Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 22 April 2008 07:58
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
On the cusp of Microsoft’s decision to demote Windows XP from a retail
product into one that is only available for ultra-low cost PCs, the
long-awaited Service Pack 3 (SP3) has finally gone RTM, with consumers
able to start manually downloading it from April 29. Will horror installation stories follow?
The news that XP SP3 has finally gone to RTM has reverberated across the web, fuelling the campaign that wants to Save XP, with XP now set to become even better, more stable, more compatible, safer and more mature than ever.
XP SP3 was officially announced at Microsoft’s TechNet Forums in a
blog posting by Chris Keroack, Release Manager, Windows XP Service Pack 3 of the “Windows Serviceability” division.
Keroack said in his blog post that: “Today we are happy to announce that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) has released to manufacturing (RTM). Windows XP SP3 bits are now working their way through our manufacturing channels to be available to OEM and Enterprise customers.”
In terms of availability, Keroack says that Microsoft is in “the final stages of preparing for release to the web (i.e. you!) on April 29th, via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center.”
This presumably means the update will be available for any Windows XP Home, Professional and Media Center that chooses to manually install it, but slightly unhelpfully, the blog post does not make this clear. However Keroack does say that “For customers who use Windows XP at home, Windows XP SP3 Automatic Update distribution for users at home will begin in [the] early [Northern Hemisphere] summer.”
In the blog’s comments section, a commenter by the name of ArnehK asks if SP3 for “XP Embedded and Windows Fundamentals also be available on April 29th or will they be available at a later date?”, Microsoft’s Chris Keroack replies that “XP Embedded and Windows Fundamentals will be available at a later date.”
So, what odd thing has Microsoft done to MSDN and TechNet users this time? And will Microsoft dare to chop XP sales off at the knees, especially now that XP’s latest and greatest update, SP3, is now RTM at last? Please read onto page 2.
