In a Christmas surprise, Microsoft have just unveiled the release candidate of XP SP3.
This may come as a surprise to many considering everyone thought that Microsoft were now concentrating on Vista instead and would only be releasing security patches and hotfixes for XP. It just shows how big the XP userbase is and how few have migrated to Vista so far.
The release candidate is available for everyone, but weighs in at about 336MB, and is available from the XP download centre,
here. Although the final version that will be available next year (in the spring) through Windows Update and is rumoured to be a much smaller 70MB download.
If you are interested in seeing what is included within XP SP3 then have a look
here. The PDF outlines included existing features from existing updates, as well as new features added.
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Me too. I' not going to be updating to SP3 even when it's officially released next year.
Now, had they done the decent thing and bunged DirectX10 into the mix then that would have been a whole different matter! But then what would anyone have bought Vista for? Exactly! The only reason to buy it is for DX10 support. It doesn't matter how many shiny windows and bells and whistles you bold onto the OS. For most things XP is still just as good.
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Yes it will. According to the info it will work in the same way as SP2. It won't ask you for a product key to download or install SP3, but once installed it will then pester you with the very annoying Genuine Windows Advantage messages and taskbar icon.
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