Windows XP Service Pack 3 experience

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 experience

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admin 05-14-2008, 5:21 PM
I downloaded and installed XP SP3 today using the Windows Update website process. That forced me to install the MS Genuine Advantage update that I had refused to install up 'til now. Oh well.

The process took 38 minutes not counting the reboot. The reboot took quite a while but subsequent reboots have gone faster than before, I think.

Before I did the install, I read a couple of articles about the install, including the one from MS. Bascially all that I did before was to create a restore point, close all active programs that showed in the task bar and turned off my Norton Anti Virus scanning.

After the download / install I checked Norton AV again to see if it was turned back on, and it was. I did leave Spybot S&D running and I did see several changes to the Registry noted by that program. Since I was doing a program install, I accepted each registry change noted by Spy Bot.

After the restart, I checked my key application programs, and everything so far seems OK. MS Office programs seem to load and start up much faster now (this was noted in a couple of the articles that I read).

Here is a link to a PC World article that may be helpful to read before doing the SP3 upgrade.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,145810/article.html?tk=nl_sbxcol