XP SP3 Issues

FYI, SANS Diary just posted an entry on XP SP3 Issues at

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4429

"According to an article published by Information Week, the newly released 

XP SP3 is causing systems to blue screen (aka BSOD) on AMD based systems. 

Microsoft and HP seem to think its center around the Power Managment 

feature.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207800691

Here is an example of a message you might receive:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent 

damage to your computer...

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0xFC5CCAF3, 0xFC90F8C0, 0xFC90F5C0

SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

HP has posted a work around that has you go boot into Safe Mode and 

disable the Intel Power Management.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c01457284&dlc=en&printable=yes&encodeUrl=true&

UPDATE

------

ISC contributors also sent in links to a blog by Jesper Johansson. The 

blog contains loads of information on the issue and a link to Jesper's 

"small tool that will detect the IntelPPM problem and mitigate it before 

installing the service pack".

For free SP3 MS support call (866) 234-6020 ("Free unlimited installation 

and compatibility support is available for Windows XP, but only for 

Service Pack 3 (SP3). This support for SP3 is valid until April 14, 

2009)."

And an older diary entry notes the following wrt XP-SP3:

"retrofits some of the Vista functionality into XP, namely in the area of 

Network Access Protection, Black Hole Router Detection, enhanced security 

for administrator and service policy entries (basically some better 

default settings) and a kernel mode crypto driver.  Additionally, some of 

the "optional" updates released since SP2 will be installed with SP3 (MMC 

3.0, MXSXML6, WPA2 support, etc)." 

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4387