Windows XP SP3 details revealed

[overlord.gaurav]

Microsoft's Windows Vista predecessor, Windows XP, last week saw the release of Service Pack 3 (SP3) beta for a select group of testers. The latest SP3 beta is labelled as build 3205 and is a rather small 334.92 MB download which, according to NeoSmart, contains 1,073 hotfixes and patches along with new features and components, most of which have been backported from Windows Vista.

The enhancements include a new activation scheme that will not require a product key during installation and a network access protection module first featured in Windows Vista. Other new features include improved support for cryptographic algorithms and a Black Hole Router detection algorithm.

Slated to be released early in 2008, Windows XP SP3 will be the last major update to the six-year-old operating system, which last month received a five month reprieve when Microsoft pushed back the end of retail sales and sales of XP-powered systems by large resellers to June 30, 2008.


PS: Just another patch, will be cracked within a day again, I guess!
Don't they get tired of making patches?? :lolflag:

[Paqman]

Yeah, it looks to be a lot less hefty than SP2. Looks like we've seen pretty much all we're going to get out of XP.

Time to put the old warhorse out to pasture after this last tweak eh?

[vishzilla]

Whoa! I feel xp is good where it is, backporting some vista features may hamper xp. and over 1000 hotfixes, OMG!

[the.dark.lord]

I thought MS would dump all XP related activity to promote Vista...

[karellen]

probably they release sp3 as a consequence of vista's poor market performance. squeeze out from xp as much as they can...

[Paqman]

I thought MS would dump all XP related activity to promote Vista...


XP has always been scheduled to be supported for a good few years yet.

I've got an XP install I use for gaming. I hope i'll be able to hang to it for as long as practical. I don't really relish the idea of forking out for Vista or Windows 7, although it'll probably be necessary eventually.

[kulturloseramerikaner]

I'd like to see 'em backport DX10, but I know they won't. After taking away the pretty GUI improvements that's about the only thing Vista has going for it.

[Paqman]

I dunno about that. User Access Control might improve the security situation.

That's if they don't all turn it off, of course ](*,)

[ryanVickers]

I think a common misconception is that DX10 is only for Vista because it won't work with XP - wrong! I thought it was rather obvious that it would work just fine, they just added code to stop it to force vista on people!!! :mad:

[jbaerbock]

Personally I rather switch to Linux fulltime then go to Vista. I'm sorry but I can't rationaly buy a 2GB Ram computer just for vista sake. Heck I'm finaly getting this comp over the 1GB hump :D

[kulturloseramerikaner]

I dunno about that. User Access Control might improve the security situation.

That's if they don't all turn it off, of course ](*,)
The execution of UAC is horrendous, though; even as a root user, it pops up during maintenance and install tasks. How stupid is that? If you're already root, why does it stop you in the middle of a task and ask you for root privilege? Everyone that I know that uses Vista has turned UAC off for this reason. MS just wants to let themselves off the hook. If your system gets trashed by a malware application, they can point to the UAC popup and say that you didn't pay attention to the warning, it's your fault, and they can't be held liable for your system being botched. And, frankly, if you had Ubuntu popping up with a little balloon after you've sudo su'd for a session, you'd quickly shut the damn thing off too. I don't think UAC has done a thing improve security.

[kulturloseramerikaner]

I think a common misconception is that DX10 is only for Vista because it won't work with XP - wrong! I thought it was rather obvious that it would work just fine, they just added code to stop it to force vista on people!!! :mad:

EXACTLY my point. They COULD, they just WON'T.

[Imsati]

Personally I rather switch to Linux fulltime then go to Vista. I'm sorry but I can't rationaly buy a 2GB Ram computer just for vista sake. Heck I'm finaly getting this comp over the 1GB hump :D

Same here. I just went from 512 MB to 1024 MB about 3 months ago.

On topic, I'm curious as to what 'fallout' there will be with SP3. I recall that after installing SP2, lots of random software stopped playing nice with XP. Sure, steps were taken by all parties involved and it was quickly fixed, but still an inconvenience until things were back to normal.

[Erdaron]

Same here. I just went from 512 MB to 1024 MB about 3 months ago.

On topic, I'm curious as to what 'fallout' there will be with SP3. I recall that after installing SP2, lots of random software stopped playing nice with XP. Sure, steps were taken by all parties involved and it was quickly fixed, but still an inconvenience until things were back to normal.

That's why I waited for several months to upgrade to SP2. I knew their release would inevitably screw something up and they'd have to fix the fix.

[nvteighen]

Just hope that people that dual-boot any GNU/Linux distro don't see their MBR rewritten or whatever after upgrading to XP SP3. We can expect anything from MS, including such kind of nasty sabotages.

[Depressed Man]

The execution of UAC is horrendous, though; even as a root user, it pops up during maintenance and install tasks. How stupid is that? If you're already root, why does it stop you in the middle of a task and ask you for root privilege? Everyone that I know that uses Vista has turned UAC off for this reason. MS just wants to let themselves off the hook. If your system gets trashed by a malware application, they can point to the UAC popup and say that you didn't pay attention to the warning, it's your fault, and they can't be held liable for your system being botched. And, frankly, if you had Ubuntu popping up with a little balloon after you've sudo su'd for a session, you'd quickly shut the damn thing off too. I don't think UAC has done a thing improve security.

UAC for the default Vista admin account isn't really root. Root is the stealthed deactivated admin account in Vista that's like XP's admin (you can re-enable it).

[ryanVickers]

Just hope that people that dual-boot any GNU/Linux distro don't see their MBR rewritten or whatever after upgrading to XP SP3. We can expect anything from MS, including such kind of nasty sabotages.

I wouldn't doubt it, which is why everyone needs a copy of this! ;) (http://www.mediafire.com/?dv4bdnx3xl8)

[SonicSteve]

Yeah, it looks to be a lot less hefty than SP2. Looks like we've seen pretty much all we're going to get out of XP.

Time to put the old warhorse out to pasture after this last tweak eh?

I don't understand what you mean about being less hefty than SP2. At least in size it's nearly 50% larger.
SP2 was 266mb in size
SP3 is 340mb?

[kulturloseramerikaner]

UAC for the default Vista admin account isn't really root. Root is the stealthed deactivated admin account in Vista that's like XP's admin (you can re-enable it).

I heard that there was something along the lines of a "super-root" user in Vista, and that was the one that could do anything; I was under the impression that the default accounts were administrator.
Oh well, I still won't use it, and it still doesn't justify how poorly implemented the UAC thing is!

[Depressed Man]

Yes, that's the XP admin like account. It's what I use in Vista since I don't like the UAC and I know what I'm doing when it comes to Windows operating systems. (plus UAC really gets in the way of tweaking).

The default accounts are admins, but they're limited admins. Not the all powerful one.

[Oldsoldier2003]

Closed this thread and split the last two posts into a new thread. No need to revive this long dead thread.