mystified Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Sorry for not posting sooner, but have been a bit over-whelmed with this XP upgrade thing. The problem I'm about to post....I caused it. I just don't know exactly HOW I caused it.I finally upgraded to XP from 98SE (actually, am now back on 98SE). All was going well, until I tried the Windows Updates. Please keep in mind that my knowledge is only intermediate...not advanced, and that I've never messed with XP before.Anyway, I'm used to updates for 98, and was kind of lost at the site for XP updates. Mainly, I saw two links: One for "Express," and the other was for individual updates. So, I did the express. It worked fine, but I didn't know if I should do the other one, too, so I went back to it. By the way, there are no warning messages there, nor any other instructions that I could find. Not knowing any better, I clicked on the 2nd link and it opened a page with 60 updates. It also said it recommended installing all of them. At first I thought it was a bit much at one time, but there was nothing saying not to do this, or to do them in any certain order. So, I set them to download when I went to bed (it took over 3 hours on my dial-up modem). Middle of the night, it was done. I got the window saying the computer has to be restarted, so I did. That was all she wrote!From that point on, I could not start the computer. There's no way I can remember everything that happened or everything I did, but I'll tell you what I can remember. First, when the computer tried to restart, it went for a couple of seconds, then the green monitor light turned orange and everything quit responding. Over and over I tried safe mode, but no luck. Finally, I got it to start in safe mode with some "networking" option. However, there was nothing I could do. I finally got to the restore point page and restored it to the first point I had set (before the updates). No luck....same thing when I tried to restart....monitor light went orange and everything quit responding. Somewhere in here I got the messge that there was a problem with the video card and it was causing this, but I knew that was wrong because at least it did work OK in safe mode. Finally, I tried the very first restore point (the one the system sets by default when XP is installed). No luck....same result.Finally, after hours and hours of this, I had no choice but to reformat. Nothing would work (luckily, I had installed XP under FAT32 format, so the W98SE boot disk worked). I reformatted, then reinstalled W98SE. That is what I'm running on now.I told you all of that to ask you this:If I reinstall XP, just exactly what updates do I need to install at the Windows Update site? Is it enough to do just the "Express" one, or do I need something else? Obviously, I downloaded and installed the wrong thing, so I caused this. However, I don't want to do XP again and end up in the same predicament.Thanks so much for any thoughts..... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheTerrorist_75 Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Just do the Express. You may have unknowingly allowed an incompatible update to download when you went to Custom afterwards.As a side note, does your XP CD have SP2 included? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mystified Posted December 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Thanks for the info, Terrorist 1. Apparently I'd have been OK if I had just left it at express...I'll do that the next time2. No, it does not have SP2....just SP1Reply is appreciated Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Express contains all of the security fixes(possibly major bug fixes?), so that is all you really need(as TT already said). Since you are on dial up, i would reccomend you download sp2 and save it to a disk. This way you can use it again in the future. When you relaod again, first install sp2, then finish up your updates using windows updatehttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lefty1953 Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 When you downloaded them from the Express function you needed to restart your system. If you didn't and then downloaded again, that would cause some problems as well. Also if it doesn't reboot the first time try at least 3 or 4 times to reboot before giving up on the upgrade. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tootsdog9 Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 When you downloaded them from the Express function you needed to restart your system. If you didn't and then downloaded again, that would cause some problems as well. Also if it doesn't reboot the first time try at least 3 or 4 times to reboot before giving up on the upgrade.I would also add that some of the custom stuff is good to get but not all. Like if you chose to download all then it was also downloading dozens of languages you don't need. So after you get it reinstalled and with SP2 along with the rest of the critical updates and all looks fine, then check the customs options to see if there is anything else you might want. Like say WMP 11. It would also be nice if you could slipstream the SP2 with your original XP. You can also get an SP2 cd from Microsoft. The reason you would do this is that some times SP2 gets corrupted in that big long download. If your not in a hurry I would get the disk from Microsoft. That corrupted part happened to me a long time ago and was never repeated once I had the disk. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 If you are on dial-up, you can order the SP2 CD for free from M$MarkM$ SP2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
screi Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 If you are on dial-up, you can order the SP2 CD for free from M$MarkM$ SP2..not quite free anymore...they now charge about $4.00 for shipping and tax...they're fast though...ordered a new disk last week and it arrived in 4 days...good luck...wayne Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mystified Posted December 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Thanks so much to all for the replies....much appreciated! I will definitely order the CD from M$....as long as I get the basic XP w/SP1 working OK, and get the express updates, sounds like I'll be OK to wait for the CD for SP2 (I don't do much online anyway, and definitely don't visit porno, warez, or "questionable" sites....from what I've heard that's where most malware comes from....still, I do want the security of SP2....ya just never know).I do have a couple of general XP questions, but they are different topics, so will wait until I'm upgraded and post as new questions.Anyway, I really DO appreciate the help! I read all your answers and will pay attention the next time I do this Best....Larry Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tootsdog9 Posted December 12, 2006 Report Share Posted December 12, 2006 If you are on dial-up, you can order the SP2 CD for free from M$MarkM$ SP2..not quite free anymore...they now charge about $4.00 for shipping and tax...they're fast though...ordered a new disk last week and it arrived in 4 days...good luck...wayne I didn't know that but it is still worth it compared to the time and aggravation of a bad SP2 download. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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