***** sp2 bREAKS eVERYTHING!!!!! *****

[Greg R]

Yes, but system restore points are generated just before the install so what's
your point?

LOL
When programs install not all create a system restore point. I never
use system restore. It only restores certain files. The activex pops
up a dialog in xp sp2 asking to install or not install. In xp sp1 it
does not and goes ahead an install without Approval. I had that
happen with search bars.

Xp sp2 is supposed to be more secure. However, there is a debate on
that now.


Greg R
P.S. I use another backup method.

 

[Unknown]

My point is that if you install SP2 and later screw up something you can do a
restore because a restore point is created just before SP2 is installed. SP2
is an update not a program.

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

You wrote: "OTOH, there are lots of posters who base thier advice on a
narrow range of experience; either "works fine on the 12 PCs I installed
it on" or "I installed it on mine, and it was a disaster!". How narrow
are the thousands of people that were part of the technical beta?

Not narrow at all, yet seemingly not wide enough to have nipped the
Prescott issue in the bud. IOW; wide, but not all-encompassing.

Not every beta tester will be conversant with the full range of issues
turned up during beta testing, so there's still plenty of scope for
"works for me, what's wrong with you?" blind spots!

They changed the code from previous builds that affected the use
of Windows on the Prescott.

OK, that fits. I'm not in the beta, so I can talk freely on what I
found from my own testing, but there are still some things I heard
from NDA sources that I can't detail.

Either way, it is important to maintain a healthy computer.

Yes, but "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies.

We both know disasterous a bad BIOS update can be, so there is no way
on earth I would automatically update BIOS before applying an SP. If
not onlt for fear of a bad update, then also because making two big
changes at once (BIOS update, SP) is a bad idea for tshooting.

In fact, I've never had to update a BIOS on any PC Ive built or worked
on, until this Prescott vs. SP2 issue. I've never had to care about
CPU microcode revision levels, until this issue.

The issue's caught both Intel and MS in the spotlight.

Intel, because they appear to be shipping significant bugs and relying
on BIOS vendors to fix these on their behalf - and they do not appear
to document these issues, hoping we won't need to know.

MS, because SP2 clearly goes as deep into raw hardware as installing a
new OS, which means that application-level testing is not enough basis
to trust and roll out SP2. Never before have I had an OS that breaks
because of fine details about what CPU is involved.

And yes, the process (rigorous as it is) had failed if the result is
automatic push of material that can render a PC unbootable. That's
close to a worst-case outcome for malware infection!

The message I'd take home here is; humility, dudes! Thorough testing
cannot completely exclude all problems, and crow may always have to be
eaten if hubric assurances are made.

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

Never turn your back on an installer program

 

[Nathan McNulty]

Not narrow at all, yet seemingly not wide enough to have nipped the
Prescott issue in the bud. IOW; wide, but not all-encompassing.

Not every beta tester will be conversant with the full range of issues
turned up during beta testing, so there's still plenty of scope for
"works for me, what's wrong with you?" blind spots!

I agree. It is always going to be difficult to find problems that will
occur once a product is released. I do feel this Prescott issue should
have been seen before SP2 was released though. That is way too big to miss.

OK, that fits. I'm not in the beta, so I can talk freely on what I
found from my own testing, but there are still some things I heard
from NDA sources that I can't detail.




Yes, but "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies.

We both know disasterous a bad BIOS update can be, so there is no way
on earth I would automatically update BIOS before applying an SP. If
not onlt for fear of a bad update, then also because making two big
changes at once (BIOS update, SP) is a bad idea for tshooting.

In fact, I've never had to update a BIOS on any PC Ive built or worked
on, until this Prescott vs. SP2 issue. I've never had to care about
CPU microcode revision levels, until this issue.

The issue's caught both Intel and MS in the spotlight.

Intel, because they appear to be shipping significant bugs and relying
on BIOS vendors to fix these on their behalf - and they do not appear
to document these issues, hoping we won't need to know.

MS, because SP2 clearly goes as deep into raw hardware as installing a
new OS, which means that application-level testing is not enough basis
to trust and roll out SP2. Never before have I had an OS that breaks
because of fine details about what CPU is involved.

And yes, the process (rigorous as it is) had failed if the result is
automatic push of material that can render a PC unbootable. That's
close to a worst-case outcome for malware infection!

