March 26th, 2008
Windows XP SP3: No, Really, It’s Not Ready
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Rumor was that Microsoft was set to release Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) this week, but that’s obviously not going to happen. Tuesday Microsoft announced another refresh of the software, a Release Candidate 2 (RC2) refresh (what, not RC3?).
As before, you have to use an application to enable Windows Update to “see” your PC as a valid machine to install SP3 on.
While SP3 isn’t ready yet, it has to be very close, as the post on Technet announcing the refresh said:
Beyond fixes for common Windows Update issues and the inclusion of support for HD Audio, there are no substantial differences between this beta release (build 5508) and XP SP3 RC2 (build 3311).
Plenty of users will be happy about the HDA support, as that wasn’t working before, but the release of a refresh means a new test cycle will start. Microsoft still says SP3 will release in the first half of this year, however.
LZW says:
We XP users have come except that we are the lowest priority on the microsoft update schedule.
After SP2, we waited a couple years and even seen many hotfixes labeled as pre-sp3 but realized they must be busy working on vista… Vista came and went but we still did not get our long awaited SP3! Now we hear we just have to wait for vista-sp1 and xp-sp3 will surely follow.
Well, vista SP1 is here!!!! Isn’t it???
Anyone notice that all of these years since xp-sp2, we could not get sp3 because they were busy with vista yet some how they managed to roll out an entire new windows server 2008 during that busy vista time?
If you use XP like me, welcome to the bottom of the totem pole…
March 26th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
John Corliss says:
It’s my intention that when the final really-for-real release of XP SP3 comes out, I will back up my data and then fdisk my hard drive, format it and then do a fresh install of Windows, my drivers and my programs. Then I’ll install SP3.
Why mess around and run the risk of problems?
Just M2CW.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Skot says:
You all bitch and moan about SP3 taking so long but look at what happened with a rushed SP2? You all pissed and moaned about its horrendous hive of bugs. Maybe MS just does not want to repeat that?
March 27th, 2008 at 8:17 am
m4ko says:
Erm.. guys.. SP3 adds only minor funcitons. Its just all Hotfixes together in 1 package. You were waiting for that? You are angry that SP1 of Vista came first? Do you love Hotfix-Collections so much???
March 28th, 2008 at 4:30 am
I Hate Morons! says:
Hey m4ko -
You’re full of crap - there is a HUGE performance increase after installing SP3 - obviously you haven’t installed it and tried it - but that didn’t stop you from foisting your uninformed opinion on us, did it???
Don’t get me wrong, I HATE M$, but this fixes a lot of OS infrastructure issues that really should have been fixed BEFORE it was released in the first place, but hen again, that is not M$ business Modus Operandi, is it???
April 10th, 2008 at 7:15 pm