Win XP Service Packs

[Drone]

In the if it ain't broke, don't fix it scheme of things. I need to try and find a physical download for XP Service Pack 1 or 2.

I want to re-install my XP machine, which lives off the net, someone plugged a wireless network dongle into it, and it hasn't been running too well since.

SP3 you can download from Micorsoft, but SP1 or SP2, which is a pre-requirement to install SP3, only seems to be available via the network.

Anyone have any ideas?

I'm not intending to update my software, anytime yet, and if I do, I'll probably move to a whole new machine.

[vvv]

When I last re-installed due to a hard drive crash, I loaded Windows from the CD and then just put SP3 on - I believe it incorporates the others. EDIT: Or mebbe I used a slipstream install disc, now I think on it...

See here for some potentially useful links in the thread.

That said, look here for SP1a and SP2.

(I don't really know, I'm just posting what I learned via a quick search on Google.)

[Drone]

I'm working from extremely shoddy memory, but I seem to recall that you have to have SP1 or SP2 installed before it will let you install SP3, you don't need both, but you need one of them.

The page you are on, is the same page I was on

It lets you download a network installer for the early SP's but you can download all of SP3, so it means you have to have network connectivity for installing the earlier SP.

I wonder if I need to bother installing the SP's atall if I'm keeping the machine off the net, generally their just a big ball of network insecurity hotfixes, or was there actually a system improvement in one of them?

All I plan to reinstall is Audacity and REAPER, I gave up on M-Audio ProTools as a waste of money and time.

[vvv]

As I recall, it made a number of good improvements, did SP3.

Mebbe try to google this: XP SP2 full download

Seems to be lotsa pages claiming to have it?

[ashcat_lt]

FWIW, I just built a new machine and installed XP. Ran into the problem where I couldn't get the updates because...download this but you have to download that first but you can't actually get that because XP is not supported anymore...So, it doesn't have all the updates. I think it has SP1 or 2 included with the install, but it doesn't have SP3.

Lame story short, Reaper and all of the plugins I've tried so far seem to work just fine without any of that crap. If you're not going online with it, I think it should be fine.

[ubertar]

I've been running xp offline on my recording computer, and that was fine without updating, until I needed to install some more recent software... the install wizard or whatever you call it needs to be updated, and that needs the later service packs. So sooner or later you'll probably need to do it. Can you go online temporarily just to update?

[Drone]

I can, but it makes me nervous I've seen how fast a machine can get hacked or hack attempted. I mean I'm even behind a firewall but I'm nervous. I was behind a firewall when it got in this state.

If raw XP works, I think I'll try it.