Service Pack vs. Updates

pro2a · 10-27-2009, 09:15 PM

Before I dual booted my PC with both XP and Vista I think I downloaded and installed the Vista Service Pack 3... bad idea

Long story short... When I reset my PC it started and brought me to the safe mode screen

I was a little confused but selected the option to run Vista normally. After it thought for a few seconds it brought me back to another screen similar to the safe mode screen with an error about ACPI.SYS being corrupt and that I had to insert the Vista disk etc... I had no clue what that was, so I hopped on my laptop and Googled ACPI.SYS. Apparently if you download Vista service packs they can corrupt some files and cause your computer to not boot up. I fiddled around a bit with BIOS, tried running safe mode etc...

Nothing worked. Not even loading the Vista CD. It kept bringing me back to the corrupt ACPI.SYS error.

Finally I got fed up and ran an old copy of XP off of my external and saved the files I wanted from my master drive and reformatted the whole thing and loaded a fresh copy of XP then Vista. This finally gave me the "excuse" I needed to dual boot the two.

Now it's telling me I need to install updates for Vista. Obviously I'm a little gun shy now about updating anything. My question is what the heck is the difference between Vista Service packs and regular updates? In addition why do service packs corrupt OS files?

Thanks.

Osiris · 10-27-2009, 09:43 PM

There is no SP3 for Vista unless you downloaded a warez copy, etc

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is a free update for Windows Vista. SP2 includes all previously released Windows Vista updates, including security updates, hotfixes, and select out-of-band releases.

There are probably many reasons why this happened and very hard if not impossible to determine what actually went wrong. All I can say is dont downoad it if you think it will happen again* or try your luck.

* I am refering to the legit SP2 file, not the warez copy

Mak213 · 10-28-2009, 12:45 PM

* Referring to deleted posts *

Plain and simple, everyone starts somewhere. |RAID| if you cant play nice and help people learn, then you will find your stay with us very short. Even you didnt know this stuff at some point in time. Dont insult others when they are trying to learn. It is our very FIRST RULE.

Hampton · 10-29-2009, 01:21 AM

You mean you were trying to install sp3 for XP? and mucked everything up? as stated above Vista SP3 isn't even in beta testing.. (tho it should be as the updates after SP2 are over 250mb) but you must have meant XP SP3. please clarify

pro2a · 10-29-2009, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hampton

You mean you were trying to install sp3 for XP? and mucked everything up? as stated above Vista SP3 isn't even in beta testing.. (tho it should be as the updates after SP2 are over 250mb) but you must have meant XP SP3. please clarify

Originally all I had was Vista. It must have been SP2 that was downloaded and installed, and after a reset it died. I never had XP on it, I did have an old copy which I loaded on the external to save my stuff.

HoLoCroN · 10-29-2009, 08:50 AM

Can you boot into Vista's Safe Mode?

If you can, try uninstalling the service pack (Control Panel | Programs | Uninstall a Program) and see if you can boot normally.

SP2 doesn't usually crash a system but there is a reason Service Packs have an uninstall feature...

Let us know how it goes.

pro2a · 10-29-2009, 12:42 PM

My computer is fine now. I already reformatted and reloaded XP and Vista... so I can't go back and un-do the SP2. When I was getting the error, nothing worked, including safe mode. It kept bringing me back to that error.

My question is more along the lines of what is the difference between updates and service packs. Obviously I'm not going to download and install SP2 anymore... I just didn't know what the difference was. XP never had service packs that I can remember.

Mak213 · 10-29-2009, 12:47 PM

The difference is nominal between Updates and Service Packs. As most Service packs are just a culmination of Updates. XP SP3, Vista SP1 & Vista SP2 are all just a big group of Windows Updates put together in a big pack. The only exception to this rule was XP SP2 which added the Security Center and Windows Firewall feature. It is the only SP in Windows history to add something to the OS.

Aside from that Service Packs are nothing more than a big group of updates. If you had issues with Vista SP2, it could easily still happen with one of the updates that was included with SP2.

pro2a · 10-29-2009, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

The difference is nominal between Updates and Service Packs. As most Service packs are just a culmination of Updates. XP SP3, Vista SP1 & Vista SP2 are all just a big group of Windows Updates put together in a big pack. The only exception to this rule was XP SP2 which added the Security Center and Windows Firewall feature. It is the only SP in Windows history to add something to the OS.

Aside from that Service Packs are nothing more than a big group of updates. If you had issues with Vista SP2, it could easily still happen with one of the updates that was included with SP2.

That makes more sense then. I think I'll just stay away from updates and/or turn them off all together.

Mak213 · 10-29-2009, 01:35 PM

That is possibly the worst thing you can do. The updates are released for a reason. They are put out due to flaws being found and the updates are the patches for the flaws to keep your system secure. Without the updates you leave your system open to the type of attack that the update fixes.

It is your choice, but it would be ill advised to do so. Unless you have enough confidence in your security precautions to think you will be safe.

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