Building XP SP4 !

[Curt]

You may need to be a logged in member of Windows Secrets, to read the linked article:

Building your own XP Service Pack 4

a brief copy from the post:

Building your own XP Service Pack 4
Posted on December 1, 2011 by Susan Bradley in Top Story


Starting today, Windows XP users will have 860 more days of official Microsoft support — and on every one of those days, many of those users will continue to run the operating system that just won’t die.


Want to extend the life of your Windows XP Service Pack 3 as long as possible? You can do so by installing Microsoft hotfixes as needed.

It’s ironic that the official Windows XP End of Support Countdown Gadget runs only on Vista and Windows 7. Perhaps Microsoft will offer a paper-based advent calendar for its XP users. Regardless of Microsoft’s schedule, a significant number of people will continue to use XP well past the deadline. Their practical reasons range from line-of-business needs to the economy to “It still fills all my needs.”

According to Microsoft, XP SP3 is the end of the line — there will not be an SP4. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build your own virtual version of SP4. Just use the hotfixes Microsoft develops over the remaining years of official support.

more... http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/building-your-own-xp-service-pack-4/

[40hz]

Easier might be to grab a copy of Torsen Wittrock's WSUS Offline Update utility.

WSUS Offline Update (c't Projekte Offline Updater - ctupdate)
Update Microsoft Windows Security without connecting to the Internet

Update Microsoft Windows Security without connecting your computer to the Internet: The WSUS Offline Update Project (formerly the c’t Offline Update Project) is a program script written by Torsten Wittrock that facilitates updating your Windows Operating System and/or Microsoft Office installation to the latest level of Microsoft security updates and bug fixes without needing to connect directly to the internet to do so. The update process is done from removable media (CD, DVD or an external hard drive) instead, which is enabled by the update program.

English language download page here.

This way you can build a disk with all the update files, reload XP from the original CD, or a disk image you previously created, and then run WSUSOU's built in utility to check for and reload any additional service packs or updates that are missing.

Licensed under GPL. Free for personal and commercial use. Sweet!

Note: this tool also can do the same for Vista, Win7, and MS Office. This is a great thing to have if you're responsible for maintaining several PCs. The time savings are huge. And having a DVD archive of every available MS update is worth it's weight in gold when you're at a client site. I've built disks for XP, Vista, Win7 - and every version of Office starting with XP using this and previous versions of this utility.

Cool tool.

[Stoic Joker]

Damn! ...That do look handy.

[40hz]

Damn! ...That do look handy.

@SJ- Sure is. Also has NET framework and Windows Server covered! For folks like us that's almost like Christmas came early.  

Lately I've stopped burning disks. I just keep the ISO images on a large flash drive along with all my other tech tools. If I need one, I'll mount the image. It's even faster that way. Especially if youre installing a full service pack. And it's your easiest alternative when you run into one of the ever increasing number of business 'enterprise oriented' PCs which no longer have optical drives installed.

So far everything fits on a 16Gb which I caught on sale for $25. I'll be moving to a 32/64Gb flash drive when/if the prices get a bit more affordable.


Note: once you have all the updates you can also stream them into a generic copy of windows and make a new installation CD (DVD actually) if you're a real overachiever!  

[Stoic Joker]

So far everything fits on a 16Gb which I caught on sale for $25. I'll be moving to a 32/64Gb flash drive when/if the prices get a bit more affordable.

Damn, looks like they're out of these Lexar 32GB ThumbDrives now. I just grabbed one last week for $35.


Ironically I'm sitting here doing half a gig worth of updates on a Win 7 laptop right now.

[app103]

Consider something like a 320G WD Passport drive. (I own a 500G and I love it!) Newegg has one for $60.

You can store the updates and service packs for multiple versions of Windows, along with your collection of necessary software tools, utilities, scripts, etc. all on a single drive. Yes, the physical size is larger than a thumb drive but not so large to rule it out. It can still fit in most pockets.

And if you buy 2 of them, the spare one can come in handy if you have to copy a user's data for backup/restore purposes, when a system is so botched that a format + rebuild is a better option than repairing. WD does make these little Passport drives in sizes up to 1TB and slightly larger physical sized My Book ones up to 3TB.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/catalog/?segment=2

[Stoic Joker]

Consider something like a 320G WD Passport drive. (I own a 500G and I love it!) Newegg has one for $60.

You can store the updates and service packs for multiple versions of Windows, along with your collection of necessary software tools, utilities, scripts, etc. all on a single drive. Yes, the physical size is larger than a thumb drive but not so large to rule it out. It can still fit in most pockets.

Are cargo pants back in style?? (but seriously...) Having something like that in ones pocket tends to hamper mobility. Getting under a desk or behind something ... It'll make you want to set it down somewhere and lose it. Shirt pocket, hell no. I'm forever having to pickup my cigarettes because they fell out of my shirt pocket (clients hate it when you roll them in your sleeve), I'm not about to risk it with a drive. That thing would be wrecked in a week.

