SP2 problems

In response to my recent post asking why people are waiting to install SP2, Steve Smith writes:

On my home system, I installed SP2 not too long after it came out (which has been my practice in the past for other fixes and updates)

The install proceeded uneventfully, I rebooted as instructed but the machine hung on the starting Windows screen. Going into diagnostic mode showed the hang occurring when the agp440.sys driver was loaded. My ASUS motherboard BIOS is current and I have fairly standard components on my system.

Google XP and agp440.sys and you’ll see that my problem is not uncommon. I have yet to find a solution. I had to reinstall the entire OS and all of my apps to recover. Not something I want to do again anytime soon.

Yes, I agree. That sucks. I’ve actually seen this happen in the past, long before SP2. In my case, the problem was caused by a faulty video driver. To solve it, I had to go into recovery console and disable the agp440.sys service, as described in this KB article. It is not a procedure I recommend for beginners.

For what it’s worth, I had similar problems when trying to use Roxio’s Easy CD Creator, shortly after Windows XP was released. The program installed an incompatible driver which hung the system, and it could only be fixed by booting into Recovery Console and manually removing the driver.

The problem in both cases was caused by a poorly written kernel-mode driver, not by Windows XP or a service pack. Installing SP2 just made the problem appear. The distinction may seem academic to someone dealing with the mess Steve saw, and most people will not have the patience or the knowledge to fix the problem using Recovery Console. Instead, they’ll reinstall Windows, cursing the whole while.

A recent issue of Scot Finnie’s newsletter mentions a similar problem in a somewhat oblique fashion:

A couple of days ago Microsoft released “Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (KB885894)” designed to solve what’s probably the most common installation problem with XP SP2: A freeze part-way through the setup process, leaving you with a failed installation. If that happens to you, Microsoft is offering this 760K download. You install it, restart your machine, and you should be able to complete your XP SP2 installation successfully.

Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (KB885894)

Note: This installation bug fix is poorly named. “Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2” sounds like it’s something everyone should download and run, but that is not the case. It’s only if you run into trouble with a hung installation.

I don’t know if this is the same issue, but it sounds like it could be.

At any rate, I stand by my advice that installing SP2 is the smart thing to do. I recommend you have a full backup first, of course, and I also suggest that you check all installed drivers to see whether any are unsigned. Those are the ones that are most likely to cause problems. You can use the Verifier utility (which we discuss in Windows XP Inside Out Deluxe Edition), but be careful with this one!

Update: I have more information about two specific SP2-related problems in this post.