The message I'd take home here is; humility, dudes! Thorough testing
cannot completely exclude all problems, and crow may always have to be
eaten if hubric assurances are made.

One thing that is nice is most modern computers have either a backup for
the BIOS or a tool that makes it almost impossible to screw up the
flashing. Generally speaking, I usually check for BIOS updates and see
what was fixed. If it is anything I feel might pertain to me now or in
the future, I will update the BIOS. It is way too simple and idiot
proof because of the way ASUS makes their motherboards. Other makers
have followed suit, but older computers are still risky to update.

What happens isn't so much that Intel has problems with their CPU's and
the BIOS fixes those problems or that Windows is dependent on the type
of CPU. It is more that Windows is being designed to take advantage of
new features of CPU's such as we saw with NX. When you start adding new
capabilities for new CPU's to an OS, this is where you begin to run into
problems.

I can't believe that MS released SP2 through Automatic Updates even
after knowing about the Prescott issue. That seems like the worst thing
they could have ever done. I pity those who purchased a Dell or
something before the microcode was updated and now have a useless system
and don't know enough to fix it.

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

[/QUOTE]

One thing that is nice is most modern computers have either a backup for
the BIOS or a tool that makes it almost impossible to screw up

Well, it's like backups - for most of us, the only true test of a
backup is to scorch your data then try a restore.

Those dice are way too big to roll, IMO.

What happens isn't so much that Intel has problems with their CPU's and
the BIOS fixes those problems or that Windows is dependent on the type
of CPU. It is more that Windows is being designed to take advantage of
new features of CPU's such as we saw with NX. When you start adding new
capabilities for new CPU's to an OS, this is where you begin to run into
problems.

Rod asked whu SP2's Update.sys was bigger (implying it must include
microcode) and I mentioned extra detection logic. All that AMD64 NX
stuff may be a factor, plus evaluating post-MMX support.

One reason SP2 might care about Intel CPU details (noting that these
CPUs don't do NX, and suppressing NX via Boot.ini doesn't fix) is for
DirectX 9c's new floating point pixel shaders; they may use SIMD3.

I can't believe that MS released SP2 through Automatic Updates even
after knowing about the Prescott issue. That seems like the worst thing
they could have ever done.

Yep, IMO that was a bad call. At the time I'd been involved in some
private email stuff with MS (that's where my NDA concerns came from)
and I was polling WU from my test PC to spot when SP2 push started.

By this time, no-one was still saying "865 and 875 chipsets", it was
now correctly identified as Prescott, so what I'd heard about other
(non-Intel) motherboard chipsets for Prescott wasn't news that had to
be formally broken. Still, I was relieved when MS posted most of the
detail (Update.sys, etc.) in the newsgroups.

SP2 started being pushed at around 02:00 (that I could tell) and so I
wrote it up and webbed it by 04:00. By now, both Intel and MS have
formally documented it, tho I dunno if MS's /kb article is linked off
the "what you need to know about SP2" front door.

I pity those who purchased a Dell or something

You see, the big brands weren't the problem; they are still shipping
Northwood. The target market doesn't think beyond "oooh Dell, good
brand name" so there's no reason to fret specs; Dell will ship
Prescott when they've cleared thier old stocks first.

So maybe in the US's big-brand-dominated market, this looked like a
small deal. Whereas here, we started shipping Prescott immediately,
from June; all new builds since then have been Prescott.

before the microcode was updated and now have a useless system
and don't know enough to fix it.

Exactly - it's a disaster, and unforgivable if known in advance.

It's also ironic, given that SP2 sets up WU patches to be downloaded
*and* installed without user initiative. That looks like a bad idea,
given that SP2 itself could render a PC unbootable - and if MS knew
that and pushed it anyway. On what basis should we be confident they
won't do that in future, with other patches that break "a few" PCs?

I've seen assertions made here that the issue was known during the RC
phase, and I have no personal knowledge whether this is so or not - it
may be thet the number of affected PCs would be under-estimated, as
Intel's spin made this look like a minority issue that would be
confined to a few lame brands and should be fixed by now ("just get
the new BIOS" - assumes one exists to be gotten).

That's why I'm chasing the details behind this. For example, looking
at Intel's documentation of thier own BIOSs, which versions ship with
what mobo revisions, which of these are still on sale, the date at
which Intel's BIOS became properly Prescott-OK, etc.

