Paul Thurott has written up an FAQ on the last service pack that will be released for Windows XP. A few of the basics:
- Indeed, SP3 will be the last service pack for XP.
- It can be installed even if you hadn’t installed prior service packs.
- It took this long to release SP3 mainly because Vista was on everybody’s mind.
- New features: Network Access Protection (NAP) support, product key-less install option, a new kernel module for several different cryptographic algorithms, “black hole router” detection (router that incorrectly reports their network path information).
- Release date of Windows XP SP3: second quarter of 2008, or three months after the release of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008.
And as Paul put it:
Nothing else new. There are updated applications, which shipped long ago as separate downloads, like Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11. And there are even some features that have been removed, like the taskbar-based Address Bar option.
Check out the FAQ for more info. Then after SP3, enjoy what you have with XP because that will be it.


David Risley is the founder of PCMech.com. He is the brains, the thinker, the writer, the nerd.



corwin155 said:
10/24/2007 7:11 pm
well having just done my sons pc pc winxp home sp2 there was 88+ updates so yeah im sure all winxp users need sp3
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