Well it would seem that SP3 not only contains improvements for the XP os, there are also a few annoying tweaks 😐
One is the removal of the Address toolbar in the Taskbar, it would appear that MS has been forced to remove this due to legal requirements.. I do agree that MS need to be kept on a ‘short leach’, but damn its annoying when they remove features like that.
Well never fear there are a few workarounds to try before ripping all your hair out.
1. http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2587494&SiteID=17
2. http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2614948&SiteID=17
3. http://www.muvextoe.com/
I opt for trying the restoration of the browseui.dll file from a SP2 CD I386 directory (read 2 for more details), I have yet to try this but it seem plausible.
Another ‘feature’ is the “Mstsc” command where “/Console” has become “/Admin”, annoying like …. but better get use to it as its there to stay in both XP, Vista and 2008 (unknown if it will hit Win 2003 also at some time?).After downgrading from Vista to XP SP3 (5503) I quickly ran into problems, Windows Update keept failing to install 5 patches, it worked to start with but after Office 2007 was added things somehow got messed up and new patches failed.
Quite annoying because Windows XP kept informing me that these updates was ready to be installed.
Anyhow, the solution was found here;
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943144
Solution1 worked for me..
Stop the WU service (net stop wuauserv) and then run this command (regsvr32 %windir%system32wups2.dll), restart WU service and the patches installed perfectly.
Heard about this problem before, but never experienced it before now… perhaps this 5503 build of SP3 is not as final as promised 😉 oh well, could not wait any longer, Vista was simply not good for 4 year old pc. And yes, the XP installation seem to run quite a lot faster, nice..
I earlier mentioned “Driver Magician” as a great tool for “extracting” drivers for use with Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager OS deployment.
knudsen-consulting.com was kind enough to mention another tool “Drivermax.com” with somewhat similar capabilities as “Driver Magician“, althoug Drivermax does seem more suited for debugging than extraction, as it shows ALL drivers and not just the ‘non native windows’ drivers, but still a great supplement for debugging those stubborn drivers 🙂
And Jesper my office college was kind enough also to share this link: http://totallydrivers.com which may prove equally useful.