W2K SP4: go or no go?

[foxkm]

I have installed Sp4 on numerous P4 systems here at work.. Win2k now responds much quicker on the P4's than they did with SP3 - Sp1 installed. Looks like M$ finally optimized Win2k for the P4 with SP4. The P3 systems here which got the upgrade don't feel any faster, but that nasty P4 lag is gone with SP4.

2 Thumbs up for SP4!!! and thank god for the built in Wireless control like XP has!!!


foxkm

 

[spyordie007]

did they add in wireless configuration support in SP4?

 

[bocamojo]

I have installed win2k SP4 and have been running it for a few days now. I have not had any problems at all with it. I haven't seen any major improvements or anything, but it is running very stable, so I would recommend going for it.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: mobogasm
How does MSFT expect you to deploys these sp's if they're not msi files? Am I missing something....? And no I don't want to have to use SMS server.

I believe if you download the "network install" there's an .msi file in there.

The 'express install' only downloads what is, essentially, a download manager to get the rest of the SP files on a per-machine basis.

 

[mobogasm]

the network install was an .exe like always. Is there a way to extract it into an msi or something,.,???

 

[ChemMan]

I just installed last night and today I noticed a lot of hitching and hesitation of the mouse pointer and cd music while downloading from the internet. The files I downloaded were also occasionaly corrupted too. I first tried reinstalling the most recent 4 in 1's, but things remained the same. After uninstalling sp4 everything is back to normal.

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[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: mobogasm
the network install was an .exe like always. Is there a way to extract it into an msi or something,.,???

Run the SP from a command line with the /X option. You could find this information on Microsoft's site.


SP4 Deployment Guide

 

[SaigonK]

I have had no issues with the Novell client yet, you should make sure you are running version 4.81 sp2 to be safe.

 

[rmrf]

When I update my system, I just use the hotfixes that I need. I like the hotfixes better anyways, because then I can see what updates are going on my system and what they are doing. I like to keep my machine pretty locked down, so most of the stuff that M$ is putting updates out for, I don't even have running on my machine. I also do healthcare stuff, so I can't just install anything that M$ wants me to, because of the HIPAA laws.

 

[Noid]

The spoolsv.exe system file is now "hardwired' to the internet.

After my install , ZA tells me what programs have changed and if they can access the internet.

I sid 'NO' to the spoolsv.exe, then rebooted ...

My system hung. Never reaching the desktop after login.

I had to 'Safe Boot' to turn off automatic startup of ZA, reboot, and change the seting to allow the spoolsv.exe to access the interenet.

Dunno if why a print spooler needs access to the interent ... do you?

I may be ghosting back to SP3, I dont like spyware.

 

[kaizersose]

just a word of warning:
my roomate works as a computer tech for our school and he was updating someone's gateway laptop (relatively new P4, dont know anything else) with SP4 and it wiped the hard drive clean. neither he nor the owner were too happy as you could imagine. i am holding off on SP4.

(sorry i cant provide too many details, i will try an bug him about it tonight)

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: kaizersose
just a word of warning:
my roomate works as a computer tech for our school and he was updating someone's gateway laptop (relatively new P4, dont know anything else) with SP4 and it wiped the hard drive clean. neither he nor the owner were too happy as you could imagine. i am holding off on SP4.

(sorry i cant provide too many details, i will try an bug him about it tonight)

I can safely say that there is NO way that SP4 was the cause of the drive being wiped clean. There HAD to be something else that did it.

 

[mikecel79]

The spoolsv.exe system file is now "hardwired' to the internet.

Do you have any network printers installed on your machine? It could be trying to connect to the server that the printer is installed on. Or it may be broadcasting it's resources to be shared on a network.

Personally I don't have much faith in ZA's ability to detect outgoing connections. In the past it's provided with too many "false positives". Last time I used it (a while ago) it didn't tell me what the process was trying to connect to. Does it now?

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: kaizersose
just a word of warning:
my roomate works as a computer tech for our school and he was updating someone's gateway laptop (relatively new P4, dont know anything else) with SP4 and it wiped the hard drive clean. neither he nor the owner were too happy as you could imagine. i am holding off on SP4.

(sorry i cant provide too many details, i will try an bug him about it tonight)

There is no way in the world SP4 did that.

 

[Rottie]

I tried to install SP3 last year and it didn't work for me and I am not sure if SP4 will be any help....So I am stuck with SP2 which is fine with me.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Originally posted by: Rottie
I tried to install SP3 last year and it didn't work for me and I am not sure if SP4 will be any help....So I am stuck with SP2 which is fine with me.

I had the same thing, except I just noticed my computer was slower with SP3 than SP2. No need to update a working system!

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
I have a couple of systems that I deployed with SP4 on them, no problems thusfar. Unless this is a production server or high availablility/prority workstation I say go with it.

Everyone is being cautious right now since it just came out, but in the reality it's working for the vast majority of people. The only systems I would be concerned with not deploying it to is those mission critical boxes (servers), but than again on those I dont deploy anything that I'm even a little unsure about.

-Spy

Good advice

I rolled it out on a couple of non mission critical 2000 pro boxes and 2 non mission critical servers and so far so good.

 

[NetWareHead]

Originally posted by: SaigonK
I have had no issues with the Novell client yet, you should make sure you are running version 4.81 sp2 to be safe.

You mean 4.83 SP2?

 

[spyordie007]

I have one system now that has problems with it, after installing SP4 my dual 1800+ box bluescreens on startup. I was able to boot into safe mode and remove it successfully though.

-Spy

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03

Originally posted by: Rottie
I tried to install SP3 last year and it didn't work for me and I am not sure if SP4 will be any help....So I am stuck with SP2 which is fine with me.

I had the same thing, except I just noticed my computer was slower with SP3 than SP2. No need to update a working system!

Who knows SP$ have more better security than SP2 lacks?

 

[Rottie]

last night I tried to install SP4 on win2k SP2...still not working...computer has gone re-boot several times.

 

[Tannah]

Well I've personlly rolled out SP4 on 2 systems so far.. no problems yet

spoolsv.exe I have computers that have SP3 in them that Zone Alarm reports spoolsv.exe is trying to get a internet connection.. I've seen this on computers that don't have files or printer shairing installed.. I've been understandably courious what spoolsv.exe is.. on my machines it seems to make no diffrence if I tell ZoneAlrm to block it or not..
and I can still reach the network printers on computers that have a network printer hooked up..

 

[elzmaddy]

I just rebooted from the SP4 install, and the System Properties reports Windows as version 5.00.2195, the same as before the SP4 install. I had SP3 and all critical updates before I installed SP4. Do you suppose that means I already had all the hotfixes and updates contained in SP4?

 

[mikecel79]

The build number is always 2195. Service Packs don't modify that number.

 

[Rebus3]

I've tried to install SP4 on a working Win2kSP3 workstation a couple of times now. Each time, it gets near the end, after all the file updates, then pops up an error message saying "An error in updating your system has occurred". It then gives the option to bail out of the install at that point, with warnings that the install will be corrupt, or to back out of the install and go back to SP3. No details are provided as to what sort of error is encountered. This is a relatively new AMD Tbred machine with lots of memory and HD.

Scott
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