XP Pro SP2: My Tale
[In case some encounter similar, FWIW, and please see final 'Good News' Remarks at end]
Many individuals have had good luck with the download and install. I was going to wait for the CD (which I had ordered) but decided to download and install last evening on a squeaky clean system. I used well configured End it All 2.0 to Close and Kill (safe to Kill programs and tasks I have carefully screened).
Long process even with cable. Restarted and all seemed fine except my NIC wouldn't talk to my cable modem. IP address was Microsoft's default 169.x rather than an allocated 60.x or 69.x. I power cycled, etc.
I called Comcast support. Spent 30 minutes with a diligent tech. She couldn't see an IP address for me. We did a cmd IPconfig /release which zeroed the 169 IP but IPconfig /renew would time out. She suggested I reload NIC drivers. That didn't make real sense to me.
This morning I called the family network guru, my propeller headed son-in-law, who is a Masters CompSci from Cornell (earned 15 years later than mine) and who owns a high end computer consultancy, to review a strategy. He advised calling Comcast back and having them dispatch a tech since all diagnostics we ran on the system, card, and cable modem seemed to work.
Spent 30 minutes with another diligent tech from Comcast. We went further than I'd been before. No solution. He advised that prior to Comcast dispatching a tech I should call Microsoft's toll-free, free, XP SP2 trouble shooting support team at 888-772-43570.
I did. [Team is in India as I suspected it might be] Spent 15 minutes describing problem to a qualifier and had to consistently state that, NO, you don't need my e-mail address and I don't need e-mail support because I have no connectivity to the internet. Case number was assigned and I was transferred to a 1st level tech. After 45 minute hold [Cynthia] came on and she worked with me diligently for 4 straight hours. After 30 minutes we had determined that I could access the internet via Comcast cable in Safe Mode so hardware and cables were ruled out, so a conflict existed.
At each 20-30 minute interval she broke for 5 minutes to consult with a higher level resource or import another screen set.
She and her peers were convinced { I wasn't] that I had downloaded while either a firewall or anti-virus program was active (or uninstalled) ant that had created the conflict. We scrubbed all Symantec utilities including Norton AV, all VCOM System Suite 5 utilities including my excellent but disabled Sygate firewall, and their AV program and eradicated all registry entries, cleared all temp files, caches, and history.
No solution. After 4 hours she advised that I should remove XP SP2 with add/remove programs. She said this would take about 15 minutes and would call me back. I did. She did.
The rollback worked perfectly.
When Cynthia called back on schedule I advised that all XP Pro SP1 + hot fixes worked perfectly. I asked her if an XP2 reload would be advisable. She said yes. It should work fine since all identified conflicts had been uninstalled. I reloaded SP2. Same problem as before. I used Add/Remove to uninstall it. Rebooted. Everything is OK.
I'll wait for my CD. I won't install it unless necessary. I'll add updates only after I've screened them.
'Good News'
For those that install XP SP2 with limited success the uninstaller (Add/Remove in CP) works GREAT!
For those that install without complete success Microsoft XP SP2 support is at:
888-772-43570
Have patience.
Still the greatest software company in the world, and XP Pro the greatest OS ever.
This is the longest I've spent on line with a software tech in this decade amd I have beta tested for Microsoft and others since mid to late eighties.
Best,
- Eric - |
