Business and enterprise software, and other applications that help a business run

Well, it would appear that the much-ballyhooed release of Service Pack Three for Windows XP (1) is having a relatively typical Microsoft time of it. Many users are reporting severe problems. An ex-Microsoft program manager (Jesper Johannson)  (2) has been working with a group of users and has tentatively stated that the problem primarily affects systems using AMD processors.

Jesperson says “I want to clarify that the endless rebooting is not at all related to SP3 per se. The problem is that with some configurations, SP3 causes the computer to crash during boot, and Windows XP, by default, is set up to automatically reboot when it crashes. That is why you end up in the endless rebooting scenario.” So the rebooting is not the issue. It’s the crashing. Makes sense to me, Jesper.  

If you are having these problems, you may wish to follow the link above to Jesperson’s post, which may provide you with enough information to get you out of your rebooting-because-of-the-crash endless cycle. Jesperson also notes that the same problem surfaced after the release of Service Pack 2, showing that “experience” is not necessarily the same thing as “learning.”

Or, you could do what I did and buy a Mac.