Microsoft slams OEMs over XP SP3 install cock-up

Testing "common" configurations

This isn't really a MS bash, more an observation, but I would have though MS's internal testing (and betas?) would have tested the SP against common customer configurations?

This sort of configuration sounds common enough to me (subjective I guess given the media talk surrounding it) and they knew about it in 2004, so why not specifically test such a case?

It sounds a bit like MS getting annoyed with OEMs doing that, and so deciding to screw them over. Those who insta-blame MS suddenly look bad temporarily and MS get to blame someone else, so MS look like the heroes here until they mess up the next time... got to love PR.

MS may not be directly responsible

But I can't believe that NONE of their alpha or beta testing uncovered this problem.

What the hell is beta testing for if not to uncover WIDESPREAD compatibility problems?

Paris, because she will never have compatibility problems . . .

I feel bad for MS (a rare thing)

They are going to take (or are currently taking) alot of flak for this, yet it dosnt take a genius to figure out whats going to happen when you install an Intel processor driver onto an AMD processor machine. Think what would happen if you took an ATI graphics card driver and installed it onto a machine with an Nvidia GFX card in it.....ok, assuming you turned off the bit where the driver would pick up the problem and not activate....your GFX card wouldnt work....now think about what generally happens to a computer when a processor dosnt work....

From what I've read the blame is with Intel for not putting decent detection with their driver (oh look, my hardware isnt here...lets um...just not load), and with the daft OEMs for being lazy.

The thing that suprises me is that it only pics the problem up on an SP update, and worked at all in the first place!

PS....I just defended MS.....I think I need to go shower...

and the fall began....

tis the beginning of the end, when one deflects one's error onto an assistant.

how arrogant can one be when one is aware of an issue and the resolution but continues to rely on others for correct implementation. kinda reminds me of the definition of insanity.

since ms knows what the issue is and the resolution, why didn't/don't they test for the condition and resolve during the 'service pack' routine.

Cant be the only cause

It's happening on 2 Intel boxes (Dell and Sony). Both are clean installs of XPSP2, but as soon as you install SP3 the reboot malarky begins. What Fun! It took the SP3 iso to fix it.

AMD Self build also BSOD's

Mine also went into BSOD meltdown and HP didn't touch mine

In other news...

HP tells Microsoft to STFU.

Not just HP/AMD

My home machine suffers from this problem too, and its a Dell with an Intel P4

Not so much?

VLK edition of Windows XP, straight off the MS Open Licensing portal, running on a VM hosted on an Intel based PC (Virtual PC 2007). Install SP3, reboot... reboot... reboot.... reboot...

Maybe not so much an OEM issue?

They are exactly the same numbnuts!!!

The SP3 ISO contains the Windows Symbols package & .NET which is why it is 200MB+ bigger than the normal SP3 download. The fact it is on CD is just so a few techs with a few loose marbles in their heads can put it in their CD case and show it off... look SP3... ON CD!!! That smaller one you download is pale shadow of the real thing.... <roll eyes>

Even worse!

If this was an issue that was previously unknown about, then I could sympathise with MS.

However, by their own admission, they knew about this issue beforehand. So they released an update, with an issue that they already knew about, and then are surprised when it causes problems?

Bizarre.

(Knowing that something like this would happen, I've held off updating anything until the issues are all resolved)

Quality control...

...sadly lacking. Grab the iso, burn to disk, autorun it then when asked, click on the link 'What to know before installing Service Pack 3' then be told all about the joys of SP2. Oh well...

Cant really blame MS

On clean installs on 1 Dell Intel, 1 IBM Intel and 2 AMD's all have been fine on having SP3 installed.

I actually have pity for the people who bought big box for home because this is a difficult one for them to resolve.

But for all you techies having this issue? You should be ashamed. Allowing boxes onto your networks with all the bloatware they come with? If you arent ghosting when you get them or at least rebuilding them then you cant blame MS or the vendors.

Having been a techie for companies using the big boxes thats always the first thing I do. If its not modem helper (come on Dell, leave it off the laptops) £$%^ing up VPN connections then it's some other useless crap blocking some app you need on there.

Sad, because this issue has shown how many of my peer's dont know better

Doesn't work

I put SP3 on my fully patched up to date intel machine. I run it as a trim machine (XP, ha ha) with the minimum of extra software installed and the SP3 installer tells me it can't install SP3 as "As an extra install/update is needed first" but won't tell me what.

Well maybe it's done me a favour, so *Shrug*

Microsoft beta testing at its best

Alpha testing was on brand new Microsoft approved machines...

Beta testing is happening as we speak, on millions of users...

Sounds like a problem caused by a previous solution

The problem with testing software is that when the tests fail, releases get delayed. The solution is simple: Fire all the testers.

