BEWARE of SP4 - Major issues with SP4

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alex
  • Start date Start date
A

Alex

I am a system administrator and have not ever had problems
with any previous Service Packs for Win2K. However, by
applying SP4 on my own machine, 15 PCs at work, another 10
PCs for friends or clients, have had a 30/70 hit and miss
with SP4. Overall, on all machines performance drops,
shutdown time gets 10 times longer, login times get much
longer and I get different errors on my event system log.
Most of the issues cannot be resolved by checking the
Win2000 Support. On most machines IE had to be compeletely
re-installed, most of the hotfixes unistalled and re-
installed again, and on my own computer I had to
completely rebuild the OS. Bascially, if you haven't
upgraded to SP4, I suggest to wait for SP4a or SP5, and if
any of the fixes in SP4 is absolutely necessary on your
machine, be 100% sure to archive SP3 just in case you have
to revert back to SP3. In our company we are now advised
NOT to upgrade to SP4 (for the reamining 40 PCs). I hope
someone from MS reads this board and can come up with an
answer. This is just totally unacceptable that a service
pack is suggested as "Critical Update" and can break your
system instead of fixing it.
 
I agree with Alex. I too have had lots of problems installing SP4 on
different pcs. In my experience, a clean install of W2K+SP4 works well, but
if you dare to upgrade from "W2K+ an earlier service pack", God help you.

Like Alex says, SP4 should not appear on the Windows Update site as a
"critical update" when upgrading from an earlier SP has not been fully
tested.

Adrian
 
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