How to update XP to SP3 without getting online?

S

saturn-rising

Guest
hey guys,

Soon I will be needing to install XP SP3 updates on the DAW partition of my machine's HD, but its copy of XP is not internet-enabled or at least I've never configured it to be. I'm wondering what the best way would be to get updated to SP3. Should I use Windows Update even though the advice from the DAW PC builder was to never use that copy of XP (the DAW partition) to go on the internet?

To be ultra-clear, I definitely do NOT want to install a whole new copy of XP; I just want to add the patches and bring it up to SP3... just as is done through Windows Update, but, I'm not sure whether it would be a mistake to go onto the net even once from there.

As you all know, the whole point of the separate disk partition and separate O/S for DAW work is to keep the O/S for the DAW totally "unpolluted" by any internet activity, which keeps it very stable and free of the gremlins that can come from net use.

I've found a Microsoft download for SP3, but the description confuses me because it sounds like it is the whole enchilada---the entire XP O/S including the SP2 or SP3 patches---but I don't need the whole thing; I only need the patches.

Can anyone straighten me out on how to do this safely? Should I just enable internet connectivity, do the Windows Update thing, and then disable internet connectivity again?

thanks,
SR
 
go to this link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2fcde6ce-b5fb-4488-8c50-fe22559d164e&displaylang=en

and download
then make a cd from the image
then apply it to the daw partition

fixed

the fact that it includes all previous updates and patches is neither here nor there, it will skip what is already installed on your partition and add the sp3 patches as necessary.

However, there are significant number of patches subsequent to SP3 that would still need to be applied.

I would take a pinch of salt with what your daw vendor said - you may need to upgrade some of the os to meet current security patches.

However, I would also question the need to add SP3 to your daw os unless you have found that you need to add some missing functionality - in which case -
  1. connect it to the internet once, taking note of the settings you have to change/activate so that you can revert after.
  2. use help and support to update your machine
  3. it will take several goes before you have all the new patches installed -steer clear of Windows Search 4.0 unless you prefer to have the way you search changed forever - at last count there are over 200 new patches to add to a SP2 install
  4. restart as needed
  5. revert your machines internet abilities to what they were at the start
 
Thanks bandcoach! Yeah the main reason I want to go to SP3 is that most current music software is going to require SP2 if not SP3, I figure, so I might as well go to 3 because soon enough that will be the requirement if it isn't already. It's not for internet security, as I won't be using the net from that partition.

So you're double-sure that when I install that, it won't overwrite my current install of XP or anything crazy like that, right? It'll just install the SP patch stuff only? (You don't have to answer that, you already said that's the case.)

My main thing here is that I think I will be getting Kontakt 4 and upgrading to Guitar Rig 4 and a few other things and I don't want to get ready to install them and find out I need to have SP2 first (I will be looking for this info on the NI site in a minute). I'd rather get the SP2 or 3 in there first, then install new software.

thanx
SR

---------- Post added at 07:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:31 PM ----------

Well I just checked on the Native Instruments site and sure enough, for both Kontakt and GR it says it requires "latest service pack." That would be SP3 I think...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yep, plus some more patches - I don't think that there is any easy way to get the other patches either - I have a dozen XP sp3 machines at home that regularly need to update the patches. I have most of them accessing Microsft update via a proxy server so that the patches get pulled down once and then installed to rest locally.

I have four teenage children, a wife who is studying on-line as well as myself studying on-line, making music and generally using individual machines for individual software types - I have a single machine with CS4 Master Suite, another running Cubase 5.5 another running Cubase 5 VST32Score [released 2001] - keep it clean and use a network drive to share/move files around.

So, have a look at the other patches that are needed by going to administrator options under Microsoft update (you will need to go through the custom update rather than Express).
 
Are you saying that if I were to fail to install one of these extra patches (above and beyond the main SP3 update), some DAW s/w might not work?
 
Anything is possible, because the vendors/developers will develop for an OS that has the latest (by which I mean at the time they start development) patches applied, rather than some earlier version of the OS
 
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