WinXp SP2 Preinstallation Jitters & Questions

Sparrow

I do have NSW 2004 but it doesn't have Ghost ...I didn't buy the combo with both just NSW which has as an extra on the CD GoBack.

 

Yea, that was my first thought too. Ghost and similar tools are incedible for this kind of stuff, always use Ghost myself in such cases. Has probably saved me hundreds of hours of work and a similar amount of annoyance.

 

It might be worth buying it then, it may save you a lot of time and trouble in the future. It does of course require that you have either an extra partition on your disk, an extra harddisk, a CD or DVD burner, or some other media where you can place the Ghost image. It can not be placed on the partition which you are copying.

 

It's possible to find some "outdated" software very cheap online. I haven't had any experience with this seller, so I can't recomend them but, at the price (7.50 + shipping for 2003 pro.), I could stand the loss if it occurs. There's no need to have the latest version.

 

Thanks Everyone

Hello Again Christer~

First off I want to say thanks to the different ones for the suggestions I get Ghost but as I have said I will need to be putting that on hold as I have bought sooooooo much this past year. NSW 2004 (NOT professional therefore no Ghost)) Roxio's Easy Mediator Creator 7, Paint Shop Pro 9, Paint Shop Xtra's 1 & 2, Paint Shop Photo Album and MUCH more...including the new computer with a 19" flat (not thin) monitor.
I don't have a partitioned HD on this new computer...I asked and they said no...not needed....that should have been a clue to buy else where.
But I do have the CD/CDR/CDRW and I use Roxio 7 to back up my important files....so one day but not now.

Plus we just spent $900 on a treadmill for me to see if that will help strengthen my bad leg ( my bad leg is what has given me the opportunity to play..play..play with my computer so it has it's upside.

Chester...I have not installed SP2 yet as I course I enrolled in for Dec gave me notice on Friday that it would start on Sunday ...so that has been taking all my brain power...so the installation will have to wait another couple of weeks. ( that's why it's taken me until now to reply...sorry)

I have made a text doc of ALL the suggestions here and and soon as I do do it....I'll be back to let you know how it went.

I do appreciate all the super advise and tips I have received here and now that I have found this place I will be back with more questions.

SusieB

 

From what I can see, the only problem you may have is with NAV. But there is a patch for it. Everything else should run just fine.

 

SusieB --Coming late to the party. I think you can "buy" Norton SystemWorks Premier 2005 (new name for Professional) today (Saturday) only at Staples for $70 with two rebates for $70, so net cost is tax and postage to send for rebates. Premier includes Ghost9, the latest.
Also here is what MS advises before you update to SP2
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx

 

SusieB,

I just installed SP2 on my Win XP Home computer last night and it went pretty smooth. I still have a couple of minor problems to solve but they are not affecting the computer operation.

By the way, I tried to install SP1 awhile back and could not reboot into Windows. After discussions & trials recommended by Microsoft Tech Service, they finally concluded that I should not install SP1 so I just installed updates one at a time. For this reason I was kind of reluctant to install SP2.

I have an IBM NetVista computer and I downloaded & installed all of the latest drivers that IBM recommended before installing SP2.

Also I found an article online titled "Windows XP SP2 Problem Solver" that may be of some help to you. It is on the following site "

http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm

Good luck.

 

ghost 9 and Partition Magic 8 for 90.00 and then a 20.00 mail in rebate net cost 35.00 per package on Newegg.com. good price for both softwares.

i probably missed it but i didnt see how large her hard drive is ??? if this is a system from a dell, gateway or the such then they never partition there drives except for their system partition.

in my opinion creating a separate partition for somebody and excuse me for saying this but maybe a novice with computers might just overwhelm them a bit. if you dont have somebody in your area that you trust to keep your system intact then i personally would just ghost it to a burner when you get the opportunity to buy ghost. if you cannot afford at this time to get ghost then i would just make sure you keep a good backup of your data in case you have to rebuild your machine from scratch.

when i build or rebuild a system for a client i always create a backup routine with whatever burning software they have so all they have to do is click on the backup project and hit the burn button and your on your way. i always instruct them to do this on a regular basis so if the drive dies we can restore at least a lot of there data. i always backup for them - favorites, desktop so i can see what was there, email address, emails, my documents which should include music, pictures, etc.... i also burn there image to a cd so at least i have a good starting point if disaster hits them. i also put on each machine i work on spybot, spywareblaster and ad-aware. since these programs have been installed none have had any bad problems with those types of bugs and there free. free is a good thing if the app does what it says it will do. i also instruct my clients to use pandasoftware.com/activescan and trendmicro.com for an additional check of their systems for bugs that eveything else might miss.

my 2 cents worth. if out of place i am sorry.

 

It WORKED! Thank You Everyone

Hello Chris, Paul, Ray,Jslow and everyone else who provided me with suggestions for preparing for and applying WinXp SP2.

It took me much longer than I thought to get it done but finally did all the prep and installation a couple of days ago and it went so smoothly and I have had no problems whatsoever.

I did all the prep suggested, deleting temp files, prefetch files etc, making sure all my software, drivers were up to date, doing a defrag, everything that was suggested...and I made sure my Nortons Firewall and AV were disabled when I did the install....I installed from a CD so I was NOT connected when I did the install.

It even acknowledged my NIS and NAV right off the bat...I didnt' have to make any changes in the Security Center.

So thanks again so much...this group is incredible.
Hugs, SusieB