The last time i formatted the PC I installed a copy of Windows Xp Pro that installed SP2 along with it. I've been having major problems with SP2: I can't update video drivers, can't download flash player, etc., and I was wondering if there is any harm in just uninstalling Sp2 from the PC? thanks.
Yes, you can uninstall it. But your computer will never be the same. Seems ms doesn't like people to uninstall their software. Last two times I did I had to do a complete reinstall.
Best I can remember unstable comes to mind. If you don't want sp2, my opinion is to do a clean install of sp1, and not update to sp2. But then you have to look at if any of the newer progs and hardware on your computer is depending on sp2.
xHaydenx, You mentioned that Windows XP installed a copy of SP2 along with it. If that is true, you may be using a Windows XP CD called 'Windows XP Profesional Service Pack 2' or something like that(check it). That would mean that MS has integrated the SP2 files into your installation CD. Simply put, it means that the files from the original release(which hade no SPs) are simply missing on your CD. It contains only the SP2 updated files. So there is really no way to uninstall SP2 in your case. However, if you installed SP2 separately (downloaded it after installing XP), it can be uninstalled from the Add/Remove programs menu. Plus, there are many programs out there that require SP2 to run. MS itself simply 'assumes' that users have the latest service pack installed on their system, and designs future software accordingly. If you are still having problems with SP2, why don't you post them in detail? Maybe I can help. Let me explain this. Take this scenario in mind. You use your comp for a while. You have your system files setup in a certain way. Now you update to SP2. SP2 updates most of your system files. Then, you install a software (an antivirus for example), and it's installer checks for the versions of certain files which it requires to run. It finds out that those files are already updated by SP2, and hence it dosen't bother to update them. After that, you uninstall SP2 for some reason. SP2 removes those updated files and restores the older versions. Now, the program that you installed after SP2 looks for those files. When it finds the older versions, it simply crashes, or if you are lucky, just displays an error message. Note that I am referring to an antivirus software just as an example only. This applies to Microsoft software too, which modifies the core of Windows XP. That's what causes instability, or worse, crash of the OS itself.
