PCTips Box

Whilst the roll out of Windows XP Service Pack 3 has gone reasonably smoothly some problems have been reported. One of the first to emerge is a persistent reboot that affects some HP machines using AMD processors. Both HP and Microsoft are aware of the problems but neither has announced a patch yet, however, several fixes have been developed including this one on Jespers’s Blog. A second, potentially more serious problem concerns a conflict with several Norton products, which can results in a PC’s Registry being filled with corrupt entries. (more…)

Officially, Windows XP Service Pack 3 RTM is not yet available for download. Unofficially however, the story is a tad different. The third and last service pack for Windows XP has been up for grabs from various sources, more or less legitimate since a few days. And now the final bits of XP SP3 can be accessed straight from Microsoft, even though the Redmond company has failed to jump the gun on the previously announced general availability date: April 29, 2008. But failed only in appearance, as Microsoft has been serving the gold version of XP SP3 through its Windows Update infrastructure since the debut of this week.

The fact is that the Redmond company has debuted the preparations for the general release of Windows XP SP3 scheduled for April 29. In this context, the final bits of the service pack have begun making their way on the WU servers and propagating slowly. (more…)

Windows XP Service Pack 3 RTM is finally available for download. Microsoft released the service pack to manufacturing, at the beginning of this week, on April 21, 2008 and is now making headway towards the general availability of XP SP3. Officially, the final version of XP SP3 is scheduled for delivery starting with the end of this month. However, Windows XP SP3 RTM Build 5512 has been leaked and is already up for grabs, ahead of the release timetable outlined by the Redmond company.

At the start of this week, Chris Keroack, Release Program Manager Windows Sustainability Microsoft, announced the RTM of XP SP3, and pointed to April 29 as the date when end users would be able to access the service pack via both Windows Update and the Download Center. The Redmond company planned to serve the gold bits of Windows XP SP3 starting on May 2 to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, following general availability on April 29. (more…)

Even though with the advent of Windows Vista the open source community saw the ripe moment for Linux to strengthen its grip over consumer PCs, the fact of the matter is that Windows still holds a firm grip over the vast majority of desktops worldwide. And there is no change visible on the horizon, especially as the two largest vendors of Linux operating systems have no plans to go against Microsoft. Neither Novell nor Red Hat feel that Linux has sufficient driving force behind it in order to go against Windows, which until Windows 7 will largely be represented by Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista SP1.

Novell President and CEO Ronald Hovsepian, revealed to InformationWorld that SUSE Linux will fail to become popular until Windows 7, and even beyond. The immediate reason for this is the slow pace at which the Linux consumer market is growing. “The market for the desktop for the next three to five years is mainly enterprise-related,” Hovsepian explained. As a direct consequence, Novell is focusing the bulk of its efforts on winning over corporate desktops and technology enthusiasts. (more…)

Microsoft is advising Windows XP end users to make room for the third and final service pack designed to update the predecessor of Windows Vista by mid 2008, according to the official timetable provided by Microsoft. The move comes as testers of beta builds of XP SP3 have come across an error message when trying to deploy the service pack followed by the failure of the installation. “You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files,” reads the Service Pack 3 Setup error.

“Additionally, the following error may be logged in the service pack installation log: 8007F02B – STATUS_NOT_ENOUGH_WITH_UNINST. This installation log typically resides in the following location: Drive_Letter:WindowsSvcpack.log. This problem may occur if the free disk space that is available on the computer is insufficient to archive the uninstall files. (The uninstall files are also known as the backup files),” Microsoft revealed. (more…)

Holding your breath while waiting for the final version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 won’t do you any good. In fact, you can go ahead and exhale now, because Microsoft is by no means in any hurry to make available the third and final service pack for Windows XP. However, the Redmond company is indeed hammering away at XP SP3, having released a new build of the service pack. While the gold bits of XP SP3 have failed to take a consistent contour on the immediate horizon, although it seemed that Windows Vista SP1 RTM would be synonymous with the releasing to manufacturing of the third service pack for XP, Microsoft confirmed a new development milestone. (more…)