July 23, 2003

Another sp4 problem list.

Winnet Magazine has an online column where readers report on Win2K SP4 problems. Most of them are the same problems as reported elsewhere, but definately worth a check before you roll out sp4

Posted by Andy at July 23, 2003 11:04 AM
Comments

Really Broken SP4 Computer (won't boot into windows)
NOTE: This Isn't for the inexperienced ----
If you have installed SP4 on a system and it will no longer boot and the repair function on the 2k install disk doesn't find a working windows installation and you've decided it's best just to uninstall SP4 all together read on... To uninstall SP4 you will first need working computer running XP or 2000, as other OS'es can't read the NTFS file table. So take the problem HardDrive out of its machiene and put it as slave (using jumper settings) in your functioning computer. Now boot windows, the other (broken OS) drive will appear. On that Drive (I'll call it F:\) go to: F:\%systemroot%\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst folder. %systemroot% is your windows dir. In this directory there's an Spuninst.bat Right-Click and "EDIT" this (if you accidentally run it you risk messing up the working computer). In the edit menu(?) go to "Replace" And replace every instance of "C:\" with, in our case (rember our slave drive was F:\), "F:\". Exclude the Quotes obviously. That replace will take a while. Once it completes go to Start>Run and type cmd - Press. Then in the new dos shell window, switch to drive F:\ (simply F: at the prompt) then cd %systemroot%\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst\ then run the spuninst.bat.... this will roll back the service pack. Once its done running shutdown the computer, remove the drive, switch the jumpers back to master and boot successfully. Not too difficult, tell your friends and family not to get this SP4 right away, and If they have... do this to fix it if it breaks their computer.

Posted by: Brian at August 26, 2003 6:09 PM

Good suggestion. another better one would be to replace c:\ with just \ then you could run it on any drive, whenever you liked.

Posted by: Me at August 26, 2003 10:21 PM

Don't replace C:\ with \ as it will knacker the host machine by uninstalling files the system needs!

Posted by: karin at September 19, 2003 7:34 PM

When I tried to install SP4 on a Windows 2000 system, it never came back to normal after the restart; all I got was blue screen. I ended up having to create the boot disks, and rebooting with them (painfully slow process). When I got to the command prompt, I was able to locate the Uninstall folder located at c:\WINNT\$NtUninstallKB824146$\spuninst. I first changed directory to the above by typing "chdir c:\WINNT\$NtUninstallKB824146$\spuninst". Then, I typed "batch spuninst.bat". The computer gave me a message that it had copied four different files. I typed "exit" to get out of command mode, and restart. It worked OK, SP4 had been uninstalled and I was back to where I started (except I had spent about 6 hours figuring this out!)

Posted by: Bala at September 28, 2003 2:43 AM