Windows XP Hack

[adolescent]

@duesi

No problems with upgrading to SP2 on any of my computers (Shuttle XPS, HP Tablet, Fujitsu Laptop, AMD home-built, etc.).  I would recomment that people install the recovery console before hand. But I already do that on every 2000/XP/2003 I work on anyway.

[X-ray]

I'm with Vincent on this.

SP2 caused nothing but trouble for me. It was a fly in the ointment, it was sand in the vaseline, piss in the wine, doggy-doo in the hair gel, big globs of pus in the custard, itchy powder in the marathon runner's shorts, axle grease on the violin strings, nails on the tarmac, bleach in the milkshake, glass shards in the eyes, molten lead in the ears, sandpaper on the saddle, chilli pips in the mouth of a baby...

Eherrm...uh, ok..

What I'm trying to say is that no amount of cajolling, coaxing, begging, crying, pleading, praying, chanting and spell-casting could get that sack-of-pus SP2 working. In fact it crashed my system like a paralysed blind donkey attached to a chariot with only one wheel and about three tonnes of bricks on top.

Ja. I don't run it.

[Orjan]

Everyone I have talked to which have a valid license key ( including my self ) have had no problems what-so-ever..

Everyone I have talked to which did not have a valid license key had very large problems..

So.. Do you have a valid license?  :lol:

[seer]

Everyone I have talked to which have a valid license key ( including my self ) have had no problems what-so-ever..

I have 2 valid ones... 1 screwed up, the other no problems :-) But the one that bombed was a cheaper build PC (lesser hardware quality)..  

On every XP at work we run SP2. No problems at all. And that are a lot of PC's.. Mostly user errors, and it's the user who blames it on XP-SP2, but forget they had the same errors on Win2k..  :lol:

[swift240]

Ahhhh I get it, well I am ok then I have a valid licence key.
So thats why SP2 dont cause any grief.

OR is it something to with a particular kind of mother board and BIOS?

I have tried XP on 4 types of mother board and with SP2 still never had a problem.  The one mobo was I think 3 years old BIOS never upgraded.  And still never had a problem.
It may be one of those things.......
I realy dont know........  The only problem I ever did have and that was with Win2000 pro, every other time I done a reboot the mouse would stick and never ever move again until I done another reboot.  And that was with an MSI mobo 645 V1.0
As a matter of interest any one else had that problem with Win2000?

[seer]

OR is it something to with a particular kind of mother board and BIOS?

Well, the machine that didn't like XP-SP2 had a very cheap GFX card, cheap sound card and a old mobo.. Not to mention the HD was old Maxtor. The rest was "No brand" names stuff. Don't have the crap anymore  :-)

Tho blaming the hardware is a bit to much, most people I know that had problems had mostly some cheap mobo or something..

It may also be because of certain OEM builds..

[blobrana]

Hum,
yeah,
I know `someone` who runs a `test` system loaded with xp pro sp2, and has managed to hack the key (so that it passes microsofts online validating check) and it runs perfectly.
Differing/poor hardware, imho, is the stumbling block for SP2….

The home hack may be of interest to anyone who hasn’t the time to figure the reasons why they cant install SP2 (I also know of a few machines that have real problems with SP2), i suppose.

[guest1955]

Do you still need to incorportate hacks to get around XP Activation: I thought I read somewhere that MS were going to stop doing it.
Coincidently, today I clicked "Activate" for my version of XP Pro, that has for the past few installation and activation attempts over the year said that I was not allowed to reactivate it online anymore; but trying it today let me go straight through and claimed that my copy was now activated!
Regarding SP2, it's probably not such a good idea installing such a large update on your customised system: I slipstreamed it onto a new CD-R using NLite (Which also allows me to alter other parts of it too)

[X-ray]

@ Orjan

I bought my PC brand new with XP Pro installed. IIRC it was before SP1 even (which installed without a problem). If my installation is illegal then it's the fault of the company I got the machine from. I don't think that is the reason. My machine did exactly what Vincent's did after I installed SP2.

It was difficult to fix too. (Machine was unuseable)

[Vincent]

X-ray wrote:
It was a fly in the ointment, it was sand in the vaseline, piss in the wine, doggy-doo in the hair gel...

:lol: nice metaphors :-D

Our XP is legit and we had problems with it on the old mobo.  That mobo is now very dead and we got a new one (a foxconn) and we had exactly the same problems with SP2.

The only things that are the same in the PC now as before is the graphics card (GeForce FX5200) and the HD.  We're using the onboard sound card with the foxconn instead of the cheap 5.1 TECSound we had before.  The ram, cpu and mobo have been completely replaced.

There's absoutely no reason whatsoever that SP2 should not work.  Yet it doesn't.  I've tried installing XP, then SP1, then SP2 and SP2 causes BSODs.  I've tried creating an XPSP2 cd and installing that with the same results.

All the hardware we have is supposedly compatible with SP2 and all the drivers have been upgraded before installing SP2 (sometimes I waited until after, but after never happened).

Each time the result is the same.  The only solution is to start all over again.

I've managed to get SP2 working on a machine without a legit XP cd and it's worked fine.  The thing is, his PC is an ancient PIII 500MHz with 128MB ram and nothing else.  on board gfx and sound.

