Windows XP SP3

I read about Microsoft’s Service Pack 3 in a few blogs and they say that you won’t not notice much difference in performance. But I wasn’t sure what kind of Service Pack I was running and if it might do me some good to get one so I went about downloading SP3. Here’s what happened.

After I completed a backup of my files I proceeded to complete the download and followed the command to restart. My computer successfully shut down and began to restart. A command prompt appeared telling me that Windows failed to start successfully and gave me instructions on how to choose between starting Windows normally or starting windows with the last known configuration that worked. After staring at the screen in confusion for the thirty seconds thats allowed to select a command my computer restarted again. ”OK,” I thought “I’d better select one of the two commands.” So I started Windows normally and my computer restarted and came back to the command prompt telling me that Windows failed to start successfully. So I chose to start Windows with the last known configuration to work successfully. And my computer restarted again bringing me back to where I started. In shock and hoping my backup was completely successfull and staring at a half empty glass I allowed my computer to restart a few more times as I reviewed my options.

There were three safe mode options; safe mode, safe mode on network, and some other one I can’t remember. In haste and desperation I chose the first option, safe mode. Windows successfully opened with a larger pixel size and gave me the option to restore my system. I followed the prompts to restore from the date and time of the Windows XP SP3 update and after my computer shut down I crossed my fingers. Once my monitor adjusted I watched with my heart pounding in my chest as Windows finally opened as usual. No where in Microsoft’s tutorials do they say a system restore is necessary.

I defragmented my drive about two weeks ago but wanted to see how fragmented my C: drive became after the update. It took just about as long to defragment my drive as it did a couple weeks ago to defragment after a years worth of Word documents and music downloads. Now I hope to reap the rewards of a safer and faster system after having gone through such a traumatic experience involving unguided system restoration.  

Read a similar horror story at undisputedtruth.