MrMcGoo Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 I installed service pack 2 with the net result that it slowed down my PC to a snail's pace. It's a 2.66 GHz Pentium with 512 Mb of RAM. Windows sends me a message after SP 2 is installed that it is increasing the size of the virtual memory file and that it may slow the system down. In case you think that too many programs were running simulateously, only Explorer was running. I removed SP 2 and the speed is back, stability is excellent again and there are no more problems. I am not concerned about security as I run all of the usual precautions against spyware, viruses etc. If you have a good firewall, anti-spyware that works and anti-virus software, SP 2 is probably a big mistake to install. It's another Microsoft dud. SP 2 uninstalled without a hitch. A few updates to SP 1 needed to be reinstalled. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 that's wierd, I had the exact opposite result. I've got SP2 running right now and I can do a complete reboot in under 30 seconds. You probably have some software conflicts due to previously installed software. If you're handy with computers I would do a backup and then a complete reinstall of windows...but use an install disc that has SP2 already on it (you should be able to use your same current windows key). Then reinstall everything and bring back your backed up data files. I would also recommend upgrading your RAM...512mb is like the bare minimum you can get by with on XP. When was the last time you did a defrag? It's possible that the larger virtual memory file got physically spread out over the harddrive and the slowness you were experiencing was the harddrive trying to read from multiple locations on the drive (thus taking way longer). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Also make sure it is a totally clean install, that is double 00 the hard drive and all other hard drives as the new OS will suck hidden info from the hard drives. Also the file allocation is changed to 8192 (double from SP1) so you might get some slowness from some apps data that was written on the old allocation trying to operate on the new allocation. One of America's greatest philosophers once said, "You can't always get what you want". Then again he might have been English. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddvj Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Didn't SP2 come out like 6 months ago? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMcGoo Posted June 30, 2005 Author Share Posted June 30, 2005 The hard drive is defragged regularly. Installed software includes Microsoft Office, Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, Norton Internet Security and Spybot 1.3. It is ridiculous (but true) that a gigabyte of RAM is needed to run Microsoft's bloatware. SP 1 runs very fast with 512 Mb. I agree that there is a conflict in the software. Without knowing which program is causing the conflict, it's a waste of time to install SP 2. I was surprised that Microsoft would modify the NTFS. Hard drives are probably optimized for the original version of NTFS that came with XP. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Blacksmith Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 It is probably Norton that is causing the problems. You should really work at it and get the patch to work, there are many security holes in the OS that are not protected by firewalls and such. Once a patch is published, the hackers look at it and say OH THAT IS HOW TO DO THAT! and if you don't have the patch, like most users, you are open to attack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Norton Internet Security was probably the worst thing norton ever made...I still use it on my pc because I don't want to start over again after I got things running. The thing is you can't just uninstall NIS - it gets itself embedded everywhere so you just gotta live with it. I can pretty much guarantee that NIS is what caused your problems during the transfer to SP2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Don't like Norton anymore, to sticky, without telling you the changes it makes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEAR Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 SP2 works great and I did not have any issues after installing it on my three PC's. And like was said,Norton may be causing the problems,I use AVG and have experienced no problems so far,after the SP2 updates. Very easy to blame Mivrosoft with all the junk programs,crappy drivers floating in the mess of the PC world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ygmn Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 SP2 is fine hear on a 3 year old clunker laptop.... Norton Sucks BTW....a big resource hog.... Grisoft AVG Virus killer and Zone Alarm firewall for me as both are free and work well.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 SP 2 crashed my computer so hard, my brother in law had to get it going for me ... problem was Norton .. since i deleted Norton, my computer is much, much faster .. ...i have a Gig to work with, so it wasn't lack of memory .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jheis Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Or - you can dump M$ completely and move to a Mac or one of the many flavors of Linux and never look back. I've been M$ free for almost 15 years. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
updawg Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 I can't wait until apple moves to intel's x86 chips... although they claim there os won't be compatibile with pc(only thing stopping it from working with pc is modified bios which will most likely be cracked on release) i'm sure they will release one within two years! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freak Nasty Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 MrMcGoo, The best way to work with SP2 is to format your PC first, Install, Windows XP, followed by SP 1 and SP 2 then, all your drivers and softwares that you need. Specially stuffs like winamp etc.. with streaming radio, or online games... etc .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 If you are reasonably careful, turn off the MS firewall (that will also slow it down). It is turned on by default with SP2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Whoever said to install SP2 after a fresh install has the right idea. Otherwise you'll experience what we at work like to call "Slowness Pack 2" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 My son put SP2 on his installation, and he has a lot of huge packages on his (Sibelius, Lightwave 7, etc.). No slowness at all. I'm just glad they finally did a security rollup for Win2K. We are mostly Win2k where I work, so new installs are tedious with all the updates (not service packs). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARPRINCE Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Forget about Norton or Mcafee and get Trend Micro PC-cillin. It's one of the best anti-virus/firewall I have ever used and doesn't slow the PC. Don't take my word for it. There's has to be a very good reason why MSN Hotmail switched from Mcafee (or was it Norton) to PC-cillin last December to scan and clean their users' email. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 ---------------- On 6/30/2005 2:19:36 PM jheis wrote: Or - you can dump M$ completely and move to a Mac or one of the many flavors of Linux and never look back. I've been M$ free for almost 15 years. ---------------- I've also got a Mac G5 all decked out except one processor and I have just as many problems with it as I do on the pc. It just requires a different way of troubleshooting...like keep reinstalling until it finally works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dblue Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Hate to shoot you down, McGoo, but there's something else amiss. I'm running an AMD Athlon 1600XP, a lot slower than your 2600. And I'm running 512 megs of ram. Right now I've got 36 processes running, and am only using 295 megs of ram. Even during intensive computing, I never page (never use all my ram and start paging to disk). I've been running service pack 2 since it's release quite a while ago, and I have no problems at all with it. You may want to look at some of the other stuff on your computer. Again, not trying to be a jerk or anything, just saying, SP2's not the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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