Before I install, any of you guys experienced any problems with poser, photoshop etc after updating to XP SP2. Thanks MaRv

All I know is there are some major bugs that need to be worked out. I would wait, cause once installed that is it, you can't unistall it....if your computer is working good, I would wait, if you have issues with your computer know and feel pretty good about the update go ahead....but for me, I will wait. Sharen

There is a massive long list of programmes that it screws up - including some of their own Office stuff! Sorry I've lost the url but its somewhere onthe MS site After reading the list I certainly won't be bothering!!

I would wait as has been said. It is never good to get anything from Microsoft out of the gate. If you have two drives (or two partitions on one drive) and a little cash, I highly recommend getting Norton Ghost and doing a drive image backup before updating. This way should XP SP2 really create havoc, you can use that image to restore back to where you were. Trust me, it saved my butt when I updated to win2K SP4 that played complete havoc with my machine. It's worth the money to save all the chaos. Otherwise Sharen is correct. There is no uninstall for a service pack, so if you don't have it backed up, you can't uninstall it. Also copying everything on C does not work. It has to be imaged to be able to be restored correctly.

Just some hints, but as the above says, unless you are having serious issues now with security, I'd just hang tight.

ShadowWind

I installed it over a week ago & luckily I don't have any of the programs that it screws with. What are the massive bugs that need fixing? just so I know what to look for :)

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/spdeploy.mspx#top

Does it make XP accept more than 2GB of RAM? I don't care about that safety rubbish as I know how to protect myself: 1/ Use a router with a hardware firewall (also good for mac-users!) 2/ Use an older, slower puter for the Net, and only for that 3/ Have a virus scanner that auto updates daily 4/ Run Spybot s&d 5/ Surf with Opera or Mozilla 6/ Use webmail.

I too am waiting. I have a personal firewall installed and I am totally saitisfied with my virus protection. I use spyware blaster for spyware so I don't see any reason to install SP2. So far I have never had a virus. After reading the XP forums and hearing all those horror stories I can't see any reason to install it.

the 2GB RAM max is a limitation of 32 bit operating systems. If you want to use more available RAM then go to a 64 bit hardware/OS setup. That will get you up to 4GB of access. Right now the 64 bit motherboard / processor combo, and you will have to find 64 bit compatible drivers for all your hardware). Apples Mac G5's with OSX have a 64 bit system right out of the box if you lean that way.

I think it's pretty significant that IBM is not allowing it to be installed on their company's machines. My own company is taking a "let's wait" attitude, too. So am I, at home. In the past I've accepted all critical updates. Not this time, I'm going to wait and assess the inevitable horror stories, first. To be fair, from what I know about it, I can't see how it would mess with Poser or Photoshop, although if you have concerns about either program, especially on a network you might try contacting Adobe or Curious Labs to see if they have anything to say about it. Symantec has a nice, clear page on how it will affect their products. For the most part, it won't.

No problems here at all, and our home network seems to be working MUCH better. Literally NO progma glotches at all here, and I've noticed some nice new security options in programs like outlook express.

Thanks Gareee, that's good news. (Edited to add the third "e" in Gareeeeee's name)

Message edited on: 08/20/2004 22:51

If you set up a restore point prior to install of SP2, can't you go back to that if it screws up the works ????

You absolutely can uninstall SP2. It will even set a restore point for you. I would strongly recommend SP2 to everyone. Yes, it breaks some applications...that's because it is doing what it is supposed to do and enforcing security restrictions that have been...lax...in the past. Yes, that even breaks some of MS's stuff, but you can't have a system that is both more secure and 100% compatible (some of the Windows security holes are there because, until now, ensuring backwards compatibility was more important than security...that's been changing). You will probaby find that the new firewall complains when you open Poser (Poser checks for various things over the network, it appears), but that won't stop you from using it (you can set it as a "trusted" application if you like, or you can just let the firewall block it...I haven't seen any problems from this).

The focus is indeed security, security, security! I think a lot of undue scaremongering is because many of the changes are deep in the inner workings of XP, so won't be immediately obvious to users. From what I can gather most of the software incompatibility issues are involved with net access and the enhanced firewall in SP2. I haven't installed the Service Release yet as I'm about to add a much needed new hard drive. But I'm looking forward to Outlook Express now allowing plain text email formatting. Also, at long last, I believe there's a customizeable Pop-Up blocker that's been added to IE which also blocks any automatic file downloads not initiated by mouse click. Yet another IE addon is a manager for Browser Helper Objects (BHOs) which will be great for all those who've beem pestered in the past by irksome apps which have taken malicious control in IE.

Attached Link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2

I wonder if the new sp2's blocking with the firewall will allow two installs of poser, one on each networked system? Since they are no longer allowed to "talk" to each other, you could probably use the same serial number! That said, I wonder if that IS true, how that will effect other applications, which require two separate serials on home networked systems? For games, it makes sense, since you need the net, you'll still need 2 serials, but for applications like poser, you may NOT anymore! I don;t have the time to test the theory this weekend, but maybe someone else out there with 2 home networked systems does?

Not wishing to be a doom-monger but ... I have a pretty new Mesh PC (Athlon 64 3400+, 1Gb RAM) and Windows refused to start after installation of SP2. I tried everything I could think of ... then restarted in safe mode and restored XP to the restore point it set. Ho Hum. Craig

oh ... I have amd64 3200+ 1gb ram...hopefully its not a bad omen for the Athlon 64 crowd... any other reports of that????