And I see Intel mobo revs too old for Prescott (even BIOS aside) on
sale through distributors as late as August, and "updated for Celeron
D" Intel BIOSs dated June 2004 (the month Prescott shipped here).

So I really have my doubts about Intel's presentation of this issue.
It could be that PCs were put at risk because Intel played fuzzy with
the truth, which they may have done to FUD up sales of their own
motherboards, as well as play down the scope of the problem.

It's deep politics to ponder on whether MS took Intel's story at face
value, or were complicit in the spin. I think the former, as I can't
see why MS would want to go out on a limb to cover up for Intel's
dirty washing (why have ppl shout at SP2, when the real issue is
Intel's stealth bug-fixing?) and I don't think Intel has that much
leverage over MS anyway. After all, it seems as if it's AMD who are
on the cutting edge with MS, considering NX etc.

It must be depressing for MS, having thrown intense resources at SP2's
development, only to have to face ITW problems anyway. The hard
lesson is that good intent isn't enough to ensure success; not when
hitting the reality wall of complexity and the entropy of human error
rates - not just within MS, but across the entire industry.

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

No, perfection is not an entrance requirement.
We'll settle for integrity and humility

 

[Papa]

This is the longest thread I have seen yet! That is, except for the threads
between me and my friends who are obviously on the wrong side of the
political aisle. I can't understand why they are so stupid!

 

[Bob Eyster]

To add to this. You can also go to Add/Remove Programs in the control panel
and uninstall it there.


Bob Eyster

 

[Nathan McNulty]

Three quick notes.

1) The ASUS P4P800 board I have uses a new method of BIOS recovery. I
have edited my BIOS just to play around and then used this to recover
it. There is nothing dangerous about it:
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/english/techref/mbfeatures/cfbios2.aspx
http://www.asus.com/products/mb/crashfreebios2.htm

2) Don't forget that Prescott CPU's introduced a 1 MB L2 Cache and SSE3
instructions. I am going to assume that MS tried to optimize the use of
these two things from the Prescott CPU's as well.

3) Most of the Dell's that have shipped since about a month after the
release of the Prescott core that are configured with a P4 processor use
the E Revision CPU's. They have loaded up their Outlet market with the
C Revision (Northwood) CPU's.

Finally, what I noticed through this whole process was that MS did
excellent testing on SP2. What they failed to do was to release the
potential RTM to the testers, allow them to test, then seeing that there
were no huge problems, then tag it RTM and release it. This may have
saved quite a bit of heartache.

Also, just FYI, Cari Miller (MVP) wrote the KB Article pertaining to the
Prescott issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555185

----
Nathan McNulty

One thing that is nice is most modern computers have either a backup for
the BIOS or a tool that makes it almost impossible to screw up

Well, it's like backups - for most of us, the only true test of a
backup is to scorch your data then try a restore.

Those dice are way too big to roll, IMO.

What happens isn't so much that Intel has problems with their CPU's and
the BIOS fixes those problems or that Windows is dependent on the type
of CPU. It is more that Windows is being designed to take advantage of
new features of CPU's such as we saw with NX. When you start adding new
capabilities for new CPU's to an OS, this is where you begin to run into
problems.

Rod asked whu SP2's Update.sys was bigger (implying it must include
microcode) and I mentioned extra detection logic. All that AMD64 NX
stuff may be a factor, plus evaluating post-MMX support.

One reason SP2 might care about Intel CPU details (noting that these
CPUs don't do NX, and suppressing NX via Boot.ini doesn't fix) is for
DirectX 9c's new floating point pixel shaders; they may use SIMD3.

I can't believe that MS released SP2 through Automatic Updates even
after knowing about the Prescott issue. That seems like the worst thing
they could have ever done.

Yep, IMO that was a bad call. At the time I'd been involved in some
private email stuff with MS (that's where my NDA concerns came from)
and I was polling WU from my test PC to spot when SP2 push started.

By this time, no-one was still saying "865 and 875 chipsets", it was
now correctly identified as Prescott, so what I'd heard about other
(non-Intel) motherboard chipsets for Prescott wasn't news that had to
be formally broken. Still, I was relieved when MS posted most of the
detail (Update.sys, etc.) in the newsgroups.

