XP SP3, yay or nay?

[SLR_65]

I'm reloading my machine from Vista Ultimate to XP Pro in a few minutes to try and fix a flicker problem on the tvguide screen and so I can give Nvidea PureVideo a try.

My XP Pro disc is SP2, should I leave it there or upgrade to SP3?

Thanks!

Steve

[sub]

I'm not aware of any issues with running on SP3, so up to you really.

[pcostanza]

I've now moved up to XP SP3 on 9 computers both home and work and haven't had a problem with any at all. But in relation to GBPVR, it's not missed a beat since the move.

[HarryH3]

GB-PVR is running great on this XP SP3 system.

[ACTCMS]

I've had no GBPVR problems on any of my machines after installing SP3. You could un-install it from Add/Remove Programmes if you did have problems.

[TonyXL]

No problems running XP3 and GB-PVR.

[haripj]

Same here - see no difference at all with XP SP3 - but apparently my computer is safer...

[nj2112]

There is one issue with XP SP3 that is relevant to some GBPVR users.

The usb drivers in SP3 have problems with the Nova-t-500. Basically when both tuners are active the drivers can crash and do so quite often.

Hauppauge were talking to MS about a fix but have gone quiet about that now and support now suggest sticking to SP2.

However there is a workaround, install SP3 then replace the usb drivers with the ones from SP2.

I have done this and it works fine.

Maybe MS will provide an update for this issue but I'm not holding my breath.

[ACTCMS]

However there is a workaround, install SP3 then replace the usb drivers with the ones from SP2.

I don't suppose you could give a bit of detail on how to do this please?

[nj2112]

I don't suppose you could give a bit of detail on how to do this please?

** Revised 28/11/08 **

** Make sure you have a backup **

After installing SP3

In device manager check the properties of the following (under USB Controllers):-


USB root hub
VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller
USB composite device ---- Might not be present

Check under Driver - Driver Details for each and note down the filenames and paths shown.

In WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386 there should be a file sp2.cab this archive should contain the files you noted above. Extract them to a temporary location.

Make a copy of sp3.cab in WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386 and call it sp3.cab.original.
Extract sp3.cab to a temp dir, copy the sp2 usb files to this dir, overwrite when asked.
Open command prompt and navigate to the temp dir and type

cabarc n sp3.cab *.*

You should now have a new sp3.cab file which you can copy to WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386

Now locate each of the driver files you noted earlier and rename each file, eg xxxxx.sys to xxxxx.sys.000 .

Windows file protection should kick in now and restore those files from sp3.cab, which now contains the old sp2 files.

Reboot and check in device manager - driver - driver details. The drivers should be version 5.1.2600.2180 except usbd.sys which should be ver. 5.1.2600.0.


Some notes:-

1. In my case my motherboard uses a Via USB chipset, other boards use different usb chipsets which may use different driver files and I don't know if it would be necessary to replace those with the sp2 versions. However, I think it would probably be a good idea to do so. Following the same method should do the job.

2. Replacing all the files, as I did, might not be necessary but I thought it best to replace all the driver files.

3. I think cabarc.exe is a standard part of windows but I may have downloaded it from MS, I can't remember.


Well, I hope that makes sense.