Cannot Deactivate Spyware Doctor

[mynameispants]

Spyware Doctor 5.0 with Antivirus and Threatfire Free are preventing me from installing Microsoft XP Service Pack 3. I tried shutting down Spyware Doctor by right clicking on the icon in my toolbar (there is an option for this). But it always has an error and says some components cannot shut down because of this error. It then hangs while trying to shut down. I want to set both Spyware Doctor 5.0 with Antivirus and Threatfire Free to not boot up or run at all so that I can restart and then install Service Pack 3 with no security software enabled. I then want to re-enable them to start up as normal after installing Service Pack 3. However, they do not have options for doing this. Disabling them in msconfig does not work either. Can you tell me a way to do this safely without crashing Spyware Doctor, Threatfire, or my Operating System, and without reinstalling these programs? Just disabling OnGuard doesn't seem to help either. I need to boot with them not running at all. Thank you.

[consoleman]

There shouldn't be problem with SD itself, try disabling threatfire.

[Reodor]

I would have booted up in safe mode with networking, downloaded and installed SP 3 from there. Keeps all other apps off from running and creating a havoc.
It might depend a bit on Your systm specs?

[mynameispants]

Is it 'safe' to install SP3 in safe mode? I thought that in safe mode, certain registry items might not update correctly or something to that effect.

I would still like to find a way to disable Spyware Doctor and Threatfire on my next boot up, then install what I need to install, and reset the programs to start again on the subsequent boot up. Disabling the OnGuard and OnAccess scans, or telling the programs to shut down immediately (while I am still in Windows) does not work - at least it does not work for me.

The only solutions are to either uninstall them (which I really, really don't want to do), or boot up with absolutely none of their processes running.

[Reodor]

If You have trouble in shutting down SD and TF, un-install them both while installing SP3. Then re-install. If the reason or shut-down problems are lack of resources, go into Task manager and shut down all irrelevant running processes before shutting down. Remember You have to re-boot the comp for SD to be completely shut down.