SP2 started being pushed at around 02:00 (that I could tell) and so I
wrote it up and webbed it by 04:00. By now, both Intel and MS have
formally documented it, tho I dunno if MS's /kb article is linked off
the "what you need to know about SP2" front door.

I pity those who purchased a Dell or something

You see, the big brands weren't the problem; they are still shipping
Northwood. The target market doesn't think beyond "oooh Dell, good
brand name" so there's no reason to fret specs; Dell will ship
Prescott when they've cleared thier old stocks first.

So maybe in the US's big-brand-dominated market, this looked like a
small deal. Whereas here, we started shipping Prescott immediately,
from June; all new builds since then have been Prescott.

before the microcode was updated and now have a useless system
and don't know enough to fix it.

Exactly - it's a disaster, and unforgivable if known in advance.

It's also ironic, given that SP2 sets up WU patches to be downloaded
*and* installed without user initiative. That looks like a bad idea,
given that SP2 itself could render a PC unbootable - and if MS knew
that and pushed it anyway. On what basis should we be confident they
won't do that in future, with other patches that break "a few" PCs?

I've seen assertions made here that the issue was known during the RC
phase, and I have no personal knowledge whether this is so or not - it
may be thet the number of affected PCs would be under-estimated, as
Intel's spin made this look like a minority issue that would be
confined to a few lame brands and should be fixed by now ("just get
the new BIOS" - assumes one exists to be gotten).

That's why I'm chasing the details behind this. For example, looking
at Intel's documentation of thier own BIOSs, which versions ship with
what mobo revisions, which of these are still on sale, the date at
which Intel's BIOS became properly Prescott-OK, etc.

And I see Intel mobo revs too old for Prescott (even BIOS aside) on
sale through distributors as late as August, and "updated for Celeron
D" Intel BIOSs dated June 2004 (the month Prescott shipped here).

So I really have my doubts about Intel's presentation of this issue.
It could be that PCs were put at risk because Intel played fuzzy with
the truth, which they may have done to FUD up sales of their own
motherboards, as well as play down the scope of the problem.

It's deep politics to ponder on whether MS took Intel's story at face
value, or were complicit in the spin. I think the former, as I can't
see why MS would want to go out on a limb to cover up for Intel's
dirty washing (why have ppl shout at SP2, when the real issue is
Intel's stealth bug-fixing?) and I don't think Intel has that much
leverage over MS anyway. After all, it seems as if it's AMD who are
on the cutting edge with MS, considering NX etc.

It must be depressing for MS, having thrown intense resources at SP2's
development, only to have to face ITW problems anyway. The hard
lesson is that good intent isn't enough to ensure success; not when
hitting the reality wall of complexity and the entropy of human error
rates - not just within MS, but across the entire industry.

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

No, perfection is not an entrance requirement.
We'll settle for integrity and humility

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

[/QUOTE]

 

[Herb Fritatta]

One thing that is nice is most modern computers have either a backup for
the BIOS or a tool that makes it almost impossible to screw up

Well, it's like backups - for most of us, the only true test of a
backup is to scorch your data then try a restore.

Those dice are way too big to roll, IMO.

What happens isn't so much that Intel has problems with their CPU's and
the BIOS fixes those problems or that Windows is dependent on the type
of CPU. It is more that Windows is being designed to take advantage of
new features of CPU's such as we saw with NX. When you start adding new
capabilities for new CPU's to an OS, this is where you begin to run into
problems.

Rod asked whu SP2's Update.sys was bigger (implying it must include
microcode) and I mentioned extra detection logic. All that AMD64 NX
stuff may be a factor, plus evaluating post-MMX support.

One reason SP2 might care about Intel CPU details (noting that these
CPUs don't do NX, and suppressing NX via Boot.ini doesn't fix) is for
DirectX 9c's new floating point pixel shaders; they may use SIMD3.

I can't believe that MS released SP2 through Automatic Updates even
after knowing about the Prescott issue. That seems like the worst thing
they could have ever done.

Yep, IMO that was a bad call. At the time I'd been involved in some
private email stuff with MS (that's where my NDA concerns came from)
and I was polling WU from my test PC to spot when SP2 push started.

By this time, no-one was still saying "865 and 875 chipsets", it was
now correctly identified as Prescott, so what I'd heard about other
(non-Intel) motherboard chipsets for Prescott wasn't news that had to
be formally broken. Still, I was relieved when MS posted most of the
detail (Update.sys, etc.) in the newsgroups.

