Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
> In news:h2950g$jim$1@news.eternal-september.org,
> ~misfit~ typed on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:19:37 +1200:
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
>>> In news:h27pun$ho4$1@news.eternal-september.org,
>>> BillW50 typed on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:02:52 -0500:
>>>> In news:Xns9C37EF8E0EF58noonehomecom@74.209.131.13,
>>>> Larry typed on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:32:58 +0000:
>>>>> I'm using WinXPSP3 typing this message because it's convenient and
>>>>> familiar with Xnews, a very old usenet client.
>>>>
>>>> I have one machine running XPSP3 and the rest running XPSP2. And I
>>>> haven't seen any difference in stability or usability between SP2
>>>> and SP3.
>>>
>>> Oh wait! There is one small difference. SP3 breaks OE6
>>> auto-compacing mode. As it usually hangs on folder.dbx. And
>>> Microsoft doesn't support OE at all anymore, so there will never be
>>> a Microsoft fix for it. Which might be one reason to stick with
>>> SP2. <grin>
>>
>> Thanks Bill, I was going to ask why, if there was no difference with
>> stability or usability, only one of your machines was sp3.
>>
>> Oh, I find my XP Pro sp3 machines still auto-compact OE files just
>> fine.
>
> Hi Shaun. Well I don't see the big deal of having SP3 installed
> anyway. And the big plus of only staying with SP2 is that it is much
> smaller. Which is nice on small SSD drives. And I can't even install
> SP3 on my 4G SSD machines because there isn't even enough room. Even
> if I use the recovery disc to start over, that only leaves 400MB
> worth of room. SP3 claims it needs at least 450MB. Although I believe
> it actually needs at least double this amount when I installed it on
> one of my 8G machines.

Hi Bill. Even though I'm behind a hardware firewall and practice safe hex I
still like my machines to be up-to-date with patches so have sp3 on all of
them. I take an Acronis partition image of the boot partition immediately
before install, then delete the uninstall files (which I put in my own
folder so I can find them easilly). Or I should say I did do that with my
first few sp3 installs. As I haven't had a problem with it and I image my
boot partitions regularly anyway it's no longer SOP.

It's my experience that it's the uninstall files that take up all that extra
room.

> I don't know what to say about why yours works. As I have no personal
> experience with the problem, just what I have read on the OE
> newsgroup.

Ok, I don't use tiny little SSDs so space has never been an issue for me.
<grin>

> Want to see something odd? My machines report:
>
> SP2 v5.1.2600
> SP3 v5.1.2600
>
> SP2 and SP3 report the same version number. Doesn't that seem strange
> to you?

No, not really. I think 1.2600 was the final build of XP, which doesn't
change with a service pack added, hence the service pack status is indicated
at the start of the report. (At least that's how I understand it.)

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll
be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.