Can't you turn the firewall off? You can with standard XP. I know because I have it turned off due to conflicts with various other things, and I have third-party firewall software that I prefer... bonni

Actually, it's kinda neat.. you can turn the firewall on on a case by case basis! So you can actually firewall specific programs. (actually the first time you run them, you get an option popup for how you want that program handled.)

Quote from PCW mag: If you use an AMD Athlon 64 or Opteron processor, or an Intel Itanium, Windows can take advantage of their hardware Data Execution Protection features. This is a hardware capability that can lock areas of memory to prevent executable code running in those areas. It's intended to prevent certain types of virus behaviour whereby a virus takes over memory areas belonging to valid programs and runs malicious code instead. Don't know if this is relevant to your Mesh problem, but there's a tiny picture in the mag of a dialogue box called "Performance Options" which contains a Tab titled "Data Execution Prevention" which allows you to turn off hardware DEP. Maybe it's worth a try if you can access the dialogue in Safe Mode?

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0204.mspx#XSLTsection124121120120

Well, my third-party firewall does that. I'm just wondering if you can disable the SP2 firewall completely in favor of something else. I've been searching around for a bit but haven't found that answered explicitly.

[EDIT] Okay, yes, you can turn it off entirely. This is good news. I'm not quite prepared to upgrade at this point, but it's good to know you can turn it off if you want to...

bonni Message edited on: 08/21/2004 12:23

Not only an you turn the included firewall off, but it notices most 3rd party firewalls and plays nice with them (the new "Security Center" will detect most anti-virus and firewall apps and make sure they are running and whatnot). As far as the 64 bit stuff is concerned, the data execution protection feature is probably what's being triggered here...are you sure the machine is virus free? Data execution prevention is a hardware feature that tries to prevent (or at least mitigate) buffer overruns (which are a class of bug that is arguably the biggest source of security flaws in computing...old timers will remember that the first big Internet worm was a buffer overrun problem in a Unix mail program and it brought the entire Internet down).

I installed SP2 on one of my computers. Once it was done, and rebooted, I was brought to a Security configuration screen. I told XP to leave that stuff alone, since I already happily use Norton Systemworks, Norton Personal Firewall, etc. Now everything looks like it did before.

Buy a Mac G5 OSX. And then say what me worry?

Let's try (just once) not to let this kind of discussion degenerate into "My OS rules, your OS drools". Buying a new computer and/or learning an entirely new OS isn't practical for everyone.

Well, heck, for the fall 2004 semester, I'm setting up the class and lab computers w/ Windows 2000 Service Pack 4. When SP4 came out last year, I set up the computers to Service Pack 3. I always wait 1/2 year to year to install service packs to see what other headaches get fixed. It was around last November/December there was a fix for W2K SP4 corrupting .3DS files. We'll probably go to XP in another semester or 2. I'll hold off patching my home system and laptop. So, when will XP SP3 come out? :-P

Attached Link: Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 884130

thing is..I don't run any of the stuff in that list, nor probably do tons of other folks.

Those programs work closely with the operating system. Any time the operating system is updated or changed, the programs themselves need to change. This is not a Windows XP bug. It's just a fact.

It makes total sense for medium-to-large organizations (especially ones with walk-in users like universities) to be conservative and cautious about any upgrade, no matter if it is a Windows Service Pack or a new Kernel build for Linux or a new version of the Mac OS. After all, the chances then that someone's important program breaks goes up dramaticaly the more people who use the thing, so that's just going to make IT have to work harder (when I did that for a living, we'd wait a solid 6-12 months before deploying anything that wasn't a super critical security patch for any of our *nix machines, Windows or Macs, and even for super-critical stuff we'd try to find ways we could shut ports off at the router or whatever to avoid deploying patches). If you're a good IT person who understands your computer's security top to bottom, it is not a bad idea to be cautious and conservative about such things on your home machine too. However, if you don't know security at all, this is one of those rare times when I would say that the cost (in lost time and headaches) for deploying an update is smaller than the cost (in lost time, possible infection and other fun stuff) of not deploying. That's just my broad suggestion, of course. Everyone can (and should) make up their own mind, because I can't possibly know what your specific situation is.

It's been pretty much decided that we're staying with Windows2000 for awhile. At the school I work at, we've got at least half a dozen gaphics apps (modeling, compositing, rendering, etc.) installed. And students have at least 3 apps running at the same time (as well as web browsing and music listening). So yes, gotta make sure ALL apps play nice with each other. The only software that we can't use is Premiere Pro, which is XP only. (Still staying with version 6.) Oh yeah, a fellow tech updated his home machine which had a raid setup. Big crash. He's re-installing his system.

If I understand correctly, Poser is actually trying to look over your network to see if you're running another copy of Poser with the same serial number. Heck, Poser isn't smart enough to know you may not have a network. You can safely block that.

Yes, you can safely block that (I've done it myself). You can also safely unblock it if you prefer. Note that only administrators get the "Unblock" option. It would be even better if you had a seperate account for your administrative needs, rather than running as an administrator normally (nearly all viruses and spyware won't run if you aren't an administrator), but that's also something that takes a little work(and/or a helpful friend).