SP2 related woes: list any you find here

  • Thread starter Thread starter ToolPackinMama
  • Start date Start date
T

ToolPackinMama

I suppose it's inevitable that SP2 will cause problems. One I know of
is a pal of mine discovered he couldn't ghost drives anymore after
installing SP2.

FWIW, in his business he has a perfectly legitimate reason to ghost
drives. He's got a totally legal copy of the group license version of
XP, precisely for that reason. He called Microsoft tech support and
guess what? It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Another example of Microsoft punishing faithful customers who are honest
people.
 
A feature he asked for? AFAIHS ghosting a drive with Sp2 XP goes
fine,,,a link to the 'feature' list?
What's he using to ghost it? version number?
 
ToolPackinMama said:
You actually tried it? I only know what my pal told me.
Click to expand...

That's why he also asked the particulars of what he was using and how he
was trying to do it.
 
Just another item for one of those "urban legends" sites.
SP2 works like a charm on my 2 desktops - one being a PIII 550.

Bwahahahahahahaha !!!!
 
Bioboffin said:
I've been using the release version of SP2 since last weekend. The only
problem I have found which is definitely caused by SP2 is the 'feature'
which tells you if your third party antivirus is out of date. When SP2 was
installed, it correctly identified that I was running Sophos AV and that it
is up to date. The following day, five minutes after updating the virus
signatures, SP2 told me that my antivirus was out of date. The official
Microsoft response is that they have made an api available to Antivirus
vendors, but that not all have implemented it yet. Sophos have said on their
website that they will implement it in future upgrades. In the meantime, it
is easy enough to turn the feature off.

Another problem which has surfaced is that Nero crashed twice on start-up
after installing SP2, however on my machine it has been doing that on and
off since I 'upgraded' to Nero 6. I suspect some more deep-rooted problem.
In any case Nero 6 has been updated now, and the latest version can be
downloaded from their web site - so presumably any SP2 issues with it have
now been resolved.

I use a few of the other programs mentioned in the infamous '200 programs
that may behave differently with SP2' article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2
e.g. Diskeeper, Office 2003, Real Player (free) and Zonealarm and have not
noticed any change in them at all. (I have turned off the Windows firewall
and use Zonealarm instead).

John.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I suspect there's going to be a lot of rumors about things 'broken'
when it's merely a firewall issue.

I did do a quick google to see if anything turned up about ghost and I did
find some people complaining about using the windows ghost wizard to
copy/move partitions around on drives with multiple partitions.

Trying to guess the situation from a few reads it looked to me like there
may be a new 'protection' feature that prevents you from ghosting over the
system (boot) partition and that it's also blocking writing a file image to
it as well. From the conversation it appeared that using the ghost boot
floppy works fine, though.

Frankly, I'm holding off on SP2 till the dust settles a bit.
 
No problems here on my LAN and I have had it for a week,
last night I wipe a HP 522a clean for a mate who had has nothing but
trouble with it since he bought it, got rid of their hidden partion
and shit, installed XP SPK2 connected it to my router/switch to
download video/sound drivers etc. easy as pie and not a hitch...I use
Sygate Pro Firewall and AVG Pro antivirus and all works great...(I
think the secret is to not use XP firewall..just disable it)
He's very happy with it, said its never worked so good.
We tried several P2P programs and anything else we could think of that
used the internet without a problem.

RedBack
 
ToolPackinMama said:
I suppose it's inevitable that SP2 will cause problems. One I know of
is a pal of mine discovered he couldn't ghost drives anymore after
installing SP2.
Click to expand...
I've been using the release version of SP2 since last weekend. The only
problem I have found which is definitely caused by SP2 is the 'feature'
which tells you if your third party antivirus is out of date. When SP2 was
installed, it correctly identified that I was running Sophos AV and that it
is up to date. The following day, five minutes after updating the virus
signatures, SP2 told me that my antivirus was out of date. The official
Microsoft response is that they have made an api available to Antivirus
vendors, but that not all have implemented it yet. Sophos have said on their
website that they will implement it in future upgrades. In the meantime, it
is easy enough to turn the feature off.

Another problem which has surfaced is that Nero crashed twice on start-up
after installing SP2, however on my machine it has been doing that on and
off since I 'upgraded' to Nero 6. I suspect some more deep-rooted problem.
In any case Nero 6 has been updated now, and the latest version can be
downloaded from their web site - so presumably any SP2 issues with it have
now been resolved.

I use a few of the other programs mentioned in the infamous '200 programs
that may behave differently with SP2' article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2
e.g. Diskeeper, Office 2003, Real Player (free) and Zonealarm and have not
noticed any change in them at all. (I have turned off the Windows firewall
and use Zonealarm instead).

John.
 
