Miscellaneous grumbling about Windows XP

Nothing particularly novel here, but I wnated to install Apache, Gallery, and all of that to play with on my Windows XP desktop box. Well, it says it wants Service Pack 1. Great. While I'd installed security patches, I'd apparently never done the upgrade.

Off to Microsoft Windows Update we go! They list some 29 patches my machine absolutely must have, but we have to do "Service Pack 1 (Express)" first, all by itself. I'm posting this from my laptop as my fancy desktop machine is currently sitting there unresponsive to the world, despite only 10% of its CPU in use and no measurable network usage. Still, the bar graph indicates the install is making forward progress, albeit at a glacial pace. As far as I can tell, it's scanning my entire hard drive for heaven only knows what.

Microsoft technology. At your service.

albeit at a glacial pace

Yeah. The "Express" setup is a bit of a misnomer. The install from CD actually tends to be faster, but I'm not sure why. I reinstalled my laptop last week, and it took me the best part of a day just to get Windows XP installed and patched.

Either way, it's probably got a shedload of stuff to install, so it's going to take some time. I'd go and get a coffee, if I were you.

I run XP on my workstation at work, not by choice. I administer several servers, including a w2k AD server, exchange 2000, etc.

I can't install the Exchange Admin tools on my pc because they require the admin pak for w2k. I can't install the admin pak for w2k because its XP. I suppose I could switch to w2k on my workstation.

But the Group Policy Management Console won't run on w2k, and I administer several group policies. GPMC only works on XP and 2003 server.

Can't win.

But maybe to help you out - in the future download the full service pack executable (usually >100MB) then run it yourself. These days, they have these "light" installers (the express install you started) that download from windowsupdate then run, and pull the rest down from their servers. At least that way, you can download the service pack in the background while doing other things, then run it whenever you want - unplugged from the internet even. Run it with the -z -m option to make the install silent.

Try the Windows Update catalog here and you can download patches manually.

Not a grumbling about XP exactly, but this seems a good place to post this. We're fixing to have all of our computers upgraded to XP, which I don't really have a problem with. However, to do this apparently means wiping all of our hard drives before putting the new OS on. Now this I absolutely refuse to do. It would take me probably a week to get my development environment back up an running and countless time in the future of installing components/ libraries that I'd forgotten were required for an infrequently compiled app. But the admins insist this is the most efficient way to go. Maybe for them . . .

Will the Exchange Admin tools run with the admin pak for 2003? I am using the 2003 admin pak on my XP box for my 2000 Server. Knowing Microsoft it probably is only for the w2k admin pak, and incompatible withe the 2003 admin pak

Okay, riddle me this one.

I just installed a bunch of new software (Nokia PC Suite, etc.) to make my new Nokia 5100 phone work with my desktop. Now, when I try to open up a generic Windows Explorer (C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe), nothing happens. If I bring up a shell window (either bash or generic MS-DOS) and try to run it by hand, I just get back another command prompt and nothing else happens.

However, I can double-click on "My Network Places" and the right window pops up, which I can then redirect wherever else. Checking the task manager, I currently have two instances of explorer.exe happily running, and I have two such windows on my screen (both opened in the same backward fashion).

What, pray tell, could have possibly broken?

I don't know what to do, but I feel your pain . I remember having experienced this on XP Pro (an oxymoron if I ever saw one!) after I installed Tuxedo transaction monitor from BEA. I don't remember details, but if I started something else first (I think control panel), then explorer would open. I think the thing cured itself spontaneously after installing something else. Enterprise-caliber platform, indeed!

Use System Restore to uninstall that stuff. It works surprisingly well.

Also, FYI, one instance of explorer.exe is the desktop. Unless you tell it otherwise, all of the other explorer windows belong to the other explorer.exe process.