
up loop. We were unable to get into Safe mode; in
fact we were unable to do anything.

I've had this with three of the (non service pack)
Windows updates. So far the service packs have treated
me well though. (In general they should since they get a
lot more testing than individual updates.)

We had to reformat the disk and start over.

I suggest you image your disk before updating. It takes
almost no effort to recover that way. Each of the above
times, I connected a disk, started the recover and came
back after a snack and it was done.

 

[MGGP]

It must be obvious to you that you don't have a good,
fast, effective way to restore your computer if something
catastrophic should happen. If you DID have a good way to
restore your system, you wouldn't be concerned about
things like installing a service pack, etc.

There are LOTS of really good ways to protect yourself. I
use GHOST twice per month to make an image of the C drive
on a spare hard drive on my system. If anything happens
on my computer that I can't fix in an hour, I save my most
recent files to the spare hard drive (documents, email,
address book, etc.), restore the image, copy the most
recent files back to their proper location and I'm
completely back up and on the Internet in ONE hour.

It give you a tremendous sense of security and confidence
when you don't have to worry about spending a weekend re-
loading your system.

 

[Bruce Hagen]

FWIW - For a clean install, *Always* disable your A/V before
downloading any Windows Update.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

message

I don't doubt what you say Carey, but you must surely be aware
that
some people have had real problems with it.

Certainly some people have had trouble with it, but in most of
those cases, the computer was infested with spyware. Removing all
spyware first is critically important for installing SP2.

I've been personally involved with a fair number of SP2
installations, and I know of only one failure; the reason was
spyware. I know many other people who have done even more
installations--in some cases hundreds--without a single failure.

Prepare properly and the risk is very low. Read
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=45

 

[Slartibartfast]

It must be obvious to you that you don't have a good,
fast, effective way to restore your computer if something
catastrophic should happen. If you DID have a good way to
restore your system, you wouldn't be concerned about
things like installing a service pack, etc.

There are LOTS of really good ways to protect yourself. I
use GHOST twice per month to make an image of the C drive
on a spare hard drive on my system. If anything happens
on my computer that I can't fix in an hour, I save my most
recent files to the spare hard drive (documents, email,
address book, etc.), restore the image, copy the most
recent files back to their proper location and I'm
completely back up and on the Internet in ONE hour.

It give you a tremendous sense of security and confidence
when you don't have to worry about spending a weekend re-
loading your system.

Thanks for the comments.

Would I be right to assume that in my case, where we couldn't access the
computer at all, there would be some way of getting Ghost to restore the
image?