Trying to guess the situation from a few reads it looked to me like
there may be a new 'protection' feature that prevents you from
ghosting over the system (boot) partition and that it's also blocking
writing a file image to it as well. From the conversation it appeared
that using the ghost boot floppy works fine, though.
Click to expand...

Thats what I was thinking. Probably a good thing as far as Ghost is
concerned. It totally hosed a Dell system I was working on when I tried to
backup w/o a boot floppy.

Probably screws Diskeepers boot-time defrag though.
 
Bioboffin said:
I just ran a boot-time defrag on two partitions with no problems.

However, to reiterate, I'm not using the Microsoft Firewall. (I want a
firewall that tells me if something is attempting to 'dial out').

John.
Click to expand...

I think the windows ghost version not writing to the system partition is a
wholly different deal than the firewall issue. A firewall blocking ports is
just about the most common firewall 'problem' one can have since that is,
after all, it's intended purpose.
 
Lordy said:
Thats what I was thinking. Probably a good thing as far as Ghost is
concerned. It totally hosed a Dell system I was working on when I tried to
backup w/o a boot floppy.
Click to expand...

I can certainly see why the Microsoft rep could have said blocking
destruction of the system partition was a 'feature', though.

Has nothing to do with 'intentionally' breaking ghost.
Probably screws Diskeepers boot-time defrag though.
Click to expand...

Depends on how diskeeper works I would imagine.
 
Lordy said:
Thats what I was thinking. Probably a good thing as far as Ghost is
concerned. It totally hosed a Dell system I was working on when I tried to
backup w/o a boot floppy.

Probably screws Diskeepers boot-time defrag though.
Click to expand...

I just ran a boot-time defrag on two partitions with no problems.

However, to reiterate, I'm not using the Microsoft Firewall. (I want a
firewall that tells me if something is attempting to 'dial out').

John.
 
Lordy said:
Thats what I was thinking. Probably a good thing as far as Ghost is
concerned. It totally hosed a Dell system I was working on when I tried to
backup w/o a boot floppy.

Probably screws Diskeepers boot-time defrag though.
Click to expand...

I am constantly puzzled by the continuous negative comments such as the one
expressed by "Lordy" as well as frequent misinformation that I come across
on the various newsgroups that deprecate Symantec's Norton Ghost program. My
experience with that program has been, and continues to be, completely
counter to the negative views expressed by so many posters. I have often
remarked that I wish every software program I use was as simple,
straightforward, and effective as Symantec's Norton Ghost program. Let me
state at the outset that I use Ghost for one and only one purpose - to clone
the contents of one hard drive to another. By making a bit-for-bit copy (not
technically precise perhaps, but correct for all practical purposes) of one'
s working hard drive, you have, what seems to me, the ultimate backup
system. I have used various versions of Ghost over the years, including the
present 2003 version. During that time I estimate I've cloned various hard
drives more than a thousand times. And done so with nary a hiccup. Ghost's
ease of use together with reasonable speed make it a joy to use.



In virtually every case I've come across where the user had experienced
problems with Ghost's cloning operation, I've found the problem arose due to
one of the following factors:

1. User error.

2. Corrupted system files of one kind or another on the source disk.

3. Source or destination disk mechanically/electronically defective.

Rarely have I come across problems that I could attribute to deficiencies of
the Ghost program itself.



If you clone garbage, garbage is what you'll get. Before cloning a hard
drive you must ensure that the drive is free of physical/system defects and
virus-free.



BTW, I've had no difficulty cloning hard drives containing the XP SP2 OS
since installing SP2 a few days ago.



Art
 
I am constantly puzzled by the continuous negative comments such as
the one expressed by "Lordy" as well as frequent misinformation that I
come across on the various newsgroups that deprecate Symantec's Norton
Ghost program. My experience with that program has been, and continues
to be, completely counter to the negative views expressed by so many
posters.
Click to expand...

I've used ghost happily for years from boot floppies. When it was easy
to find a W98 boot floppy lying around! Prior to my latest incident I
would be in your camp..
The irony is when backup softare trashes your brand new baseline build
(that you was trying to ..er ..backup like the good IT Professional you
are), the memory tends to stick.
Prior to that no problems with simpler, MS-DOS based ghost boots.





Working from BOOT floppies (or better still boot CDS) has always been
good but for BACKUP software to first alter the MBR and create virtual
partitions - thats just asking for trouble if the OS its trying to load
(PC-DOS) doesnt work well in the machine,

IMO due to things like USB2,Firewire drives etc they should move to a
mini Linux Kernel on a boot floppy/cdrom ..

Right now I backup home machines partitions using a Knoppix cd and
partimage. (NTFS partitions need to be defragged first) - Although I
have never tested them (Ouch!), but I do normal file (tar) based backups
too.




My particular nightmare was due to one horrible sequence of events ...

