ID:182412
 
After installing service pack 3 and the 2 subsequent updates that were available on my XP machine; my wireless connection decided it no longer wanted to access the internet. It connected to the router just fine but says the internet isnt available. Didnt test it on a wired line, and doing a simple system restore fixed the problem for now.
Just wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem
If you have Zonealarm, I believe there are some issues with recent XP updates and the Zonealarm firewall that completely blocks internet access on the affected computer.
In response to Jp
Ah I see, thats probably the problem then. Thanks
In response to Falacy
How good is SP3? I'm tempted to upgrade, but is it really worth the hassle? I've heard usually upgrading SPs are a real pain in the ***.
In response to Falacy
The common solution is to reinstall ZoneAlarm. It has to do with a change in the networking from Windows end that ZoneAlarm wasn't built to detect. So reinstalling ZoneAlarm forces it to.
In response to Flame Sage
SP3 is mostly a bundle update. It makes it much, much quicker to go from a brand new copy of XP to a fully updated and secure copy. If you have SP2 & 3 pre-downloaded, it can take only minutes.
In response to Danial.Beta
SP3 includes SP2. =P
In response to Kaioken
I'm pretty sure you need SP2 before you can get SP3. I could be wrong on that, but I set up a machine about a week ago, and it installed SP2 then SP3 right off the Microsoft download site. If SP3 has SP2 in it, then it Microsoft's update service is ineffective as heck.
In response to Danial.Beta
Danial.Beta wrote:
I'm pretty sure you need SP2 before you can get SP3.

No, every Service Pack includes all the previously released ones. That's the whole point of a SP, I think: [quote]

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system.

I'm sure you noticed SP2 contained SP1. =P

and it installed SP2 then SP3 right off the Microsoft download site. If SP3 has SP2 in it, then it Microsoft's update service is ineffective as heck.

Ah, actually, did you do it through the download site or the update site? Windows Update does it quite well in the only-download-what-you-need-department, although I don't know how it goes for fresh (SP2-less) computers*, and never will anyway since I'm going to install with SP3 anyway, before even connecting to the internet. =P

EDIT: *: Doesn't Windows Update not even support computers without SP2 anymore? So I guess you did just go and manually download the SP2 installation then the SP3 installation...? Well, as said above you're supposed to get the latest one and it will install everything. SP2 downloads must still be available just for people having trouble with SP3 or any other reason they specifically don't want it.
In response to Kaioken
No, I used the update site all the way. When you have an SP1 computer, it requires a preliminary update to get you working with the latest version of the update site. After that, it works just like SP2 and 3. I know that SP1A requires several updates before SP2 can even be installed, so it isn't a 100% bundle of all updates, no matter what they want to tell you.
In response to Danial.Beta
Thought they said versions previous to SP2 are unsupported a while ago at the update site. But anyway, what you said doesn't necessarily mean the SPs don't include the previous ones. They do, regardless of using an alpha version (SP1A) of one of them possibly making it a little of a mess or not - you can install SP2 directly on a computer without SP1, so that doesn't matter.
In response to Danial.Beta
From what I've heard you can download and install SP3 manually if you have SP1 and it'll install as it should. I still haven't been able to get a copy of SP3, though -- too big of a download for this ol' dial-up.