Wow, and just when I started to think they couldn't screw up the untouchable XP, they screw it up. They desperately need Bill Gates back in charge, they're getting seriously reckless.

Glad I've not installed it yet on my AMD laptop.

Use the damn restore function and then try the upgrade. If it fails just restore to the previous working version. I'll be doing a back up of full partion with acronis True image workstation. If anything goes bad, 5 mins later i'm back in game.

So, according to this the problem was the poor install of XP by the OEM

"AMD-equipped PCs sold by Hewlett-Packard. "The problem is that HP, apparently along with other OEMs, deploys the same image to Intel-based computers that they do to AMD-based computers"

http://msinfluentials.com/b...

So, its a OEM driver issue.

I'm having a problem installing SP3 on my machine. I even tried using Microsoft's 5 troubleshooting methods to install it and it failed each time. Keeps telling me an error occurred and it will have to uninstall.

It is a Dell Laptop with an Intel CPU with Windows XP Media Center Edition.

ok guys relaxx my bad

I have a Sp2 Media Center XP AMD HP desktop and I tried to load the SP3 release candidate a few weeks or months ago and I could only boot into safe mode. I got a STOP error...IE a TRUE BSOD.

I have an Intel CPU so I'm happy as can be.

Because SP3 brings a good amount of performance increase to your computer. So all you complainers who are complaining about problems other people had, are missing out on a performance increase :). (that includes games to)

They didn't screw up XP.

SP3 is a damn good f*cking upgrade. With some great performance increase.

Just a bunch of bumbsh!t OEM's who gave Microsoft the wrong drivers for people with AMD machines.

That's doesn't make SP3 bad for Intel people. And some AMD people.

Never had a problem with SP3 on my AMD machine.
And Microsoft cannot be blamed for the fault of some stupid OEMs.
Clearly Microsoft is NOT at fault here. I'm not a Microsoft lover, but it's obvious some OEMs screwed up by having Intel drivers preinstalled instead of AMD. So they should get the blame for this.

After watching the blue screen flash on consecutive boots, I was able to make out some kind of error with ACPI. I ended up going into my bios and enabled/disabled various ACPI settings which finally enabled me to boot into safe mode to uninstall SP3. So now I am running again...albeit with a windows update icon taunting me on a daily basis.

so will I have problems if I have a computer that I built from separately bought parts few years ago? I think, it's Athlon XP 2000+... I know it's OLD, i have a better computer also...