Addressing SP3 issues

I just wanted to take a moment and address SP3 and its many issues. First, I finally got up the nerve to install it many months after its release (it's November). Everything seems OK, except the address bar on my taskbar is now gone and damned if I can figure out how to get it back. All options seem to be gone! Thanks again, Microsoft. Tell me again why I continue to maintain this relationship? Also, every now and then my mouse pointer jumps to the top corner of the screen - all by itself! I suppose along the way I've gotten a virus or some hacker is messing with me, but multiple scans w/ Norton & SpyBot reveal nothing. But that's another issue.

No, the reason I'm writing is the fact that myriad problems come with an update that's supposed to be good for my PC, and that users are apparently required to do special gymnastics before letting Windows (AUTOMATIC updates, no less) quietly do its thing. Not only is this retarded, but the average user won't know anything about any of this! Following WinUpdate's messages alone, one would think they should just click and install, as usual. Hell, it's even a pain with my medium-level experience.

Second, I've read lots of replies to posts on this and other NGs. Now, MVP techs (and others) have been very helpful to me in my few posts, and I've made sure to state how grateful I am for the expert (and free) help. What I'm seeing now re: SP3 are a lot of replies that seem almost cavalier in matter-of-factly stating how to deal with the problems caused, again, by an update that is designed to improve the OS. As if everyone simply should be expected to fix the fixes!

Granted, I've read a just fraction of what's out there, and I have no doubt plenty of pros are as irritated as anyone with the whole deal. So I apologize in advance if I'm missing something. Outrage over anything Microsoft is, I realize, less than useless today. But this is ridiculous.

Sorry to go on; I just had to put this out there.

Larry

PS. By the way, I just noticed I can't restore back to the SP2 state - all my restore points are gone! Wow, another knife in the back!

 

Here is something I found after Googling a few pages

http://www.windowsreference.com/win...rom-toolbars-after-installing-windows-xp-sp3/

And you can uninstall SP3. See here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950249

Mitch

 

Would your mouse happen to be an Optical mouse? I have seen this happen a few times on some of our older Optical Mice that came with Dell Systems. I gave the user a newer Dell Optical mouse and the problem went away.

 

Thanks, Mitch and dobhar. One of the things I benefit from is the techie's knowledge of WHAT to Google! Just read the page on reinstituting the address bar. Fascinating... and still aggravating! Again, how many people less savvy than me, even, could figure this out? Well, I did it and it not only brought it back, but all the original URLs, too! Knowledge is such power.

Yes, it is an optical mouse. (I have an HP Pavilion a520n, AMD Athlon 3200+, XP Home Ed.) Are you thinking the mouse might be just having issues on its own, unrelated to the SP3 install?

Finally, assuming I uninstall, is it still in my computer's best interest to reinstall some other way? I've been reading about installing from a CD, slipstreaming... frankly, it's a bit Greek to me. I'm guessing uninstalling won't bring back the old restore points, so should I just leave it alone now?

(You know what's funny: I don't even use IE - my friend was the big user. I just thought it was a shady trick to make it disappear.)

 

Glad you got it fixed.

If you're not having any problems with SP3, I would leave it alone. However, if you do install, the next time I would think about a slipstream. See Arie's sticky about installing SP3 here
It include a link to instructions for slipstreaming SP3.


Mitch

 

Thank you, Mitch - I'll read it this evening.

As a side note: Win wouldn't let me overwrite the "new" dll with the replacement one from the help page, and I couldn't delete-and-replace, either. So I simply renamed it (just added "-sp3" to it) and dragged the replacement over. Honestly, I was shocked it let me do that.

 

Hello to Jak25. I seem to remember reading somewhere that users with AMD CPUs could have some issues with SP3.

 

And the winner is... AMD users!

Well, I never considered that. And I'm not aware of anything along the lines of, say, AMD-issued software updates (not that Intel does those, either). But thanks for the info.

 

Sorry, I miised this...Yes, I'm thinking that it's not an SP3 issue. I'm thinking that it's the mouse itself or the mouse pad that your using. In my case it was the mouse but in other cases I've seen or heard of it's the mouse pad. Since replacing a mouse pad is the cheapest way to go, try another but make sure it's one for optical mice. Try a single color pad.

 

Thanks for checking back to an old post, dobhar. Yeah, I'll probably do that. I'm really not too concerned about it, if it doesn't logically figure to be a bug or intrusion. But I will change one of those.