This isn't a ringing endorsement but I've got my XP Pro patched to SP2. I remember concerns raised by Gamers regarding XP Home; the consensus seemed to be for sticking with SP2 and not upgrading to SP3, but I don't recall anything about Pro. So far it's been tack sharp.

What is wrong with SP3?
Just curious as I've only started using XP over 2k in the last year, or so on older machines. Mainly for better browser support.
I actively avoided it as my main OS for many reasons, so I'm not super familiar with it.

But I don't notice anything bad over it, compared to 2k SP4 it runs more 9x stuff with less effort usually.
I have SP3 slip-streamed into it, with most of the unnecessary stuff disabled or fully removed.

I've read that XP gets more sluggish with the service packs added. If games run fine without service packs, I'd prefer a snappier interface. Just curious whether certain XP games require SP1, SP2, or even SP3 to run.

Do you disable the theme service?
It reverts to classic 2k mode when you do, alot snappier.

I'll try that, thanks!

Had a reply, it didn't post I guess. Anyways:

- A lot of newer drivers will require at least SP1 to install; some will require SP2/3. Check your dependencies there (also check for .NET and Visual C++ runtimes - especially for those ATi drivers) - if you need an SP for a driver, you need the SP.

- As far as games requiring them, nothing I can think of off-handedly, at least that's old enough to run well on an AthlonXP or GF4. Maybe something very new like Skyrim might though. It should say in the game's system requirements if it needs a certain SP.

- As far as performance differences and whatnot - there should be no appreciable difference between Home and Pro (they're very similar, especially for gaming), and as far as the SPs go with a newer/modern system SP3 is no problem, but on older systems SP2 and 3 can potentially be a problem as they add some additional services and take up a bit more memory while they're running. For a machine that's on the low end of running XP to start with (like a P2) it probably would be very noticeable, but for something like a P4 with 512MB+ RAM it shouldn't be a bother (my P4 has 1GB of RAM and runs SP2 and sits on the desktop with around 140MB of memory in use; my P3 running W2k uses around 130MB - I don't have any "tweaks" done on the XP machine aside from killing the Creative pop-up thing that came with the Audigy cards (which will eat up 150MB of RAM by itself)).

In terms of "snappiness" - I've never had an issue with even a P3 and 2k or XP - an AthlonXP or P4 should be no problem unless you load it up with a ton of modern stuff and associated web garbage. Just fresh installing XP and SP1-2 should not be a problem, especially if you disable most/all of the Security Center pop-ups (with no access to the open Internet you can more or less ignore all of that stuff). With a modern machine (like a Core 2 or something) SP3 + latest updates should be assumed. I know that a few months ago someone found an article doing gaming and application benchmarks between SP1, SP2, and SP3 and the results were usually negligible on relatively recent (like a P4) hardware. This is all I could find in a quick search: http://www.forevergeek.com/2004/10/windows_xp … nce_comparison/

.5% isn't even worth having a discussion about imho. But do watch the memory usage if you only have 64-128MB of memory would be my only suggestion (I remember on my P4 with either SP1 or no SPs I could get the memory usage under 100M on the desktop - with SP2 it goes whatever 30-40MB higher which doesn't matter for it (it has 1GB), but if it only had 128MB that's significant).

Thanks for such an informative reply. You've convinced me to go ahead and load SP3. It's been fun to get this system up and running again -- it was a Freecycle freebie that I snagged just for the case and PS, and now it may become my main XP box!

SP2 is way faster than SP3, though you do have to watch out for security vulnerabilities. That said, if the machine is going to be used purely offline, I don't see the issue with sticking with SP2 or even SP1.

Mr.B are you talking out Home or Pro? Because what you say is what I always heard in reference to Home - ie Home SP2 is faster than SP3. But does the same apply to Pro? Either way I've kept my XP rigs, Home or Pro, updated only to SP2. Either way I certainly recommend updating a virgin install to SP2.

I'm using Pro (what the Datapath software requires, apparently). I'll run it for a few days on SP2 and may keep it there if everything seems okay.

with a registry hack you can continue to get NEW security updates for XP.

I run XP SP3 on my P2 laptop with 192 RAM.
Its true SP3 is a little more RAM hungry (and thus slower on low ram machines)
and also requires a lot of disk space. But the bug fixes and extra software compatibility is worth it IMO

tincup wrote:

Mr.B are you talking out Home or Pro? Because what you say is what I always heard in reference to Home - ie Home SP2 is faster than SP3. But does the same apply to Pro? Either way I've kept my XP rigs, Home or Pro, updated only to SP2. Either way I certainly recommend updating a virgin install to SP2.

My experience has mainly been with Home, but Home and Pro are practically the same thing. The only real difference is that Pro has support for more sophisticated networking services, as well as Remote Desktop.

smeezekitty wrote:

I run XP SP3 on my P2 laptop with 192 RAM.
Its true SP3 is a little more RAM hungry (and thus slower on low ram machines)
and also requires a lot of disk space. But the bug fixes and extra software compatibility is worth it IMO

Wow, and I remember earlier service packs being unusably slow on P2-class machines. 🤣 What kind of services.msc configuration do you run?

cdoublejj wrote:

with a registry hack you can continue to get NEW security updates for XP.

Technically, those updates are for POSready 2009, and though it's based on XP, it's cut-down enough that those updates may not provide adequate protection. I mean, they're probably better than nothing, and I always used to disable automatic updates anyway since they would just slow things down unless they were slipstreamed into an install disc, but still.