BS

I have an HP Pavilion a1430n with an AMD64 x2 and I get the endless reboot problem (I was able to go into safe mode to uninstall SP3). Since Windows XP Pro was installed clean (w/ a complete format) off a retail CD it can't be an OEM image issue in my case.

I think I'll wait a few months to have another go at installing SP3. Maybe the ISO trick will work but I'm sick of wasting time patching Microsoft's crappy, poorly-engineered operating systems. I'll install it when they've figured out the issues for sure.

Retail, not OEM.

Another reason why to buy a retail copy of Windows XP.

@Typical MS fragility

I'm very much NOT an MS fanboi, but this kind of thing isn't limited to MS. Every time a new kernel release comes out for Ubuntu, I have reinstalling my NVidia drivers to look forward to if I wish to use the GUI. Which can range somewhere from a major annoyance to a throbbing pain in the ass depending on the kind of day I'm having...

Somebody

...has to say it: Never had this problem with Linux.

Shock! Horror! Think of the children!!

Wait, you mean to say that having Intel specced drivers on a non-Intel board might cause problems??? Say it ain't so!!!

Paris, because apparently HP is just as clueless, not that that's news...

@AC

Kernel updates haven't caused a problem with my NVidia drivers since the restricted drivers manager was introduced in 7.10 (I think) - course, if you're still on the old LTS version you won't have seen this.

As for SP3 - guess I'll keep my work machine on SP2 for the time being then....

Business as usual: Cost of Q/A

If hp follows microsoft advice it potentially leads to many Q/A lines for every machine. This cost too much for poor HP. The image is for hp taking the money out of your pocket while giving back poorly q/a'ed machines.

>Typical MS fragility

That's a joke isn't? They are trying to say that it was a fault of OEMS? I had a computer that wouldn't accept SP 1.

If I'd had some idea this was the problem I'd still be using it and screw the upgrades. An AMD Athlon 1GB chip. Perfectly adequate for my needs.

Bastards!

Good bye AOL tonight and hello Linux tomorrow.

M$ not the only one susceptible to this issue

I received an 'in office used' Mac G5 for my desktop. The system had a standard company image with minimum configuration and was fully re-imaged before it hit my desk. After logging into the system for the first time, I was prompted to install one of the larger OS updates along with quicktime/itunes crap updates as well. Installed the updates and rebooted. After the system started to load the OS......... Kernel Panic. It seams the wrong image was used and after the update, immediate kernel panics. There was no fix, the system needed the correct image reinstalled.

I can't remember weather it was a PPC image on Intel hardware or visa versa, or if thats even possible. I seem to remember it being the reason. But that would be very similar even with the vastly different architectures.

@@Ubuntu AC

I also use Mandriva as well as Ubuntu, and I have to say it seems to run a little faster, and is a little more polished. And I've never had the Nvidia problem with Mandriva. Man, what an utter pain trying to get Samba to run right on it though! And it has its own quirks besides that. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that EVERY OS has its limitations and problems. I'm sure a MAC fanboi could chime in at this point, but MAC OS has issues too, and half the sh*t I want to run just won't on a MAC. Problems are a little more palatable on a 'free' OS, but only a little. Perhaps in another 50 years computers will have become seamlessly easy to use, and taken utterly for granted. Right now I believe computers and OSes are approximately where the automobile was in the 1970s>>>a lot of progress made, but much more refinement needed.

@Typical MS Fragility

Like lots of smart IT-savvy folks have pointed out, this can affect any platform. If you have a *nix system and decide one day you want to plug your HD into a brand-new-to-the-market RAID controller. Your machine will POST fine, and most likely even get to the boot loader OK, since that's typically a lower level INT/BIOS function to get the drive spinning to a point where the system can recognize it. Yet, when the platform loads, it may panic/blue screen since the OS can't find a driver to know how to interpret the controller. Same deal with video cards or processor architecture classes. No matter what your platform or hardware, if the OS doesn't know how to properly access the hardware, you're dead in the water.

Paris, because so many people are clueless and hop on a bandwagon without really knowing anything.

Corps using sysprep images would not beta test, anyway

Few comments up there about not catching this sysprep problem in beta testing. I have to mention that most corporate IT departments which would use sysprep images are probably too paranoid to beta test on such systems. If they did, it was probably on a personal system built from scratch. Given so, I would gather that there probably was not much in return from the field to Microsoft -- not nothing at all, just not much.

I have to go with Microsoft to a certain extent on this one, as well. Microsoft told OEMs about this particular problem with SP2. OEMs did not correct the issue. Seems like bad form on the part of the OEMs to not ensure there were two images in use: one for Intel, and one for AMD kit. Seriously, we bitch continuously about the bloat in Windows, but I have to wonder that a good bit of that bloat is to work around bad configurations.

