Yes I understand that XP SP3 has been available as a release candidate download for some time now, but.. I’ve been wondering when Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be appearing as an auto-download in Windows Update.

After conducting some research, here are the dates everything should happen:

April 21, 2008: OEM, Volume License, Connect, and MSDN and TechNet subscribers. (Yes, that’s today.)

April 29, 2008: Manual Update via windowsupdate.microsoft.com (and Microsoft Download Center).

June 10, 2008: Automatic Update (Windows Update)

The June 10 2008 auto-update is the one I’m most concerned with.

Typically speaking, Microsoft’s download servers get absolutely slammed the day anything major is released like a service pack. However I’ve noticed over the years their deployment systems have “smartened” up enough where the auto-updates are sent out in “waves” rather than all at once.

If you’re like me you’ll probably wait until the auto-update release (because honestly speaking there’s really no rush to get this). It will be a big honkin’ download and it will take time.

Also, this is the last service pack for XP. After the end of June ‘08, that’s it for this OS. Granted, you’ll still be able to use it for a few years but this is the “last hurrah” so to speak.