Windows XP SP3 is coming

[WindyHillsVideo]

I just spotted this news story on Slashdot, details at the two links in the story...

Windows XP SP3 been released to manufacturing. (http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3214173&SiteID=17) It will be available to OEMs and enterprise customers on April 29. Here is a summary of features and changes (http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/7/687484ed-8174-496d-8db9-f02b40c12982/Overview%20of%20Windows%20XP%20Service%20Pack%203. pdf). The company will wait till "early summer" to enable SP3 downloads through Automatic Updates.

[ppatton]

I guess it's about time to turn off automatic updates again.

paul

[WindyHillsVideo]

FYI, the second link in the article is to a summary in a PDF file. According to the file, there is nothing much new in this service pack. It is mostly a roll-up of all the patches released for this OS. A super service pack bundle to allow the OEM's and folks still using this OS not to have to download all the cumulative patches from M$ to be it up-to-date.

I'm with you though, let's wait a while and see if there are in wrinkles in this new installer before we go and trash a perfectly good machine.:devil-smiley-076:

Michael

EDIT:

Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/382436/windows-xp-sp3-being-manufactured-available-for-release-on-april-29) has a link to the story too, great artwork as usual! :devil-smiley-076:

http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2008/04/american-gothic-microsoft.jpg

[Daniel Runyon]

I guess it's about time to turn off automatic updates again.

Nah, I've been running it for a while now and NOTHING has broken. It's no biggie... if you're already up to date then you've pretty much got it, but you can download a file that makes the release candidate show up in your Windows Update now. Google Windows release candidate and you'll find it.

[WindyHillsVideo]

An update on the story from Slashdot...

Microsoft Windows XP SP3, which had been scheduled to hit the Web today (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/21/2316212&tid=201), was pulled back at the last minute (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1368&tag=nl.e589). SP3 apparently broke a Microsoft application, Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. Their solution is to set up a filter to make sure that no system running the affected software will get automatically updated; once the filter is in place, SP3 will be released to the Web. A fix for the incompatibility will follow.

[RatVega]

I read a while back on ZDNet that XP with SP3 benchmarked twice as fast as Vista with SP1. The tests were done by a Florida PC software developer that needed to get a gauge on the difference, not someone with an agenda to support...