I use XP Pro more then home, but really the only benefit is been able to RDP onto the PC and joining it to a domain if you have one at home which I do.

SP1's main benefit is added USB 2.0 support
SP2's main benefit is added better Wifi support
SP3 was mainly security updates, which for a PC not connecting to the internet isn't really much an issue.
That said I always install the latest IE and service pack on whichever Windows I'm using even if they will never connect to the internet it just feels more correct, even though I disable the majority of services its added. I don't bother with security updates and only software updates that directly affect the PC (like win98 shutdown patch)

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

SP2 is way faster than SP3

Please quantify such statements. Data shows that they are generally functional equivalents:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/xp-sp3-per … home-about/1747
http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/xpsp2-vs-xpsp3 … =7668&Itemid=39

Note in the ZDnet article that their "old" system with a Pentium 3 does show a slight affinity to SP2 in some tests - as previously stated, SP3 is not necessarily a good choice on hardware that's already borderline for Windows XP-era to begin with. But with more powerful hardware and enough RAM, there is no reason to shy away from SP3. With an AthlonXP and 512MB+ of memory it shouldn't be a problem, and will ensure better compatibility with a lot of newer drivers.

As far as Home vs Pro - in addition to some networking features (that most people won't touch, especially if the machine isn't going online or being used in a public library 😜), it adds access control and 2P support (the later is a "gotcha" for some of the builds that crop up around here). If you need remote access and don't have Pro, you can use something like VNC as an alternative. 😀

As far as the application demanding XP Pro - I've seen applications in the past with similar "requirements" and they usually install fine on XP Home. OFC no reason not to use Pro if you have it, but I'd be a little curious what exactly about Pro the software "needs" or if it isn't just the developer only bothered to test on Pro and doesn't want to support home users. 😒

SP3 will run fine on the machine. The drivers for the capture card might actually require it. Updated DirectX will likely be needed too. Don't expect wonderful video capture performance though, that card doesn't have any hardware decoding and the Athlon is going to struggle doing something like HuffYUV in real time with anything above 720x480 capture at 30fps.

Due to a technical issue, I left my nephew's late P4 on SP2. At least as far as nVidia drivers are concerned, there's definitely no problem. He's running 260.99, which is probably later than what you'll run on the cards you listed.
I don't know of any benefit to SP3 other than all the neverending security updates, and if some piece of software just demands it. I've never paid attention to what impact it has, but as minor as it may be, I probably wouldn't bother with SP3 in this case unless you find a reason it's needed.

I looked up DirectX 9.0c. At some point Microsoft forgot what version numbers are for and so there's multiple releases of "9.0c". The version released 4/28/2011 (not sure if that's the latest) requires SP2. Another version from 2009 requires only SP1. The only thing I ever ran into that had picky DirectX version requirements was the MGE mod for Morrowind.

I think one of the earlier service packs changed the default behavior of IE6 to stop automatically prompting to install random ActiveX plugins. The old behavior was probably the dumbest thing Microsoft ever did. But if this machine never sees a web page then it doesn't matter, and even if it does probably IE6 wouldn't be used.
This is something I wish they had patched for Win2k. On Win2k I had to do some ugly hack to get rid of an error message that constantly appears when the auto-downloads are disabled.

When did each service pack (SP1, SP2, SP3) originate, in what year/date?

obobskivich wrote:

Please quantify such statements. Data shows that they are generally functional equivalents: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/x […]
Show full quote

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

SP2 is way faster than SP3

Please quantify such statements. Data shows that they are generally functional equivalents:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/xp-sp3-per … home-about/1747
http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/xpsp2-vs-xpsp3 … =7668&Itemid=39

Note in the ZDnet article that their "old" system with a Pentium 3 does show a slight affinity to SP2 in some tests - as previously stated, SP3 is not necessarily a good choice on hardware that's already borderline for Windows XP-era to begin with. But with more powerful hardware and enough RAM, there is no reason to shy away from SP3. With an AthlonXP and 512MB+ of memory it shouldn't be a problem, and will ensure better compatibility with a lot of newer drivers.

As far as Home vs Pro - in addition to some networking features (that most people won't touch, especially if the machine isn't going online or being used in a public library 😜), it adds access control and 2P support (the later is a "gotcha" for some of the builds that crop up around here). If you need remote access and don't have Pro, you can use something like VNC as an alternative. 😀

As far as the application demanding XP Pro - I've seen applications in the past with similar "requirements" and they usually install fine on XP Home. OFC no reason not to use Pro if you have it, but I'd be a little curious what exactly about Pro the software "needs" or if it isn't just the developer only bothered to test on Pro and doesn't want to support home users. 😒

OK, I will admit, that was kind of a flawed statement on my part. I remember having a P4 desktop that I kept offline for the longest time for fear of viruses, and it ran fast partially because I never updated it. I eventually put it online and installed SP3, and that's when it started to show its age. This would have been around late 2008, early 2009. Similarly, I had gotten my first laptop, an Acer Travelmate with a Pentium M and 512MB of RAM, around the same time, and since I decided this would be my "online" machine, I upgraded the installed SP1 to SP3. That's when I noticed a major performance drop.

Now, this was all before I discovered the magic of services.msc, and how to make custom install discs with the updates slipstreamed in using nLite. With enough trimming and tweaking, I'm sure SP3 can be well optimized for older hardware. They made a huge difference on the aforementioned Travelmate, that's for sure.