SP2 started being pushed at around 02:00 (that I could tell) and so I
wrote it up and webbed it by 04:00. By now, both Intel and MS have
formally documented it, tho I dunno if MS's /kb article is linked off
the "what you need to know about SP2" front door.

I pity those who purchased a Dell or something

You see, the big brands weren't the problem; they are still shipping
Northwood. The target market doesn't think beyond "oooh Dell, good
brand name" so there's no reason to fret specs; Dell will ship
Prescott when they've cleared thier old stocks first.

So maybe in the US's big-brand-dominated market, this looked like a
small deal. Whereas here, we started shipping Prescott immediately,
from June; all new builds since then have been Prescott.

before the microcode was updated and now have a useless system
and don't know enough to fix it.

Exactly - it's a disaster, and unforgivable if known in advance.

It's also ironic, given that SP2 sets up WU patches to be downloaded
*and* installed without user initiative. That looks like a bad idea,
given that SP2 itself could render a PC unbootable - and if MS knew
that and pushed it anyway. On what basis should we be confident they
won't do that in future, with other patches that break "a few" PCs?

I've seen assertions made here that the issue was known during the RC
phase, and I have no personal knowledge whether this is so or not - it
may be thet the number of affected PCs would be under-estimated, as
Intel's spin made this look like a minority issue that would be
confined to a few lame brands and should be fixed by now ("just get
the new BIOS" - assumes one exists to be gotten).

That's why I'm chasing the details behind this. For example, looking
at Intel's documentation of thier own BIOSs, which versions ship with
what mobo revisions, which of these are still on sale, the date at
which Intel's BIOS became properly Prescott-OK, etc.

And I see Intel mobo revs too old for Prescott (even BIOS aside) on
sale through distributors as late as August, and "updated for Celeron
D" Intel BIOSs dated June 2004 (the month Prescott shipped here).

So I really have my doubts about Intel's presentation of this issue.
It could be that PCs were put at risk because Intel played fuzzy with
the truth, which they may have done to FUD up sales of their own
motherboards, as well as play down the scope of the problem.

It's deep politics to ponder on whether MS took Intel's story at face
value, or were complicit in the spin. I think the former, as I can't
see why MS would want to go out on a limb to cover up for Intel's
dirty washing (why have ppl shout at SP2, when the real issue is
Intel's stealth bug-fixing?) and I don't think Intel has that much
leverage over MS anyway. After all, it seems as if it's AMD who are
on the cutting edge with MS, considering NX etc.

It must be depressing for MS, having thrown intense resources at SP2's
development, only to have to face ITW problems anyway. The hard
lesson is that good intent isn't enough to ensure success; not when
hitting the reality wall of complexity and the entropy of human error
rates - not just within MS, but across the entire industry.

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

No, perfection is not an entrance requirement.
We'll settle for integrity and humility

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

[/QUOTE]

For chrissake, let this thread die! If you're not responding even
indirectly to the OP, either start a new thread or don't post. Please.

 

[Nathan McNulty]

LOL, it is indirectly related to the OP. It deals with Service Pack 2
and the frustration that many users are seeing with it.

 

[Herb Fritatta]

LOL, it is indirectly related to the OP. It deals with Service Pack 2
and the frustration that many users are seeing with it.

LOL my ass. This thread has gone off in 50 different directions. Get AIM
if you want to chat.

 

[Guest]

Since you are a remote access user or telecommuter, one way to avoid the
firewall issues is to install an appliance called enKoo. Starting at $1,000
for an appliance that provides remote access to email, files and applications
and has explicit instructions on installing within the XP SP2 environment.

 

[Guest]

