They said it has go out to the manufacture, and will be available on 29th for people to download, then suddenly another delay.

like an airplane that always delay

I don't know what's going on at Microsoft these days but they haven't managed to get anything right lately. SP1 for Vista was released and then pulled back because it messed up some users' systems.

Greed again from one of the nation's greediest cartoons.
Unable to be patient in developing "products" the plan must be to continue loading folks computers with their "hotfix" "Sevice Packs" etc crap until the lack of memory forces one to a new computer. Well it won't be a Windows product I can promise.
Bill Gates, wimpy, greedy, controlling pig.

When ever I see something from Microsoft that says something along the lines of "In order to make sure customers have the best possible experience", I can't help thinking that Microsoft is mainly interested in it's own experience.

If Microsoft were handing out free bank notes I would wonder what the catch was.

Or am I just getting cynical in my old age.

This is not good.
Microsoft needs to test this stuff

So microsoft are late with another update. What's the fuss? You all complain when they deliver late, when they deliver too early, when they deliver at all. If it wasn't for microsoft we would all be strugling to get anything done with Linux or waiting for hours while our Mac's show us a pretty pinwheel. Don't go defending Mac's to me, I have one which I have to use for work and I absolutely hate it, I also find that anyone who I come into contact with who "just has to use a Mac" or "loves their Mac" has no clue of what to do with it other than admire it's supposed beautiful deisgn. I read a quote from Steve Jobs the other day which read that the people at Microsoft have no taste. Well I'm sure that having what Mr Jobsmight consider good taste does not indicate a predisposition to good coding. Just think for a second - My Windows XP machine crashes about once a year - Yet a Mac (which has hardware that is not going to change) crashes once a month. It's amazing that Windows works at all given the huge variance in the Hardware that we throw at it.

Service Pack 3 itself is finalized and will not be revised. The Microsoft Dynamics RMS software will be patched. So this will only affect Dynamics RMS customers.

Paul Thurrott has a little more info:

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/04/29/windows-xp-service-pack-3-release-to-web-rtw-delayed.aspx

As Paul notes, "Windows XP SP3 is still available for download via a direct link if you want it." (included the link below).

http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/software/svpk/2008/04/windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu_c81472f7eeea2eca421e116cd4c03e2300ebfde4.exe

I installed it earlier without incident.

As a cynic, I note that mikrosoft wants everybody to buy vista. Wouldn't do to have xp working too good, would it?

Then again there is a fine line, isn't there? Wouldn't it working too bad. Might be an ongoing process...

Thanks again, Brian, for the update. I really appreciate your timely columns & advice - if only you'd publish them everyday!

As for PC vs. MAC, I just got my first Mac (a MacBook), after a computing life time with non-Macs - it's great so far. I see what all the fuss is about but don't know that I'll leave PCs behind forever.

Nonetheless, you do have to keep a perspective on these things. Sometimes, it's a wonder to me that computers work at all, particularly with all the devices we expect them to run as well. For instance, we began computer ownership 24 years ago with the purchase of a KayPro -- anyone else here remember those "lungfish" of a machine?! At the time, it cost us nearly $1700 and about all it did was word processing & some simple math/stats work. This seemed like a miracle to us, though, since we had grown up in the typewriter age. IIRC, it was also supposed to be the "portable" model, meaning you could carry it (all 25+) pounds from one location to another.

Yep, things have changed and -- MS updates or not -- for the better!

I got SP3 RTM through Paul Thurrott's link earlier today. I integrated the files into an SP2 CD-build folder, and used Nero to create a bootable SP3 build CD... with a precisely-written winnt.sif answer file tucked in the i386 folder. This provides an unattended format/copy/build sequence, subsequently registering the machines to:
--Barack Hussein Obama--
--President of the United States--

All the drivers and applications are up & running OK. (Including the HD Audio components was a big help).

Bottom line: Building machines with SP3 will greatly reduce the time spent updating them before deployment.

why isnt there a date on this article. Isnt that a basic requirement of any journalism?

To the anonymous poster who asked about the date and timestamp, see just below the end of the text for this post. It reads:

By Brian Krebs | April 29, 2008; 5:43 PM ET

Everything Microsoft has released recently in this past year has experienced failures.

Vista DRM, then SP1 with endless reboots, etc...KB937287

WHS with a proven data corruption design flaw that was reported last year and continues to be without any resolution. KB 946676, which is still being sold to the public.

Windows Home Server, skips RTM into SP1, etc..

Office 2007 with SP1 (455 bugs) that has fundamental design flaws, such as compatibility issues, in core applications, that doesn't even work with it prior earlier versions...

