I downloaded SP3 from Microsoft for Windows XP and I lost both CD ROMS. I had to go to the restore feature to get my CD ROMS back. I told my story to a computer person that I deal with and he suggested that MS is doing this on purpose to get us to buy VISTA. As you all know VISTA has bombed out. It also seems that they are purposely causing much pain with trying to load software that is not MS. After I went back and restored my computer to the day before this problem started, trying to load software that was not from MS was extremely slow or could not do it at all. I went back to the day I loaded MS WindowsXP. It took some time to put everything back on my computer. My suggestion is to turn off the automatic update feature. Also do not download IE7. It will cause problems.

If anyone else has had similar problems, please let us know.

I'm not a big fan of IE7 either but I happen to use it with not much problems.

I also use XP SP3 and haven't had a problem with non MS downloads.

The reason there is a service pack 3 was because they know that quite a few folks didn't like Vista; so they tweaked XP some.

skivvynine (imported) wrote: Sat Nov 29, 2008 9:24 am I downloaded SP3 from Microsoft for Windows XP and I lost both CD ROMS. I had to go to the restore feature to get my CD ROMS back. I told my story to a computer person that I deal with and he suggested that MS is doing this on purpose to get us to buy VISTA. As you all know VISTA has bombed out. It also seems that they are purposely causing much pain with trying to load software that is not MS. After I went back and restored my computer to the day before this problem started, trying to load software that was not from MS was extremely slow or could not do it at all. I went back to the day I loaded MS WindowsXP. It took some time to put everything back on my computer. My suggestion is to turn off the automatic update feature. Also do not download IE7. It will cause problems.

If anyone else has had similar problems, please let us know.

Hmm, Shouldn't this be in the Tech and Computer section rather than here in Comments and Suggestions?

As much as I like the idea of a conspiracy, I don't think this is a ploy to push us all to upgrade to Vista.

I've upgraded dozens of machines -- two at home, many at work, from both XP SP1 and XP SP2, to XP SP3. Also IE7. I've never ran into this problem because of these... However I have ran into this problem before due to other circimstances. Here are four things to check:

1. If you have iTunes installed, back up all your music and UN-INSTALL iTunes. Then run your updates. Then install the newest version of iTunes (DO NOT put the old version you presently have back on).... iTunes adds some kind of strange driver between your CD Rom Drivers and the rest of the OS -- I think it is for thier copy-protection or something. Anyway, the iTunes CD Rom Driver is known to cause problems, especially with older versions of the iTunes Software on newer versions of Windows.

2. Un-Install the Star Force Driver. It is a copy-protection Driver some older games install. You used to be able to download the un-installer from either of these two websites:

http://www.star-force.com/protection.phtml?c=70 (click Support tab)

or http://www.onlinesecurity-on.com/protect.phtml?c=55

It is hard for me to even mention Star Force without adding in a whole paragraph of profanity. This one screwed up my system and it took me awhile to find out what the cause of my problem was because the Driver hides itself. Long story short my DVD Burner quit burning CDs and was reading REALLY slow. No problem, I thought, I'll just buy a new one they are cheap online. New one didn't work at all. Took both drives out and put them in a different computer at a friends house... Both were FINE. Did some serious digging and Google searching, and found out about StarForce... Sure enough it was on my system and, well gee look, the CREATION DATE of the file was exactly the day I started having trouble. Ran the un-install and, lo-and-behold, its all working fine again!

3. Download the FULL version of the SP3 patch (its like 320 Megs or something) and use IT -- not Windows Update -- to install the SP3 Patch. I've always install major patches (ie: SP2, SP3) this way, and never had any problems.

All the problems I hear about are always from people who either 1 - try to install from WindowsUpdate, or 2 - have teenagers in the house (ie: computer is loaded with Viruses or Spyware)...

Full install of XP SP3 used to be here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en

If that doesn't work, get on Microsoft's Website and search for XP SP3 Network Install, that should take you to it.

4. Run a full Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware scan before you upgrade to SP3 (or SP2).

Was this a clean install of Xp or an upgrade? We, a group of over 600 techs, strongly advise not doing an upgrade install of Xp. I own two Xp boxes that have been running SP-3 with no issues from the first day the service pack was available. These are both clean installs. All sorts of strange issues seem to dog computers that were upgraded from an earlier OS.

Vista will work fine on a computer adequate for this level of bloatware. I would suggest at least a 4 gig dual core processor, 8 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig hard drive. Anything less may be less than totally functional with the Vista OS.

Speed

When the CD/DVDs disappear after an upgrade like that, it is usually because of older CD burning software.

It also happens if you uninstall some CD burning software,

There is an MS KB about it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

Both of my CDROMs are new. It happened to both of them at the same time. When I restored the system to an ealier time, they both came back.

One thing to try that worked for me when this happened (Windows 2000, and ONE time only) was to download a free copy or demo of the latest version of Nero. Install it and restart. This will graft a small program into your registry called "Nerocheck.exe" that remains there even when the version or demo expires. What it does is "goose" the CD/DVD drives into action. Most small computer shops will also have a pile of Nero CD's laying around and will more than likely burn you off a copy of the CD onto removeable media that you can install from for very little charge.

speedvogel (imported) wrote: Sat Nov 29, 2008 9:28 pm Vista will work fine on a computer adequate for this level of bloatware. I would suggest at least a 4 gig dual core processor, 8 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig hard drive. Anything less may be less than totally functional with the Vista OS.

Speed

What? :-\

I probably lived too long on linux... to me this is a great power, not a basic level of computer.

fhunter wrote: Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:29 am What? :-\

I probably lived too long on linux... to me this is a great power, not a basic level of computer.

I agree, but the guys who have gotten that turkey, err OS, to work very well tell me it needs to be installed on a gaming computer to work at its best. It is extremely resource intensive, to say the least. I'll stick to my Win2K box for daily use. The Xp machines are used for archival storage.

Speed