Incompatible hardware?  Bollocks
Illegal copy of XP?  Bollocks

Oh yeah, one more thing.  I know two different people with the exact same Dell PCs.  Exactly the same.  SP2 worked fine on one.  Crippled the other and had to use the Dell rescue CDs.

[seer]

Incompatible hardware? Bollocks
Illegal copy of XP? Bollocks

Nobody claimed it was always one of these.. Bad luck may be anther factor..

You might want to check your RAM and even your Power supply tho. Maybe the GFX card is failing.

Besides, just because MS tested hardware X doesn't mean they  tested it in combination with hardware Y.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I know two different people with the exact same Dell PCs. Exactly the same. SP2 worked fine on one. Crippled the other and had to use the Dell rescue CDs.

Who told you they were the same ? At work we have 2 PC's "Exactly" the same, the serial has only 1 digit different.. Yet, one came with a WD hardisk, the other a Maxtor.

Another set, same model number but both have a different make PSU..

Edit;

a quick google search "SP2 Foxconn"

At first look, I'd say it's your mobo..

http://techrepublic.com.com/
http://channels.lockergnome.com
http://forums.pcworld.co.nz/
Google

Vincent wrote:

X-ray wrote:
It was a fly in the ointment, it was sand in the vaseline, piss in the wine, doggy-doo in the hair gel...

:lol: nice metaphors :-D

Our XP is legit and we had problems with it on the old mobo.  That mobo is now very dead and we got a new one (a foxconn) and we had exactly the same problems with SP2.

The only things that are the same in the PC now as before is the graphics card (GeForce FX5200) and the HD.  We're using the onboard sound card with the foxconn instead of the cheap 5.1 TECSound we had before.  The ram, cpu and mobo have been completely replaced.

There's absoutely no reason whatsoever that SP2 should not work.  Yet it doesn't.  I've tried installing XP, then SP1, then SP2 and SP2 causes BSODs.  I've tried creating an XPSP2 cd and installing that with the same results.

All the hardware we have is supposedly compatible with SP2 and all the drivers have been upgraded before installing SP2 (sometimes I waited until after, but after never happened).

Each time the result is the same.  The only solution is to start all over again.

I've managed to get SP2 working on a machine without a legit XP cd and it's worked fine.  The thing is, his PC is an ancient PIII 500MHz with 128MB ram and nothing else.  on board gfx and sound.

Incompatible hardware?  Bollocks
Illegal copy of XP?  Bollocks

Oh yeah, one more thing.  I know two different people with the exact same Dell PCs.  Exactly the same.  SP2 worked fine on one.  Crippled the other and had to use the Dell rescue CDs.

Try updating the mobo's bios, then set bios settings to setup-defaults before installing sp2.

[adolescent]

Don't forget that it's often the fault of other 3rd party software.  Like I said, I haven't had any problems with any of my systems, but then again I know what the hell I'm doing so that probably helps.  ;-)

[Vincent]

seer wrote:
Incompatible hardware? Bollocks
Illegal copy of XP? Bollocks

Nobody claimed it was always one of these.. Bad luck may be anther factor..

I was just making a point that hardware and illegal XP are the usual dismissive explanations.

You might want to check your RAM and even your Power supply tho. Maybe the GFX card is failing.

It's not the ram - got new 256MB simms with the new mobo and got the same problems (tested all the ram I have with about 4 different progs and they all say that the 2 new simms are perfect and one of the old ones is defective - but that might've been me not caring about the old mobo and not making sure it was kept clean ;-)).  Tried it with the onboard gfx card on both mobos and got the same results too.  Oh yeah, it's a new PSU aswell.  Everything in the PC has been tested every way I've found and everything is working properly.  I even did that with the Dell machines.

Who told you they were the same ? At work we have 2 PC's "Exactly" the same, the serial has only 1 digit different.. Yet, one came with a WD hardisk, the other a Maxtor.

Nobody - Because I had to reinstall XP after SP2 failing on one I had a good look in both Dell PCs and I can tell you for a fact that they're both the same.  Right down to how many screws are keeping everything in place :-P

a quick google search "SP2 Foxconn"

At first look, I'd say it's your mobo..

http://techrepublic.com.com/
http://channels.lockergnome.com
http://forums.pcworld.co.nz/
Google

From that second link - "Technically speaking, the problem revolves around the machine's BIOS not installing a production level microcode update. To check whether the BIOS is at the correct level, download the Intel Processor Frequency ID utility."  Doesn't apply - I'm using AMD.  AMD, Foxconn and SP2 are compatable (apparently ;-) ).  I did BIOS updates on all the PCs that had the problem and it never made a difference.

Maybe I am just unlucky, but with it happening so often with different hardware (in some cases the same hardwear) I'd say it's a bit unlikely.

[seer]

@Vincent,

Well, all I can think of is perhaps you have overclocked or some setting in the bios is causing trouble. So like mdma said, have you tried loading the default settings?

Most PC's I installed XP SP2 on it worked fine. I did however use a custom install CD (made with Nlite; wwwn.liteos.com) where I got rid of most unwanted stuff (printerdrivers, modem drivers and that kinda things) and had the correct drivers for the hardware that was installed on the target systems.. Took a while to get it totally right tho..

I didn't use the option for integrating any hotfixes tho, you may want to try that on your PC's. If you want to have another go that us.

@Vincent

What exact CPU are you using?

You may need to install the AMD CPU driver update.

Athlon and Sempron
Athlon64 (For 32bit XP)