Service Pack 1, 2 or 3

[chickenlegs]

I apologise at the start if this sounds a really daft question.
I am about to install XP Home under Boot Camp and have just read through the Apple Boot Camp installation guide and noticed at the start, that it states that "you must use" Windows XP Home with SP2 or above. I have a very old version of XP Home and wondered how I can tell if it already has SP2 on it? The original Windows XP box has "version 2002" on it but no other indication that it has been service packed. I don't want to try it, just in case it causes installation problems.
Thanks
Chris

 

[thejadedmonkey]

There's only one way to find out. Try it, and see what happens

It probably won't work though, so here's a site to help. http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

Unfortunately you'll need a Windows machine to do it, so you may have to boot up into VMWare or your favorite virturalization program, install Windows, create the slipstreamed CD, and then install in bootcamp.

 

[Eric S.]

My guess is that if it included SP2, it would say so. When I bought XP (Pro) the box said in big letters "Includes Service Pack 2". Anyway SP2 was released in August 2004, so if yours is earlier than that it couldn't include SP2.

 

[CTeditor]

I'd say it doesn't have it either, you can find out here
http://forums.macnn.com/109/alternative-os-reference/322430/really-xp-sp2-disc-how-tell/

Then you'll probably have to slipstream so google slipstreaming SP2 into XP and you should be good to go as long as you have access to windows

 

[js81]

If you're going to have to slipstream it, go ahead and slipstream SP3 instead. Save yourself some time later, and Boot Camp won't care, as long as its at least SP2 (and 3 > 2 ).

 

[-aggie-]

If you're going to have to slipstream it, go ahead and slipstream SP3 instead. Save yourself some time later, and Boot Camp won't care, as long as its at least SP2 (and 3 > 2 ).

I thought there were issues with SP3 and Boot Camp though?

See this:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/805648/

 

[js81]

I thought there were issues with SP3 and Boot Camp though?

Hmmm... I haven't had ANY issues on four different Macs in my family (my iMac, my wife's white Macbook, my sister's unibody Macbook, and my brother-in-law's iMac). BUT... all of those were installed with SP2 and upgraded to SP3. Maybe that's it... I have since slipstreamed an install CD, but haven't needed to use if on any of the Macs yet...

 

[chickenlegs]

Service Packs

Many thanks for all your excellent replies. I can now confirm that the original Windows XP Home disc that I have is an SP1 version. I had a look at the price of a new XP disc yesterday and it seems really expensive to me at around £60 so as, I have a Windows PC, I will use it to splipstream SP2 - how exciting! It's pouring with rain today so that gives me a good excuse to have a go.
I have many reservations about putting Windows on the Macbook, but I have a few programmes that will only work with Windows, so it's becoming a bit of a necessity. Thanks again.

 

[Bengt77]

Good thing you didn't try it with an cd containing XP SP0 (for lack of a better term) or with a cd containing XP SP1. I tried that once, and I fried my Mac. Well, not literally, but the earlier versions of XP don't read the partition table right, so they won't recognize the partition you created for Boot Camp. Back then, XP was installed over my Mac OS X installation. Everything was gone, everything. Luckily, I made a full clone of my hard drive before trying to install XP, so nothing was lost. But trust me, you don't want to try it without a recent backup.

 

[Eric S.]

I had a look at the price of a new XP disc yesterday and it seems really expensive to me at around £60

I'm surprised you can even still buy XP. Is that retail? I thought Microsoft had ended all sales except OEM versions where you buy it preinstalled on a computer (and maybe not even there now).

 

[chickenlegs]

Xp

I discovered a few copes for sale on EBay which were reported to be in their original condition and OEM versions.

 

[balamw]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Even if you don't have access to a dedeicated Windows PC you can load your pre SP2 XP into a virtual machine with VirtualBox or a free trial of Parallels or VMWare. Then you can create the slipstreamed ISO in the VM and install from that in Boot Camp. There really is no need for a new disc.

B

 

[typhoon7]

I thought there were issues with SP3 and Boot Camp though?

See this:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/805648/

I just did a clean install of SP3 with Bootcamp last week with no problems, I too was wondering if it would work. From all the stuff I read it seems that SP2 *and above* will be fine.

 

[CTeditor]

I thought there were issues with SP3 and Boot Camp though?

I had an issue when I did an update from SP2 to SP3, everytime I tried to play a game it would just restart. I just assumed you couldn't update and reverted back to SP2