On the other hand, the fact that there are such differences between AMD and Intel power management leaves the idea of standardization way back. Of course, standardization like this removes the competitiveness and nullifies the idea of a free market. Lesser of two evils?

Not withstanding problems other than the incorrect power management driver, how about the shoddy driver which does not properly detect its operating platform? Is that not Intel's fault? Or maybe it is AMD's fault for having a register in the system's power management controller which kills the system when given a value which would function just fine on an Intel box?

Two real computers -- one Intel laptop and an Intel dual-core which used to be an AMD Athlon XP+ -- and one virtual machine, none of them dead from esspeethreeitis. Thankfully. Now, the hundred or so customer computers to which SP3 will be pushed over the next couple of weeks... that could be another story.

Paris, because her box functions just fine.

@nay sayers

It *IS* an example of the fragility of Windows. Take a Linux HDD out of an Intel box, throw it in an AMD box and (assuming a generic, modular kernel) watch in amazement as it boots. Taking a stand-alone drive and attaching it to a RAID controller... well that *might* work but don't get your hopes up. And no putting an x86 build on to PPC will probably cause hilarity.

Latest version of OS X, take Intel mac drive, attach to PPC mac. Voila, it'll boot (allegedly).

Windows falls over due to a known issue, that apparently happens with a clean install from non-OEM media? That sounds like the Windows install routine can't figure it out.

But to sum up. SP3 makes random boxen go bang, MS blame HP, HP goes WTF? STFU! AMD go STFU, Intel go MUHAHAHA, MS return to assimilating lesser species... erm... fixing it sooner or later... or never.

Balmer, because DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!

Well-known problem in *2004*?

Try 1998... or earlier. I've been building images since then, and no way in hell would we shoehorn a image for one hardware platform onto another.

I mean, come on, that's SOE-build 101.

The whole sysprep thing is fundamentally flawed...

Its a lashup way of building a PC, but quick and dirty for mass production of PCs. For those who don't know its a way of taking an image of a PC and throwing a few variables at it, rather than doing a proper OS install from scratch. The right wayto do it ought to be to do a scripted install so that the machines autodetect the hardware themselves properly, but getting scripted installs to work properly over a range of hardware is such a nightmare that the technique is more or less abandoned in more recent versions of Windows. It was possible in in W2k, one of the reasons my employers still stick with it, but a full install for us (including a coupla dozen extra apps and all configuration) takes 40 minutes, as opposed to about 3 mins using an image, so you can see why its popular to do the lashup. With the later version sof Windows its becoming less and less viable.

But once you get into images you are into a mess of problems with change management, version control etc and its all to easy to get into a morass where you don't actually know what the hell you've got on the PCs, so starting a new vanilla image is so much hassle that ts impossible to consider, and thus you see the mess we are in...

I haven't got much involved with automated Linux installs, but I believe that there isn't such an emphasis on umage type installs, so the setup will tend to be slower but more reliable.

Fundamentally then the problem is down to MS' godawfl installation processes...

re: Windows Update vs ISO theory

OK maybe I am off in this but I will try anyway.

I would be extremely surprised that you would have to have different drivers for CPU types. They *SHOULD* be all the same PERIOD. It should not make a bit of difference what type of CPU you are running on. They should all be to INTEL spec or what ever spec everyone agrees on. Not one for AMD one for INTEL or whatever. Also it should not make a bit of difference how many "core's" any CPU has. MS should program their way (in WINDOWS code) to figure out how many cores it has and run the OS to that spec. *IF* AMD and others are really the same as INTEL that should be the end of the story. I suspect they are not so that is why the extra code is needed. No matter what the case it is an MS issue. If the cpu's are not Plug compatible then either MS should declare it isn't certified or make some statement like we are not responsible if you choose to run on a non intel system.

Personally Its a toss if its an MS issue or a OEM issue but I would question the issue of compatibility if I were MS and lay the blame there. Then either the OEM has to make their systems INTEL compatible or drop out of the market. I am not saying INTEL is completely free of culpability, they should be saying its not to the OEM people as well.

Not only AMD and not only HP have problems...

OK, not a reboot situation, but equally nuts.

PC 1 is a HP with an Intel processor. Service Pack 3 installs, reboots, then refuses to do DNS lookups from that point onwards.... Uninstall Service Pack 3 and all is fine. Grrr.

PC 2 is a QBic AMD machine which it refuses to install on - it starts to, gets to the end, then says 'whoops, can't do this anymore, must install again' and takes you back to where you were.

Both of these are with the CD...

Guess this is Microsoft's way of trying to make Vista look good?

bye bye Windows - I've just ordered a Macbook Pro

And I don't even like apple that much, but so far at work OSX 10.5 has been a better tool than windows...

Pity the machines spec makes me feel ripped off (A$2700 for a machine with no BD/DVD drive and only 200GB of HDD? - outrageous)