Wickham43,

Everything you will read in the near term about problems with SP2 and solutions which worked or did not work are nothing more than anecdotal information. Most of my correspondents have installed SP2 without difficulty. Problems with SP2 seem to be caused by specific problems with the configuration of the computers on which it is installed and the success or failure of corrective steps will also be system-specific.

The Dell XP Reinstallation CD you received with your computer contains the entirety of Windows XP, just as a retail copy would.

I have also heard that you should use the add/remove feature to uninstall SP2, rather than use a system restore.  I would *never* use system restore when a program in question has uninstall functionality.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;875350

gives the official order in which you should use methods to yninstall SP2:

Important We recommend that you use the following methods in the order that they are listed.

Use the Add or Remove Programs tool in Control Panel
Use the hidden $NtServicePackUninstall$ folder
Use the System Restore process
Use Recovery Console

Then gives detailed instructions for each method.

 

Thanks for the advice.

Boy, do I ever wish I had read this before.  Here's my (anecdotal?) story:

Dell 8400 purchased a few weeks ago.

Automatic download of SP2; installed.  MS Outlook 2003 couldn't connect.

Backed out using System Restore (an error it now appears).  Outlook still not working.  Reinstalled all Office 2003 applications.  Outlook now working, but I can't use Internet on Secure sites.  Try disabling Windows Firewall, no help.

Reinstall Windows XP (maybe my second big error) in dynamic mode.  Blue screens once during reinstall.  Rerun install, and it "works."

I don't have ANY Internet capability right now.  My PC seems to think that it needs a bridged network now.  I'm ready to throw the thing out the window.

My next guess as to what to do, beyond collapsing in a crying heap, is to try to install SP2 on top of my very injured copy of XP.  Alternately, I guess I could create a new partition and install a fresh copy of XP, but that will take time and effort and agita in moving my files and settings (forget the wizard for that; been there, done that, results were mixed at best).

Any help is sincerely appreciated.  Considering the state my PC is in, I'm not sure that I can make it any worse unless I drop it in the ocean.

Claude