Windows XP SP3 woes

I believe that I've mentioned this in prior posts, but for the record, my day job is being a programmer for control systems. One of my steadfast rules is that I setup computers for our customers the same way, every single time. I try to discourage folks from using their system computers for other tasks, but when they own the machine there's only so much you can do. My argument has always been, you've paid a couple of grand for a computer to control your multi-million dollar process, why let someone muck it up playing Doom? If it's that important for the operators to play games or surf the internet, buy 'em another computer, but stay off the control computer. Aside from uninstalling games, I spend a good deal of time sorting through the various Microsoft patches and service packs. It's quite often that a 'fix' causes an otherwise well-behaving computer to go in the toilet.

So, you'd think that I'd know better, wouldn't you?

I'm talking about installing XP Service Pack 3. I made this mistake this past weekend at home. On two computers nonetheless. One computer, which I don't use for ham radio, is running Media Center 2005. Suffice it to say that Media Center no longer works now. And reverting to Service Pack 2 didn't fix it. Thanks a lot.

But where I really blew it was installing SP3 on the computer I use for my radio and logging. I normally run two logging/control programs, the DXLab Suite software bundle and Ham Radio Deluxe - often with the HRD 'Bridge' that allows HRD to control the radio, while the logging and spots are done by the DXLab programs.

This is what happened. After installing SP3 and rebooting, the DXLab Suite software reverted to a brand new install. Every setting, from radio control to spotting to the logbook was reset to default and, worse, my logbook was blank. Opening the current log yielded a surprise - nothing. Nada. Blank page. It was only after opening a backup (thank heavens) that I was able to recover my logging info. Please take note of that, make a backup!

HRD was much the same way. Default settings. Blank logbook. I was able to import my log from DXKeeper, so all wasn't lost. But my default log was just like DXKeeper's - blank, even though the size indicated that contacts were present.

I've made backups of everything and I even had a ghosted image so that I can retreat to Service Pack 2 if I need to. I'm going to keep running things as they are and see if I discover any more surprises.

Beware.