Metropol

Barrett wrote:What the f*ck what that comment for?

The way you wrote your comment about "finding SP2 on download.com" made it sound like it was a big secret that only you knew about so you took great pleasure at posting the URL to it.

I am downloading SP2 via automatic updates at the moment.

Honestly, what a total nightmare.

It doesn't seem to save installer files locally on a regular basis - so for instance, last night (without me realising it) it got up to 56%. Turned it on this morning and it reconnected itself and was at 34%... that's about 20 minutes worth of downloading, because their servers are being really slow as so many people try to download it. And it sometimes just cuts out for no reason and stops downloading, only to start again (back at the like milestone) about 10 minutes later.

c@t wrote:I am downloading SP2 via automatic updates at the moment.

Honestly, what a total nightmare.

It doesn't seem to save installer files locally on a regular basis - so for instance, last night (without me realising it) it got up to 56%. Turned it on this morning and it reconnected itself and was at 34%... that's about 20 minutes worth of downloading, because their servers are being really slow as so many people try to download it. And it sometimes just cuts out for no reason and stops downloading, only to start again (back at the like milestone) about 10 minutes later.

i think big downloads are broken down into smaller 'modules', and when you interrupted it, windows update had to re-download that entire module again from the start. i agree though, as useful as windows update is, it could be improved in this area.

I think the version of BITS you get with v5 of WindowsUpdate (the site not auto upates) is better than that, it seemed to resume at exactly the right point even between restarts.

Are punters being sent to V5 automatically now and asked to updgrade or are most people still stuck on 4?

My new version of Windows Update just appeared at random.

I checked it and it was the old version, then I read your post, Hyma, about the new one (this was a week or so ago) and looked at it again 30 seconds later and it had updated itself. It was somewhat scary at the time.

c@t wrote:I am downloading SP2 via automatic updates at the moment.

Honestly, what a total nightmare.

It doesn't seem to save installer files locally on a regular basis - so for instance, last night (without me realising it) it got up to 56%. Turned it on this morning and it reconnected itself and was at 34%... that's about 20 minutes worth of downloading, because their servers are being really slow as so many people try to download it. And it sometimes just cuts out for no reason and stops downloading, only to start again (back at the like milestone) about 10 minutes later.

How about downloading and installing it manually (from the link on page 1)?

Or leaving your computer on and connected until the update has completed?

That way, you will get the update and it won't keep stalling. I'd recommend going down route #1 due to the fact that every man and his dog are trying to download SP2 using the automatic updates system. I'm rather sceptical about Windows doing it automatically - I'm not too trusting of MS sticking what they like on my machine and so, I keep it switched off. But fear not people, I do patch my machine, albeit manually using Windows Update.

Yet another one of Billy G's clever ideas :roll:

Hymagumba wrote:Are punters being sent to V5 automatically now and asked to updgrade or are most people still stuck on 4?

This computer's going to version 5. My other computer is still accessing version 4.

Version 5 of Windows update suddenly appeared on my laptop a few weeks ago. I'm not sure I like version 5. It required not one, but two downloads and a restart in order to deploy it. And on top of that, every update I've downloaded so far has forced a restart on me, even when it just appears to be some minor security update.

Having also done a virgin install of XP for someone yesterday (from an original 2001 build CD) a lot of the stuff that used to be available from Windows Update (DirectX9, Media Player 9, Movie Maker 2, etc) no longer seems to be there. I presume that since some people were on version 5 months ago, they have done all their testing now and what we're seeing is the final release version. With that in mind, it does appear decidely shite compared to it's predecessor.

Another question: is version 5 going to be deployed on other versions of Windows or will it remain XP-only? I ask because Windows 2000 on my desktop machine is still on version 4. I didn't expect it to be rolled out to Windows 98 (although version 4 was) but I did think it would be implemented on Windows 2000 and ME, as they are still supported by Microsoft. At present it's not an issue of course because they are still making updates available via version 4 aswell, but of course version 3 (which still appears on Windows 95 and NT) very quickly stopped having new updates added to it. How long will it be before version 4 goes the same way?

I do wonder if Microsoft's odd releasing of SP2 is designed as a ploy to get people to turn automatic updates on. Are we supposed to buy that it's frequently not available on Windows Update 'due to excessive demand', and that there's a good reason for not publishing a direct link to it on their website, but that it's always available via automatic updates?

For something which has been so long in the coming (far too long infact - SP2 should have been out ages ago with all the interim patches that have come out since SP1, we should now be downloading SP3) they aren't half making it hard to get hold of now it's finally here.

I'd reccomend to anyone doing the SP2 thing that they download the full 200-odd meg version or get it on a CD from PC World.

Back up everything then format your drive and do a clean install of XP followed by SP2 straight onto that clean installation.

I did that and it works like a dream.

Why do you keep resurrecting archive threads?! :roll:

James Martin wrote:I'd reccomend to anyone doing the SP2 thing that they download the full 200-odd meg version or get it on a CD from PC World.

And how much are they charging for that then? Can get it free from Microsoft.

Back up everything then format your drive and do a clean install of XP followed by SP2 straight onto that clean installation.

I did that and it works like a dream.

Pity you don't.

Neil Jones wrote:Why do you keep resurrecting archive threads?!

I don't. The thread is not archived.

Please do the decent thing and just naff off.