Maybe 40hz wears a sport coat (I don't), he could probably get away with having one in a coat pocket. But I'd rather the descreet size of a ThumbDrive.

And if you buy 2 of them, the spare one can come in handy if you have to copy a user's data for backup/restore purposes, when a system is so botched that a format + rebuild is a better option than repairing.

I usually just do a parallel install, it saves the copy time and ensures I won't get stuck trying to DL a NIC driver...Without a NIC driver (I hate when that happens).

[ewemoa]

Sorry if the following is too much of a digression...

How have folks here found SMART test results for their drives?  I read that it may be problematic to get SMART results for some/many(?) USB drives [1].  Now if looking for drives in enclosures, I try to check the chipset of the controller or try to get an enclosure I can open without voiding the warranty.  Recently I've gotten an external SATA dock, so I've also been more likely to get bare drives -- of course, it is much less convenient to transport! 

I've also read that SMART test results often leave much to be desired, but it seems to be better than nothing -- and apparently there are certain attributes that are worth paying more attention to than others (e.g. reallocated sector count seems to be important).  I didn't use to pay attention to such things, but with multiple drives failing over the past 5 years or so with data loss...

Recently, I managed to save data from a few drives after noticing some suspicious-looking reports via HDDScan, so I think it has been worth periodically checking.  Also being aware of how old the drives are seems worth noting too.


[1] http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/FAQ#SmartmontoolsforFireWireUSBandSATAdiskssystems

[ewemoa]

I usually just do a parallel install, it saves the copy time and ensures I won't get stuck trying to DL a NIC driver...Without a NIC driver (I hate when that happens).

Appreciate having more than one machine around or a live cd / usb when this happens to me

[f0dder]

I've also read that SMART test results often leave much to be desired, but it seems to be better than nothing -- and apparently there are certain attributes that are worth paying more attention to than others (e.g. reallocated sector count seems to be important).  I didn't use to pay attention to such things, but with multiple drives failing over the past 5 years or so with data loss...

Reallocated sector count is the only S.M.A.R.T stat I've ever seen any use from, and that count doesn't go up until your drive is quite into the danger zone. Also, for most drives I've had failing, that count has been 0.

[ewemoa]

Reallocated sector count is the only S.M.A.R.T stat I've ever seen any use from, and that count doesn't go up until your drive is quite into the danger zone. Also, for most drives I've had failing, that count has been 0.

Thanks for sharing your experience.  I guess you learned about your drive failures by other means -- presumably through observing odd / errant behavior, is that right?

[f0dder]

Reallocated sector count is the only S.M.A.R.T stat I've ever seen any use from, and that count doesn't go up until your drive is quite into the danger zone. Also, for most drives I've had failing, that count has been 0.

Thanks for sharing your experience.  I guess you learned about your drive failures by other means -- presumably through observing odd / errant behavior, is that right?

Yes.

If you're at the same physical location, the change in sounds from the drive when doing typical access patterns is often a dead giveaway - at least for 3.5" drives, 2.5" are do damn silent you might not notice.

I recently had the main drive (120GB 2.5" WD something-something) in my linux server crash. I started noticing that I'd sometimes get freezes in Minecraft, long SSH login times, and then stutters when copying files. Minecraft is Minecraft , but I had a good idea what was happening when the SSH login times ramped up. When the file copying started stuttering is around the time when DMA errors showed up in 'dmesg' output. I let it run a bit too long before getting a replacement drive, but PANTS-ON-HEAD-RETARDED-luckily lost no data (and apparently no corruption either - some data had .torrent files to check against, others .md5sums). Took around 40 hours to get all data off the drive, though.

I really should set up some dmesg logging that scans for DMA errors and the like... 40hz or Stoic (or anybody else) got any ideas?

[4wd]

Having just had a WD 1TB become pretty much a brick because of the number of bad sectors it was diagnosed as having, S.M.A.R.T showed no problems in evidence.

The only useful S.M.A.R.T statistic I've had from a drive was it saying that it was taking longer than normal to become ready....30 minutes before it failed completely and a subsequent 1.5TB of data disappeared.  That appears to be because the heads may not be attached to the arms any more, I'll pull out the torx driver and have a look one of these days.

It just hasn't been my year for drives

[ewemoa]

Hmm...apart from multiple drives (including backups online), I don't have any good ideas about how to keep stuff safer (apart from not keeping anything...).

[JavaJones]

Hmm...apart from multiple drives (including backups online), I don't have any good ideas about how to keep stuff safer (apart from not keeping anything...).

Hmm yes, I think a Buddhist approach, giving up all one's data and forsaking digital possessions, will solve the problem.

- Oshyan