Last night I created a VMware virtual machine for the new Windows XP SP2 in order to test both TopStyle and FeedDemon with it, and I’m relieved to report that they both work fine.
I’m not so relieved, however, to report that installing SP2 on my development machine didn’t go so well. After installing SP2, rebooting then logging in, I was greeted with a blank desktop (no taskbar, no icons, no nothing). Lucikly, I was able to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del to get to task manager and launch apps from there, but after troubleshooting for a few hours I gave up and simply uninstalled SP2. If you’re planning to install SP2, I hope you have better luck than I did!
Update: Since posting this, I’ve been able to install SP2 on two other systems without any problems at all. It still won’t install on my main development system, though.
I actually haven’t heard of very many people who have had good luck with SP2. :( I’m very reluctant to install it, given the plethora of bad reports.
I’m happy to report I’ve installed WinXP SP2 on three machines (two at work and my home pc) and the whole process was flawless. On one machine I’m running both FeedDemon and TopStyle Pro and they are both working fine.
I actually had the same thing occur when I installed SP2 (blank desktop on reboot), except that it didn’t stay like that — after a minute or so, the Security Center dialog popped up, followed shortly by the icons and taskbar.
I don’t know how long you waited for the system to finish loading everything after the reboot, but it might be possible that you just didn’t wait long enough.
Perhaps killing and restarting explorer.exe might also help.
SP2 installed finw with me only I found it to be very annoying with the new security features.
I’ve been testing software on it for the past few weeks and haven’t had any problems. I even ran the uninstall for RC2, and as soon as the machine finished rebooting, installed what seems to be the final release. It actually worked! Well, it appears to have anyway.
I’ve sometimes found that a totally blank desktop at bootup is the result of the explorer.exe process not getting properly started. Check to see if the process is running – if not, just run it. The problem has always been some other program that’s started with the OS.
I’ve sometimes found that a totally blank desktop at bootup is the result of the explorer.exe process not getting properly started. Check to see if the process is running – if not, just run it. The problem has always been some other program that’s started with the OS.
In my case, Explorer.exe was loaded, but the shell never appeared. Killing Explorer.exe had no effect.
Turned out the problem was with the Logical Disk Manager service, but after wasting a few hours trying to resolve the problem, I figured I was better off going back to the pre-SP2 XP.
Odd. My SP2 install went fine and the only oddity that I had was that feed demon wanted to reregister or something.
I guess the flawless upgrade from 2000 pro to xp pro made a lasting impression on me. I jumped into xp sp2 with no hesitation. I have obsessive daily maintenance habits that keep my machine running optimally. The new security stuff is not annoying at all.
For me the biggest difference I notice after installing sp2 is that iexplore.exe doesn’t interrupt my shutdown process anymore. That used to happen 3 out of 4 shutdowns, forcing me to babysit the machine during shutdown.
The worst side effect from installing sp2? IE favorites were rearranged. Big deal, Firefox is my default browser.
Oh, and Topstyle works fine.
I had the same problem when I upgraded to SP2. After letting it run for 10 minutes, I ran MSCONFIG and disabled all of the programs at startup. I then did a cold reboot. The desktop then came up after a 2 minute delay.
I think part of the problem was I already had another firewall installed (Sygate) and the security prompts were warring with each other.
yeah VMware is excellent.
I use vmware for phone support on each operating system for my clients.
I havent figured out networking on it tho, I’m still figuring that out. But vmware is very powerful and useful peice of software.
Also if you want to acehive the best results – A gig of RAM (1GB) will do fine. Although 512MB can be a bit intrusive with the amount windows can take – 786MB is also good if you cant make 1GB RAM.
I had exactly the same problem on a Toshiba notebook, and after two attempts, came to the same conclusion: back to Service Pack 1.
Installation on three other machines went fine.
I’ve been using FeedDemon and XP SP2 through both of their beta programmes. FeedDemon has done just what I expected it to – it just works. EVERY build of FeedDemon I installed with every build of XP SP2 worked fine.
What else would we expect!
FeedDemon Rocks!
DAMN, I’m smart
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