Since installing SP2, I have had not problems what soever. Many improvements
were made to my satisfaction. But, there is a "ntuser dat file" in
C:/documents and settings/owner/ntuser dat-it is shown as a text document and
the KB keeps changing. When I try to open it using notepad or IE, I get the
following error message(s): Cannot access this file it is being used by
another person or program. When I try to delete it, I get the following
error message(s) Cannot delete, it is being used by another person or
program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again. I
DON'T KNOW WHAT PROGRAM OR PERSON COULD BE USING IT. Can anyone help me to
understand (1) How can I find out what person or program could be using it?
(2) Why can't I open a file shown as a "text document"? (3) Why the KB
varies? I am most certainly perplexed.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Since installing SP2, I have had not problems what soever. Many
improvements were made to my satisfaction. But, there is a "ntuser
dat file" in C:/documents and settings/owner/ntuser dat-it is shown
as a text document and the KB keeps changing. When I try to open it
using notepad or IE, I get the following error message(s): Cannot
access this file it is being used by another person or program. When
I try to delete it, I get the following error message(s) Cannot
delete, it is being used by another person or program. Close any
programs that might be using the file and try again. I DON'T KNOW
WHAT PROGRAM OR PERSON COULD BE USING IT. Can anyone help me to
understand (1) How can I find out what person or program could be
using it? (2) Why can't I open a file shown as a "text document"? (3)
Why the KB varies? I am most certainly perplexed.

Your account has it locked. Click on another account, like Default User and
open the ntuser.dat file using Notepad to see the type of information that
is stored there. This is a critical system file and should not be altered.

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

cquirke (MVP Win9x) wrote:

For chrissake, let this thread die! If you're not responding even
indirectly to the OP, either start a new thread or don't post. Please.

I'd rather have one large SP2 thread than dozens of separate SP2
threads - then if I wasn't interested in SP2, I could mark the thread
to Ignore and not bother with it.

As to the OP; not all posts have to relate to that, as long as they
are on the topic suggested in the subject line.

Whereas you quoted an entire message and added a totally off-topic
reply that had nothing to do with anything quoted. Hmm.

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

"I think it's time we took our
friendship to the next level"
'What, gender roles and abuse?'

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

Since installing SP2, I have had not problems what soever. Many improvements
were made to my satisfaction. But, there is a "ntuser dat file" in
C:/documents and settings/owner/ntuser dat

Don't pick a fight with NTUSER.DAT !! That's your user profile's
registry, i.e. what you see in Regedit as HKCU.

it is shown as a text document

Word Perfect user? WP grabs .DAT as "text", but in practice, a .DAT
can be anything: WP text, multimedia data file, OS system data file
(e.g. registry or core of a namespace object), applications' internal
data such as av updates, etc.

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

"I think it's time we took our
friendship to the next level"
'What, gender roles and abuse?'

 

[Guest]

So far I am 50/50 with XP SP-2. On my desktop SP-2 installed with no
problems. On the laptop I lost the operating system. That's right, Windows
SP2 killed itself. The only recouse was to blow the drive away and reload
the OS from scratch. After I reinstalled XP I tried to install SP-2 again
with the same resuts. At least its consistent. For now SP-2 won't go
anywhere near the laptop.

When the laptop boots Windows trys to start, a brief blue screen of death
message is displayed (unfortunately the screen flashes by so quickly you
can't read it) then all is black. The laptop is a stone stock unit with
nothing but MS products on it.

So far no replies from the manufacturer on why the thing blew up.

 

[Anonymous]

Installed ok on my machine......it was when it wanted to restart the
problems started. Slow boot, half my taskbar icons gone, most applications
slow boot or not at all and unable to download any web pages. System restore
killed it dead and it wont be coming back.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

So far I am 50/50 with XP SP-2. On my desktop SP-2 installed with no
problems. On the laptop I lost the operating system. That's right, Windows
SP2 killed itself. The only recouse was to blow the drive away and reload
the OS from scratch.

More likely impatients caused that.

After I reinstalled XP I tried to install SP-2 again
with the same resuts. At least its consistent. For now SP-2 won't go
anywhere near the laptop.

Debug it.

When the laptop boots Windows trys to start, a brief blue screen of death
message is displayed (unfortunately the screen flashes by so quickly you
can't read it) then all is black. The laptop is a stone stock unit with
nothing but MS products on it.

But still one you don't wanna describe to us in detail like a model or
anything?

So far no replies from the manufacturer on why the thing blew up.

Did you contact the right manufacturer?

 

[Guest]

dON'T INSTALL SP2! i HAVEAND NOW MY COMPUTER CAN'T TALK
TO TOHER PC'SANYMORE HERE AT HOME, AND IT COMPLAINS ABOUT
FIREWALL ANF ANTIVIRUS. cANT ACCESS VARUOIS WEBPAGES AND
EVEN THE WAY MY COMPUTER LOOKS WHEN IT IS STARTING UP IS
DIFFERENT!!! yOU WOULD BE WELL WARRNED TO STAY AWAY!!!