Many times I was asked about Windows XP service pack 3 by other DW reader. Being Linux user I hardly ever needed any XP service pack for my machine. Anyway for those running Windows XP, new Service Pack is out there. This SP3 is release candidate and may not be stable but this means final version will be out soon (mostly early next year).
As Microsoft quoted, “Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission critical systems”. So install at your own risk!
The goals of Windows XP SP3 are to:
- Provide a new baseline for customers still deploying Windows XP, to help them avoid the inconvenience of applying individual updates.
- Fill gaps in the updates users might have missed by declining individual updates when using Automatic Updates, and to deliver updates not made available through Windows Update.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system (updates issued after release of SP2 i.e. year 2004), in addition to a small number of new features.
Most of these new features are borrowed from Windows Vista including feature called Network Access Protection (NAP) which automatically validates a computer’s “health,” ensuring that it’s free of bugs and viruses, before allowing it access to a network. So you can expect more secure computing!
Personally I liked ease of uninstallation. Yep unlike SP1 & SP2 you can uninstall SP3 from add/remove programs wizard!
Now some very bad news… SP3 is of 336.1 MB in size!
Link: Windows XP Service Pack 3
Recommended Reading: Download Full Microsoft .NET Framework3.5 Setup
10 Comments
I would recommend not to install the test version as it is highly unstable and you will often be bugged by the eroor reports and unexpected system exit. so better you wait for a stable version…
cya
@himanshu
Thanks himanshu for updates. 🙂
RC builds of any software should not be installed/used in production environment.
I installed SP3 a few weeks ago and completely ruined my main computer. I had to reformat the drive. I would encourage people to stay with SP2.
Hi now SP3 final release has been made available…
i have tested the v5512 and would say that it is good as i have already tried it and found that it is stable…
@Michael & Himanshu
I am using SP3 from few months on a machine and I never had any problem
In fact I am loving SP3 because of its stability.
Hey buddy im not able 2 visit microsoft site & not able 2 download any microsoft downloads such as net framework or service pack 3…
Firefox shows me ‘address not found’.
Wat shld i do????
Help me////////////////////
@Sup
Updated links in the post.
Thanks for bringing it to my notice.
@ sup if you cant access microsoft websites it means its a virus… Its a conflicker virus if I can remember..
I have a copy of Win XP SP 3 (316Mgb) But the one I found from MS site or partner site, and downloaded was a bigger file 342Mb + from memory (This did not work well at all?) Then the 336 Mb that following this link did not get you to be able to download. I did find it but it was problematic. The 316Mb installed OK with out a problem? Some things may have been removed from the smaller file size copy?
Thanks, i have found everything here which i need. Thank you very much.