Windows XP forum: SP1a to SP2 upgrade

The first thing to do is scan your computer to make sure you are clean of all malware, something that can prevent SP2 from being installed correctly. Next, I would run SFC to make sure your system files are in order. Finally, I would click here to download the SP2 installer. Just ignore the alert telling home users not to download it and use Windows Update instead.

Hope this helps,
John

don't forget the 100+ patches & upgrades to things like Media Player etc.
Before that, you might want to checkout this post (especially about blocking IE 7 force load) and suggested alt browsers.
POST


Once you're SP2. you can use Sun Java (JRE)5.0 Update 10 & Firefox 1.xx or 2.0.
Don't forget to update Adobe Reader/Acrobat.
Here's a list of programs that may, may not or may work differently after installing SP2:
LIST.

I also suggest a router. Best of luck!!!

Message was edited by: admin to fix broken link

Dear Eddygru:
I installed SP2 awhile back, and it gave me nothing but trouble, so I had to reformatt my windows, now I do only the custom windows updates, Sp1 is in them, and all the other updates too, haven't had any problems since, and I'm not the only one that has been having problems with SP2, and I don't have the automatic updates on anymore.
Hope this helps.

I didn't just have trouble upgrading, my machine booted into the BSOD after the upgrade and nothing else. No matter what I tried I could not even boot into safe mode. Spent several hours with the hardware vendor (very well-known) support with no luck. When they asked me to pull out the graphics card and told me "not to worry" multiple times, I decided it was time to do it on my own.

I finally had to use my XP CD and do a repair which got me back in. Many of my settings were lost and my control panel still gives me exception errors over 50% of the time. I calculate that I spent nearly 40 hours getting it running because I didn't want to lose program settings and data. I couldn't even get to my backup to restore. Now all my data is sitting on an external hard drive so I can at least plug that into a different machine to access it.

I know we're told constantly by everyone it's time to upgrade, but for my current machine that will never happen again.

Before upgrading from SP1 to SP2, (1.) I used Windows Update to make sure that SP1 was 100% up to date. I installed everything available, even the optional stuff. (2.) I went to the HP web site, and updated everything available there. That site included HP-specific patches that were supposed to be installed before the SP2 update.

Installed SP2 on my computer which at the time was new. It corrupted Windows XP Pro, and had to reinstall. Thought that I would have better luck if I installed SP2 before I installed any of my programs, but the same thing happened. After complaining to Microsoft, they told me that there is a program you can download from their website that will block SP2 from being installed during Windows Update! That should be taken as a sign that SP2 should be avoided.