Do I update to Service Pack 3?

Thanks owlwings...I will give it a try. I always do a restore point before I do things like this so if it does give me problems, I can always go back to that restore point and kind of "pick up" where I left off. I wonder..could this be the solution to my pattern download problem you have been helping me with? I guess I really don't know what SP does! Just that it is part of my software that came with the PC!

SP stands for Service Pack. Service Packs include all sorts of bug fixes, updates and security 'patches' for the operating system. Very often they are just a compilation of all the updates which have gone before but they are usually a very necessary upgrade to Windows and some software even insists that the latest Service Pack be installed. Each Service Pack incorporates all the updates of the previous one, so, if you are still on SP1 you don't have to install SP2 (or 2a and 2b) before you can go to SP3. It's a long time ago now (in relative terms, of course) but I do seem to recall that SP2 for XP caused some problems and some people were advised to roll back. SP3 seems likely to be the last Service Pack to be issued for WinXP and makes it the 'final version'. Since April 2009, Microsoft have only been offering the monthly Security Updates as support and this will finally end in April 2014. It's generally highly advisable to keep Windows as up-to-date as possible. Not only is it likely to work better with any software you are using but you can be certain that the security of your system will be the best it can be. There is a distinct possibility that SP3 will solve your problem with those downloads (because the error message was a Windows error message and was clearly caused by something other than a REAL shortage of disk space) but, unfortunately, I can't say for sure that it will! I believe that Service Pack installations do create a restore point automatically unless the changes are so major that they cannot be rolled back but it does no harm at all to create your own restore point manually.

Well I updated to SP3...no change and the coupons don't print either!

WinXP. I did try to update from SP1 to SP2 and had such massive problems, I deleted 2 and went back to 1 and it all calmed down. But now...I am wondering if the bugs are out and it might work and help me in other situations.

All I know is it came with my PC and with I believe Microsoft system. I don't know what it does! owlwings (above) will tell me that. He is a great source of information and I value his talent very much!