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Why are Windows people calling April 12 Update-Crash Day?

Hi Dave. I have a weird question for you: as I walked past my company's tech support desk, I overheard two really geeky guys laughing and referring to April 12 as "Update-Crash Day for Windows Users". What's up with that? Is it some spyware that's set to fire up, or what? I run Windows at home and am anxious as all get out about it!

Dave's Answer:

First, the good news. It's not spyware, it's not a virus, and it has nothing to do with the game Doom or any renaissance painters. However, there is something big happening in the world of Windows XP on the 12th of April: Windows XP Service Pack 2 will automatically be downloaded to all computers that use the Automatic Update feature. Prior to this event, Microsoft had a blocking feature that made it possible for some companies to block employees from automatically updating to SP2.

Why are they turning off the block? I am not really sure, actually. If things go smoothly (and they should. I installed SP2 without a glitch using the techniques outlined in How can I safely upgrade to XP SP2?) then it won't be a big deal, but if tens of thousands of computers are going to update all at the same time, well, it could be a digital catastrophe for some firms!

What's more concerning is that people in these companies will automatically have their Windows XP update to Service Pack 2, and then be darn surprised when they find that some of their software no longer works. In fact, Microsoft has published a list of programs that crash in SP2, including:

AOL Toolbar
Photoshop CS 8.0
BlackICE
eTrust EZ Armor
Live Motion
NBA Live 2000
Norton AntiVirus
Norton SystemWorks
Virtual PC
WordPerfect Office
ZoneAlarm

Quite a list! If your company is affected by this change in Microsoft's update system, please do pop back on the 13th and let us know how it all went.

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Comments

Is this SP 2 update unavoidable ? I have 'Updates' set to 'manual'. I REALLY don't want SP2. I purchased XP Pro in good faith, and don't want to add something that makes my system unstable, as has caused many computers to crash.
If so, and my system crashes on the upgrade, I intend to sue , and would join any Class-Action suit against Microsoft.

Posted by: Al Falk at April 9, 2005 4:25 PM

This update will not be installed on any systems that have automatic updates turned off.

XP SP2 has gotten a bad rap for a variety of reasons, but if you don't install it you're asking for trouble. I sure hope you don't use IE if you still haven't installed it, as there are at least a handful of serious security vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited by trojans and spyware to install things on your machine without any notification or consent from the user.

I've installed SP2 on literally several hundred machines at a number of different companies, and have yet to see it completely destroy a system. It has caused serious problems on around 2-3% of the machines I've loaded it on, but an uninstall and reinstall of SP2 always resolved any issues. This is the first Windows service pack where saving uninstall data isn't optional, so they obviously anticipated this.

Yes, it breaks some applications, but this is the price you have to pay to lock down the security of Windows. The reason most of these applications don't work with SP2 is because they have problems that MS let slide previously. Now that they've tightened the hatches, this sloppiness doesn't pass anymore.

If you haven't yet upgraded to SP2, I strongly recommend doing so. I don't anticipate April 12 causing widespread havoc, since most systems likely have SP2 installed already anyway, or else probably don't have automatic updates turned on.

Posted by: Chris Buechler at April 10, 2005 4:08 AM

I've aleady installed SP2. Will I be affected in any way by all this hoop-la??

Posted by: Bernie Klein at April 10, 2005 8:11 PM

Bernie, you should be in the clear!

Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 11, 2005 4:40 AM

mm the list seems funny, cause i run photoshop cs and it works just fine...

Posted by: dave a at April 11, 2005 3:34 PM

Automatically updated? I didn't get it. Thank goodness, I fear that stuff bad. I have my system just the way I want it and I don't need a big "secuirty" pack to help in any way. Didn't the default SP2 settings force unknowing users to share the printers with anyone who knew their IP? That seems real secure. I guess I'll just turn Automaitc updates off. No worries! thanks for the warning

Posted by: matthew at April 22, 2005 9:44 PM

my pc crashed for whatever reason yesterday had sp2 on it, i had to unplug hard drive and start again and now im stuck! cannot update or download anything, not even sp2!

Posted by: tam at April 13, 2007 12:40 PM

upgraded xp to pro and pc constantly restarts on initial xp screen.only a quick flash of a blue screen and restarts over again.pc was working fine before upgrade.how can i fix or revert back to original version.system restore shows no restore points when starting in safe mode.

Posted by: serge at October 23, 2007 3:37 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!