The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Sony Updates or XP Service Pack first?

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by viiv, Apr 23, 2009.

  1. viiv

    viiv Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    13
    Messages:
    23
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hey, I'm reformating a VAIO that originally came with XP Home RTM. The recovery discs have vanilla XP on it, so no service pack, not even SP1. Yes, its an older VAIO, but I am hoping to breath new life into it by starting fresh. Now, I am just wondering, after reformatting from the recovery discs, about the install sequence. Should I first install the Sony updates from the esupport site, or should I first upgrade to the latest service pack (SP3) and then install the Sony updates?

    The other crappy thing is I can't go straight to SP3, SP3 requires a minimum of SP1. That means I have to do to service pack installs, which in my opinion may have ill effects on performance on the finished product. So I have two options to get to SP3, which is better and cleaner:

    RTM->SP1a->SP3

    RTM->SP2->SP3

    Answer to this question and the install sequence on everything would be much appreciated. Thanks,
     
    viiv, Apr 23, 2009
    #1
  2. pacmandelight

    pacmandelight Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    260
    Messages:
    909
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    RTM -> SP2 -> SP3 -> Sony Updates

    You could got RTM -> SP1, but you might as well go RTM -> SP2 I suppose.
     
    pacmandelight, Apr 23, 2009
    #2
  3. Brawn

    Brawn The Awesome

    Reputations:
    145
    Messages:
    1,215
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    56
    this is just what i'd think...

    i'd install windows updates first and then the sony updates, because the windows updates would make your system more stable for installing the sony updates

    and for "cleaner", i'd say RTM => SP1a => SP3, since sp3 should already include everything in SP2 (except for the stuff that they changed)
     
    Brawn, Apr 23, 2009
    #3
  4. viiv

    viiv Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    13
    Messages:
    23
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Well, looks like you CAN install SP3 straight onto vanilla XP, as long as you have the actual full SP3 upgrade CD. There is no technical reason not to be able to, only political, as it turns out Microsoft does not want to support being able to update an out of support release. That really does not make any sense to me, as you are updating an out of support release to an supported release, why should you be penalized for that? Anyways, in case any one wants to know how, it's just a registry edit:

    HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control

    Edit or create this REG_DWORD value:
    CSDVersion

    Input or edit value data: 100 (hexadecimal)

    Done, now the SP3 installer is fooled into thinking you have SP1 and starts.

    There are NO ill effects, everything needed is in the SP3 installer (assuming you have the full ISO or you ordered the CD from Microsoft. And for any doubters, once again, there are no ill effects, and it can't be worse than the mess of having to install two service packs on a clean system. It's pure politics and an artificial limitation.

    Now that that is out of the way, so it is better to do the service pack first? I thought it would be the Sony updates first.
     
    viiv, Apr 23, 2009
    #4