Users looking to Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, as Service Pack 2's second coming and the perfect reason to avoid Windows Vista SP1, might need to reconsider their plans. The reason is rather simple, despite the fact that it has spent over two months more time in development compared to Vista SP1, while containing only a minor, standard evolution in comparison to SP2, XP SP3 has come to the table with a flood of issues, a wide variety of them impacting the deployment process. There are no less than nine officially documented scenarios in which end users will find it unable to install Windows XP SP3, and even more error messages associated with the problems.

1. The XP SP3 RTM Infinite Reboot Loop

Jesper Johansson was among the first to signal this problem after installing XP SP3 on an AMD-based computer, an operation which lead to: "incessant reboots. The computer booted, apologized for not being able to boot properly, asked if I wanted to boot into safe mode, defaulted to normal boot, rebooted, and so on and so on. At this point, 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."

This is by no means an isolated case. In fact, end users have been crowding to the support forum for Windows XP SP3 signaling the very same problem, as well as variations from this issue. In response, Microsoft published Knowledge Base article 888372 detailing the issue. Essentially users are presented by a "Stop 0x0000007E" error message, having performed and upgrade to XP SP3 from SP2 on what Microsoft referred to as a non-Intel-processor-based computer.

"After you upgrade a computer that uses a processor other than an Intel processor to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), you may receive the following error message after you restart the computer: 'A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer...Technical information: *** STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0xFC5CCAF3, 0xFC90F8C0, 0xFC90F5C0) SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED'," reads Microsoft's description of the problem.

According to the Redmond company, not all systems affected by the "Stop 0x0000007E" error message behave the same, or from identical causes. Microsoft already has resources in place designed to help end users troubleshoot a Stop 0x0000007E error in Windows XP, and there are additional causes to implementing Service Pack 3 that may conduct to this scenario. Still, this does not mean that XP SP3 is off the hook.

"Most computers include an image that the manufacturer created by using the System Preparation (Sysprep) tool. Sysprep lets the computer manufacturer generate an image that can be used on different computers. The problem Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) Sysprep image is created on an Intel-processor-based computer and if the Sysprep image is then deployed on a non-Intel-processor-based computer. Under this configuration, after the computer is upgraded to Windows XP SP2 or SP3, the Intel processor driver (Intelppm.sys) may try to load because an orphaned registry key remains from the original Sysprep image," Microsoft said.

But at the same time this is also valid for original XP SP2 and XP SP3 Sysprep images that have been built on an Intel-processor-based machine, only to be subsequently deployed onto computer powered by a processor which is not from Intel. At fault is the same Intelppm.sys driver. Apparently all it takes is a registry tweak in order to resolve the problem. The end users first have to reboot their machine into Safe Mode and then make their way in the registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – SYSTEM – ControlSet001 – Services – Intelppm and then modify the Value data by entering 4 in the box. A restart is necessary for the mitigation to come into effect.

2. 8007F0F4 – STATUS_PREREQUISITE_FAILED

There are no less than six errors for failed Windows XP SP3 installations which produce the with the "8007F0F4 – STATUS_PREREQUISITE_FAILED" log. The six errors have just as many causes, starting with the installation process failing to continue on computers running on battery power. In this case, Microsoft explained that in order to prevent and "update failure because of battery power exhaustion during the installation process," it generated the following error: "this Service Pack requires the machine to be on AC Power before setup starts."

"Service Pack 3 Setup has been canceled because Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP is not compatible with this version of Windows. Before you can continue, you must: 1) Uninstall Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit 2) (Optional) Install Windows SteadyState, the newer version of Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit. For more detailed information, go to the Shared Access page on the Microsoft Web site," is the second of the 8007F0F4 – STATUS_PREREQUISITE_FAILED series of errors, and the message is self explanatory.

As it released the gold bits of XP SP3, Microsoft informed of an incompatibility between the MUI pack for XP SP2 and SP3. The issue affects specifically the Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI) for the Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 (Terminal Services Client 6.0). "Service Pack 3 Setup has been canceled because Windows XP SP3 cannot be installed over RDP 6.0 MUI PACK (Update for Windows XP (KB925877)). Before you can continue, you must Uninstall KB925877" is the error message presented to users.

You also have to keep in mind that Service pack 3 is designed to integrate only with the 32-bit editions of Windows XP, and nothing more. Attempting to deploy SP3 on top of Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP) will result in the following error message: "Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied to Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). A unique SP3 update package for WinFLP will be made available at [the Download Center]."

The same is valid for the Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS) operating system, and users will be informed that "Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied to Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS)."

According to the Redmond company: "setup cannot continue because one or more prerequisites required to install Service Pack 3 failed. For More details check the Log File Drive_Letter:windowssvcpack.log" is an error message produced by the installation of Service Pack 3 on top of Windows XP Media Center Edition or over Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003. For all the problems enumerated above Microsoft has fixes in places via Knowledge Base article 949388.

3. XP SP3: "Access is denied" or "Service Pack installation did not complete"

The third and final service pack for Windows XP will also fail to deploy if the installation process comes across registry keys that it cannot modify. In such cases, the error messaged presented to the end user reveal that there has been a Service Pack 3 setup error and that "Access is denied" or that "Service Pack installation did not complete." There are various ways to resolve this issue, and they are all described in detail in KB949377.

"You may receive these error messages if permissions for one or more registry keys are restricted in a way that prevents the update of those registry keys," Microsoft informed. "Some programs change the system access control lists (SACL) in the Registry so that administrator accounts cannot alter them. The service pack installer runs under the user (admin) account and not under the SYSTEM account. Failure to update a registry key causes the Setup program to fail."

4. You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files

This is without a doubt the most easily solvable problem relates to the installation of XP SP3 RTM. The error message "Service Pack 3 Setup Error - You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files," is of course related to a scenario where there is insufficient disk space available for the archiving of the uninstall files. XP SP3 will not go ahead with the deployment because without the uninstall files end users will not be able to remove the service pack. KB949375 deals with this specific issue.

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