1. No W98 MS-DOS Boot Floppy to hand.
2. PC-DOS boot floppy didnt work on Dell machine.

3. Me Thinking that the backup "via Windows" option would somehow work
differently not realising it simply modifies the boot record and creates
Weird Virtual Partitions at the end of a real partition.

(At this point my Spider senses did start a tingling but I was tired and
I trusted Ghost not to cause me any pain)

4. PC Subsequently fails to boot
5. All rescue options fail (ghrecover (or something like that),
FIXMBR etc nothing worked.
6. Booting with a Knoppix CD and using fdisk showed some of the horrible
stuff ghost did.
 
Lordy said:
I've used ghost happily for years from boot floppies. When it was easy
to find a W98 boot floppy lying around! Prior to my latest incident I
would be in your camp..
The irony is when backup softare trashes your brand new baseline build
(that you was trying to ..er ..backup like the good IT Professional you
are), the memory tends to stick.
Prior to that no problems with simpler, MS-DOS based ghost boots.
Click to expand...

Lordy:
I'm totally mystified by your statement that "When it was easy to find a W98
boot floppy lying around..." then (I take it) Ghost was a program you could
live with. What in the world does a Win9x/Me Startup Disk have to do with
Ghost? To use the Ghost cloning program from a floppy (as I do), you simply
create the Ghost boot floppy from the Ghost program. That takes all of three
minutes or so. With your source and destination disks connected, you simply
boot with the Ghost floppy and a half a dozen or so keyclicks later the
cloning process begins. It's that simple, is it not? You can just as easily
create a Ghost bootable CD and undertake your cloning operation through that
means. All this talk about altering the MBR, creating virtual partitions,
Linux Kernels, Knoppix CDs, partimage, "defragging" NTFS partitions, etc.
are beyond my comprehension.

Let me reiterate what I stated in my previous posting -- I have often
remarked that I wish every software program I use was as simple,
straightforward, and effective as Symantec's Norton Ghost program. Let me
state at the outset that I use Ghost for one and only one purpose - to clone
the contents of one hard drive to another. By making a bit-for-bit copy (not
technically precise perhaps, but correct for all practical purposes) of one'
s working hard drive, you have, what seems to me, the ultimate backup
system. I have used various versions of Ghost over the years, including the
present 2003 version. During that time I estimate I've cloned various hard
drives more than a thousand times. And done so with nary a hiccup. Ghost's
ease of use together with reasonable speed make it a joy to use.

Art
 
how IS that stock in Symantec doing these days?


Art said:
Lordy:
I'm totally mystified by your statement that "When it was easy to find a W98
boot floppy lying around..." then (I take it) Ghost was a program you could
live with. What in the world does a Win9x/Me Startup Disk have to do with
Ghost? To use the Ghost cloning program from a floppy (as I do), you simply
create the Ghost boot floppy from the Ghost program. That takes all of three
minutes or so. With your source and destination disks connected, you simply
boot with the Ghost floppy and a half a dozen or so keyclicks later the
cloning process begins. It's that simple, is it not? You can just as easily
create a Ghost bootable CD and undertake your cloning operation through that
means. All this talk about altering the MBR, creating virtual partitions,
Linux Kernels, Knoppix CDs, partimage, "defragging" NTFS partitions, etc.
are beyond my comprehension.

Let me reiterate what I stated in my previous posting -- I have often
remarked that I wish every software program I use was as simple,
straightforward, and effective as Symantec's Norton Ghost program. Let me
state at the outset that I use Ghost for one and only one purpose - to clone
the contents of one hard drive to another. By making a bit-for-bit copy (not
technically precise perhaps, but correct for all practical purposes) of one'
s working hard drive, you have, what seems to me, the ultimate backup
system. I have used various versions of Ghost over the years, including the
present 2003 version. During that time I estimate I've cloned various hard
drives more than a thousand times. And done so with nary a hiccup. Ghost's
ease of use together with reasonable speed make it a joy to use.

Art
Click to expand...
 
Lordy:
Click to expand...

<snip advert for Ghost>

Personally I prefer BootIT. Far better than Ghost, nice GUI, fits on a
floppy, does partitioning including nix partitions and clones drives
too. Best part is it costs shitloads less than Ghost.
 
Bioboffin said:
I've been using the release version of SP2 since last weekend. The only
problem I have found which is definitely caused by SP2 is the 'feature'
which tells you if your third party antivirus is out of date. When SP2 was
installed, it correctly identified that I was running Sophos AV and that it
is up to date. The following day, five minutes after updating the virus
signatures, SP2 told me that my antivirus was out of date.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your testimony.
 
David said:
Yeah. I suspect there's going to be a lot of rumors about things 'broken'
when it's merely a firewall issue.
Click to expand...

I have no anti-Microsoft agenda, actually. I'm just a humble PC tech
who wants info about the problems my people might run into.
 
Back
Top