I have tried to install SP 3, at first, without success. I knew that my os needed to be repaired so I did a recovery and then installed SP 3 and had no problems,,, until I had to reboot the system. Then: blue screen and , yes, let's do another system recovery. Now after many days of rebuilding my system the way I like it(IE.: removing all the bundled software included with the system recovery) and reinstalling my favorites software and cleaning up, I will wait for SP3 to be available normally.
I do not know what happened save that the computer would not boot. Still, I did need to do a recovery, so no harm done.
Jacques.