The question is does anything work right with Microsoft software? And why are customers paying for buggy code, that's sold as crippleware and vaporware?

Sorry, but for a multi-billion dollar corporation end users really do expect higher standards that this, especially when FREE solutions are doing a better job, like open source code projects, such as Linux for one example.

Correction, Windows 2008 Server, skips RTM into SP1, etc...

I'm not realy happy with microsoft either but hey, i would rather use it than linux or OSX on Mac, i know we all hate to say this but we all love to hate windows, yet for some stupid reason we are all still coming back to buy it. I know its a pain but it has better help than linux and its just better than Mac's, cause if you buy a Mac you load windows on anyway!

Brian,

I'm going to wait until after you (and others)post about their experience with SP3.

I'm especially curious about changes in the "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification" system.

It ticks me off that Microsoft has been so invasive of my rights in order to protect theirs.

I'd also be very interested in information regarding how Microsoft will handle "validation" of XP once they officially stop supporting it.

Thanks for all your work - it's truly a service to have you on the job. Whatever you are making, you deserve a raise.

Hey Brian,
Please put the date time group at the top of the article where your by line is.

Thanks for the reporting.

@Vince

You say "Don't go defending Mac's to me"

Well how about this one, Don't start cry about macs to me and tell me much you hate it and how every body uses it because it's pretty. Trolling is UNWELCOME

There's Polish full version of SP3 avalible since yesterday from polish microsoft website:)

As for MS and, for Bill Gates, I believe there's no comparable career the 20th century can witness! Gates proved not to be an excellent coder nor a person deeply dedicated to service, assistance or improvement. MS solutions aren't the brightest, not to stress that they aren't the cheapest. As by the fortune of Bill's early ride on the back of a very powerful horse by the name of IBM, he's been extremely smart about how to hook people to his patially mediocre solutions just by hiding interface specs, selling aggressively and defining "standards" -- or at least claiming them.

MS have learned another important lesson: Listen to the open source! They're putting out major parts of their dev tools for free, goods they would definitely have preferred to make money on. Rest assured, they're being smart again. And, to the wealth of the open source scene, the dev packs today are pretty ripe ones -- they've been around for long enough.

Let's hope the open source gains a vital foothold and let's hope that code patents are made to be merely a footnote.

I have Msdn subscription and I got it on 23rd of April. Its full n Final Release

I also uploaded it @ my hosting www.rjahmad.com/winxpsp3

@JoeSchmoe
My apologies if I offended. It is just my experience that people I've come across who use Macintosh computers and OS generally use the 'pretty' card as a basis for using the systems. These are also the same people I have to spend time 'talking through' how to do things on their Macs. At the end of the day all we can comment on is our experience, no?

"Well how about this one, Don't start cry about macs to me and tell me much you hate it and how every body uses it because it's pretty. Trolling is UNWELCOME"

Me, offended, because someone doesn't like macs, could care less. I just didn't understand as Krebs post is about Windows yet your telling us how you hate macs. I guess everyone has an opinion about mac weather its being talked about OR NOT

"I'm not realy happy with microsoft either but hey, i would rather use it than linux or OSX on Mac"

Why ?

"i know we all hate to say this but we all love to hate windows, yet for some stupid reason we are all still coming back to buy it."

Who is this "we all" ? I've been happily using Kubuntu GNU/Linux since 2005.

"I know its a pain but it has better help than linux and its just better than Mac's,"

Nah, thats basically just rubbish. There's plenty of help available, and less problems in the first place.

It's rather pathetic that every post about Microsoft always seems to turn into a bash fest or platform war.

Why Sun does not release OS under Intel?

enough to have one master

I downloaded and installed Windows XP Service pack 3 RC 2 and it borked my XP system good. I could not even boot my computer it went into an endless start up and reboot loop. I finally had to use system restore to restore my system to a point before I loaded it for it to work. I don't think I will install Service pack 3 before I set a good System Restore point first! I can see it now doing the same thing that RC2 did.

Regardless of whether you have a Mac or PC most compatibility problems come from failure to keep the computer clean with Registry Cleaners, De-frags, temporary file cleaning, cookie cleaning, and a top notch security system like Norton, One Care, Zone Alarm, McAfee, etc.
Having cheap hardware with unsigned lousy drivers all over the disk does not help either.
If you drop a pearl into a pile of manure, some of it will cling to the pearl.
It is not the pearl's fault.
Clean the machine then install the Service Pack.

"Clean the machine then install the Service Pack"

I'm reminded of the old 7 P's, Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

I installed the service pack 3 days ago (per my previous post) and have not had a problem since.

