I am running Norton Internet Security 2008. I installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 from Microsoft Update and afterward Device Manager and Network Connections were completely empty of icons. Otherwise the system appeared to function properly. This happened on two HP Pavilion machines I have.

Microsoft tech support claimed that NIS broke the SP3 installation and instructed me to uninstall NIS 2008 and all service packs back to the build level of my Windows XP installation media (SP1), run a repair installation, then reinstall all service packs and then NIS 2008. Fortunately I use Save & Restore 2.0 so I just recovered my system to the point before I installed SP3.

I am wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if there is a workaround that will allow SP3 to coexist with NIS 2008.

-Kevin

Why not just forget SP3, until it is clean,,,,   it is apparent that Microsoft has lots of problems,,,,,  enjoy your system,,,,  let SP2 and NIS2008 control,, forget SP3 for now,,,,  continue to monitor its' progress,,,,  

I have no intentions to download and install all these problems(SP3),,,

thats' my thoughts,,,,   Cj,,,,

I may just do that. However as this presents a potentially difficult problem to solve I would like to alert others to the danger and hopefully find a workaround for them. It appears the SP3 installer removes the SP2 uninstaller so if you need to downgrade to SP1 (as I would have) you may not be able to. In this case a bare metal install will need to be performed. That is a lot of grief for somebody who did nothing more than install an automatic update.

-Kevin

I have had problems like this before.

Though it is not a solution to this specific problem I have made it a policy not to allow any OS or application ( including Norton products )

to auto update. If I cannot set the software to manually check for and run updates it gets removed. 

Hi KDCasey,

You are fortunate by thinking ahead and using backup and restore software

like Norton Save & Restore.

By doing that you get a lot of troubleshooting - options on your hand and can go on

if needed without little or no frustration.

Nice work !!

Kurt 

I have maintained the Microsoft updates, with 100 %  updated,,,   but I will continue to bypass SP3,,, 

I will apply all other updates as they are presented by WindowsUpdate,,,,  SP3 seems to deliver nothing but headaches,,,,

so,,  That is the last of my thoughts,,,,  thank you,,,,,   for listening,,,,  Cj 

You might want to do a bit of research regarding the SP3 issues your having, particularly the fact that HP machines are having the majority of issues with SP3 due to the fact that they use a generic OEM image for thier machines whether its an Intel or AMD.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11756 is a good read, explains alot of the issues and has links on how to fix or remove SP3 with a minimum of difficulty. This might have some relevance to the issues you're having.

Quoted from the article.....

"The source of many of the problems has been traced to manufacturers, which takes a bit of heat off Microsoft.  Perhaps the single biggest problem appears to be caused by Hewlett Packard's configuration choices.  By default HP deploys the driver intelppm.sys on all their computers, including those with AMD processors.  The driver provides power-management, but only for Intel machines.  On AMD machines a second driver, amdk8.sys is also added, which performs the same functionality for AMD processors."

Actually, it's not just HP machines.  That's a different problem.  Machines with AMD processors are having problems with OEM prepared systems that were installed using SysPrep.

Meanwhile, the problem between XP SP3 and NIS 2008 are happening on all kinds of machines (many: Dell, HP, Whiteboxes, etc.).  Intel chips at least--perhaps the folks with the reboot problems and AMD related issues haven't yet gotten to the NIS 2008 and XP SP3 issues yet.  In some cases the XP SP3 and NIS 2008 problems manifest as an empty Device Manager or an empty Network Connections.  Some USB device drivers don't work.  So far, the people fixing this have found that registry keys belonging to NIS 2008 have been munged after installing SP3.  Fixing the keys results in Device Manager and Network Connections coming back.  In some cases, people experiencing no problems have still found the munged registry keys.

These entries appear in the following parent keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ccEVTMgr
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ccProxy
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ccsetmgr
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CTLNetCnService
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\comHost
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\eeCtrl\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LiveUpdate
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LiveUpdate Notice
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NAVENG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NAVEX15
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SPBBCDrv\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SRTSP\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Symantec Core LC
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ccEVTMgr
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ccProxy
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ccsetmgr
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\CTLNetCnService
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\comHost
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\eeCtrl\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\LiveUpdate
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\LiveUpdate Notice
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\NAVENG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\NAVEX15
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SPBBCDrv\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SRTSP\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Symantec Core LC
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\ccEVTMgr
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\ccProxy
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\ccsetmgr
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\CTLNetCnService
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\comHost
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\eeCtrl\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\LiveUpdate
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\LiveUpdate Notice
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\NAVENG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\NAVEX15
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\SPBBCDrv\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\SRTSP\Instances
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\Symantec Core LC
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler 

The so called "corrupt" registry keys have names that appear to be recursively created characters from the top row of the keyboard.  There are thousands of these created in the registry.  The key name string of each successive key is ever longer by one character.  A typical sequence would look like this: $%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%

In other words, it's not random garbage as you might expect to see with true corruption.

The problem with the fix is there is no tool available to fix the registry entries.  Manually, it will take hours.  Somebody at either Symantec or Microsoft better come up with a fix for this or some stock is going to go in the dumpers.

:-) 

This is also being discussed in the Microsoft TechNet forums:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3302530&SiteID=17 

Microsoft seems to have introduced similar problems for other applications in Windows XP SP2 as well:

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30698351/access-is-denied-error-.aspx
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=18592&page=2
http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/driver-support/88475-missing-internal-network-adapter.html
http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/XP/Q_23048324.html

MS support had this to say:

As I understand, after installing SP3, Internet cannot be accessed via both wired and wireless connections. The connections icon cannot be found in Network Connections as well. Meanwhile, it shows a blank page when opening Device Manager. You have already restored the system to resolve the issue without installing SP3.

If I have misunderstood the situation, please let me know.

Thank you for bringing this issue into our attention. Actually, we have received feedback on the similar symptom. The issue has been reported to the Product group and they are working on this issue to try to narrow down the root cause. Thank you for your understanding on this.

For your information, if you have interest on narrowing down the root cause, we can try the following methods to check if we can make any progress. The information can help our product group identify the root cause more effectively:

Note: If you have more urgent issues on hand and do not have time or interest working on this issue, please feel free to let me know. I will archiving our case temporarily.

Suggestion 1: Disable and re-enable Plug and Play services to resolve the Device Manager blank issue:

===========

1. Click "Start"->"Run", type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click "OK".

2. Double click the service "Plug and Play".

3. Click on the "General" tab; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic".

4.

- If the service is started, please click Stop to disable it and restart the computer. Then, re-start the Plug and Play service using the same method. Restart the computer again.

- If the service is stopped, please click Start and restart the computer to check the result.

Please go to Device Manager to check the result.

Regarding the Internet connection issue, please try the following suggestions:

Suggestion 2: Check network related files and services

=============

1. Click Start and then Run.

2. Type in "regsvr32 netman.dll" without quotations and then click OK.

3. Check if the connection appears or not, if not, let’s continue performing the following steps:

4. Click Start and then Run. Type in "services.msc" without quotations and then click OK.

5. Double click the Network Connections service to open it. Select the Startup Type to Disable.

6. Restart the computer.

7. Change the Startup Type to Manual

8. Repeat the steps above to start Wireless Zero Configuration service and restart the computer.

8. Check if the services have been started correctly. If not, start the service.

A few days later they asked how it went, and I wrote back saying I hadn't tried installing SP3 again and so hadn't tried their suggestions. They then said this: