Trying out beta software can be a dodgy business. Even so, I have never come across such an evil program as SP2. Far from presumably patching security holes in XP, it left me inches away from a complete reinstall, having managed to screw up just about everything on my PC!
SP2 came quite well recommended :
[00:07] [MoiraA] if it has annoying features I don't know if I'll download it
[00:08] [Zone-MR] nah, that "problem" only happens after you use windows update, and tell it not to restart.
[00:08] [Rua] I dont even have XP :(
[00:08] [Zone-MR] otherwise it's quite good.
Famous last words! The first thing I noticed was that quite a few web pages wouldn't load in AOL's browser, although they seemed OK in IE. The address was flashing at the bottom of the screen for some reason .... still, I hadn't done the recommended reboot, maybe things would be normal after that.
I came home from work at 10pm to find the kids hadn't been able to access the internet all evening. "Host lookup failed" - thankful for once that AOL have a 24/7 freephone number, I rang to ask if they had any known incompatibilities with SP2. They hadn't .... but rather surprisingly the guy I was speaking to suggested something which worked, ie had I been running a firewall during the install? In that case, disable Zone (how I wished I could - sorry Martin!) and try getting online.
With that problem sorted, I persuaded the AOL technician to apply himself to another error message concerning ActiveX controls. During the conversation I learned that this particular employee didn't use AOL himself. Some recommendation! "We get free acccounts and everything" he said, "but I don't use AOL at home!"
By now I was discovering a whole host of smaller issues with SP2 and couldn't wait to be rid of it. In particular it seemed to have buggered up AnalogX and my shared internet connection. MSN wouldn't work either. The major issue with SP2 seems to be the exceptionally strong firewall that comes with it. As with AV software, often the prevention can be worse than the perceived danger.
SP2 still had a nasty sting in its tail, ie after an extremely lengthy uninstall process, MSN still wouldn't work and nor would AnalogX. These two problems were particularly worrying right then. I only have a few more days to talk to someone on MSN before they disappear off for a long time and I live in fear of AnalogX reverting back to the state of my previous network. Despite doing exactly the same thing with proxy settings, I never shared the internet connection between my two desktop PCs, and eventually came to the conclusion that something weird in my particular system was preventing it working. Seemingly, SP2 had just managed to recreate whatever that was.
Running out of ideas and having discovered I couldn't even roll back to a restore point (yes, wonderful SP2 had broken that facility too), I was depressingly thinking a complete reinstall was looking an increasing possibility. I tried what ST recommended and reinstalled SP1 :
[17:11] [w00ter] anyway
[17:11] [w00ter] install SP1 again
[17:11] [w00ter] it might fix your machine
[17:11] [MoiraA] heh, it's interesting
[17:12] [MoiraA] and thanks for the tip
[17:12] [w00ter] if not try an unattended install of XP
[17:12] [w00ter] other than that, it's reinstall time
Immediately MSN was working, although the network was just as broken. I booted the laptop into the XP partition, figuring I was more at home there when it came to fixing network glitches, and rebooted my desktop PC, just in case. Amazingly, AnalogX was back up and a boot into Mandrake confirmed Mozilla was working correctly as well!
Phew! .... our channel topic is now *Installing beta software is unwise, doing it on a production machine is even more so* (Set by Tolien on Wed Jan 14 21:29:37, to replace a rather less polite topic set by me a little earlier fao: Zone-MR!)
The moral of the story? SP2 - AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE!
Thanks to a lot of time and help given by Incognito on #adsl (and many thanks for that), I tried downloading a CM patch. Unfortunately there was a patch to patch the patch (how do some of these programs get past beta ????) which seemed unavailable on the sites I tried. Anyway, it had always worked in the past and didn't seem to need patching on my machine.
Deciding that my next step was inevitably the uninstall of SP2, I set that in motion. It was the next logical step and to my mind, just too much of a coincidence that problems in a previously trouble free program had ocurred just after the service pack install. The aftermath of this took a further few hours to sort out, as many programs were left in a half-state of only semi working. In particular, AOL 9 was freezing when anyone launched the client to access web pages. If I had ever received an AOL 9 disc, it had unfortunately got lost among the general deluge of AOL CDs that arrive here, so after a not very productive talk to a help desk advisor at 11.30 pm (although a free call), I was left with no option but to uninstall/reinstall AOL 8, then download and install AOL 9. Thank goodness that seemed to fix the problem, and fingers crossed, everything is back to normal there. Meanwhile, SP2 continues to run without problems here!
An interesting experiment, however my advice would be to think very hard before giving Service Pack 2 a try - it's got a long way to go before it's anywhere near ready for a public launch (IMHO) and when something as invasive as this is installed on your PC, be ready to possibly spend many hours sorting out issues.
