Users are being offered an
unofficial
Microsoft software fix to address boot up problems on HP
machines that been updated with
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3).
HP users have complained that XP machines powered by AMD
processors have encountered problems once SP3 has been
downloaded.
Users have seen their machine repeatedly boot up once they turn
on their machines. The problem is caused by rogue code in the
operating system which is designed for machines powered by Intel
processors instead.
HP is said to have used the wrong version of the OS when loading
XP on to machines in the factory.
Jesper Johansson, a former Microsoft security manager, has
released a patch to fix the problem, ahead of both HP and
Microsoft.
The
free patch has not been sanctioned by either Microsoft or HP
though, which are still working on a patch to help out their
customers.
Johansson's small Visual Basic Scripting Edition file first
checks whether the machine is running an AMD processor.
If it is, the software studies the Windows registry to see if
the rogue device driver designed for Intel machines is about to be
loaded.
If the driver is there, the user is given the option to disable,
and avoid constant reboots of the machine.