I completely agree that keeping your system "clean" prevents many issues from arising. It also helps to minimize the software installed on a system, keep device drivers current, and perform regular maintenance.

In using this practice for years, my systems run lean and mean and are highly stable and reliable.

I look at it like car maintenance. Either learn how to do it yourself (which really isn't difficult with computers) or take it to a professional.

This is a good starting point regarding installing SP3:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsxp/cc164204.aspx

or for more help see this forum

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17

Have you seen this:
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9932279-56.html?tag=nl.e703

FYI. Update...

I rebuilt my system from scratch using SP3 along with the limited set of software I typically use. The system is unusually more responsive than pre-SP3 considering the operating system hasn't had a whole lot of time to self optimize yet, something Windows XP does while idle, and which is helped along by running disk defrag often the first few days (bi-weekly there after).

It was also quite pleasant to visit Microsoft Update to find only a few critical updates to install.

I've heard others say that installing SP3 regardless of a rebuild increased system performance. Add a clean rebuild and the result is even better! Who needs Vista? ;P

I've been using Windows XP since the beta days, and unlike some others, it has actually treated me well. I'm actually happy with my Windows XP - when it does crash, it's usually either because of poor drivers/maintenance, or PEBKAC. All it takes is a few basic steps that have been mentioned already. :)

Regardless of when XP SP3 is released, you should not be in a rush to install it. For more see my CNET blog
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13554_1-9929300-33.html

Windows XP service pack 3, SUCKS! Our computers were running perfectly on XPSP2, my husband I and I downloaded and installed SP3 and BOTH of our systems CRASHED, DUMPED to where they were not even bootable.
We BOTH had to reformat and reinstall Windows XP. What a WASTE of time and the DAMAGE??? OUCH

No we have no idea what in SP3 did this, but we have 6 computers in the house, and THANK GOODNESS we only tried it on these 2 computers. Too bad we did not try it on a backup computer instead of our main systems. How dumb were we? All I had read were GOOD results. Not for us! We both have huge hard drives, Pentium 4, 3.75 GHZ and 2 meg of ram the best of everything, and up to date.

DOWNLOAD IT ONLY IF YOU ARE BRAVE!

As for what the guy said about a clean machine/install os and then install this, no go. I did a destructive system restore on my HP PC. It formated and reinstalled my OS and then I tried this SP3 and it put my PC in a rebooting loop. it tries to load XP but goes to a blue screen then reboots itself indefinately. My PC is a dual core system so it's not due to it being old.

SP 3 ruined my perfectly good SP 2 machine. It won't boot up at all. I took it to a shop and will wind up spending hundreds of dollars. They are going to try to recover my data but may not be able to restore it to it's previous configuration.

Don't take the chance.

I was forced to do a system restore after installing Windows XP service pack 3.

I tried again, this time turning off all programs including firewall, anti-virus, etc.

Same problem occurred.

I'm not a happy camper.

Eric Klien
http://lifeboat.com

I downloaded and installed SP3 after being notified of its existence via XP's update process. After executing the requisite "restart to complete installation," my Dell XPS failed to boot. I received a fairly specific file corruption message that informed me I could attempt to "recover." Additional attempts to boot the machine resulted in the same message.

After changing the boot drive sequence in the BIOS, I was able to get to the "Recovery Console" using my more than 2 year old XP operating system CD. I don't exactly know how I did it (not a power user), but I executed the recover option and eventually invoked "fixboot." I don't even know what "fixboot" is, but it sounded like a likely fix. I then rebooted and, lucky me, the PC completed the boot cycle and got me the windows desktop.

The properties of "My Computer" show "Service Pack 3." I think my PC's recovery was successful, but it's going to take me a while before I'm confidnet my set-up is stable. While I'm glad I didn't have to reinstall XP from my old CD (and software, etc.), the whole processes of downloading and installing SP3 and then having to "sweat" a recovery was very unsettling.

Had to do a recovery today and went to download Sp2 but got Sp3, thought, oh good something better, big mistake. Only way to load is in safe mode. "Me thinks somebody in Microsoft screwed up".

I loaded SP3 on two machines, a system I use as a file server, and my primary - it took just fine on the file server, no problems at all, but - on my main system things didn't go so well. I did create a restore point prior to installing, and I also backed up all important files prior to installation, so I was able to boot into safe mode and run system restore to get back to SP2. My guess is that if you have any modded core files on your system, that's what causes the crash.

Well...

I am considering not installing SP3 onto my machine. Yet.

I recomend before installing SP3 that you back-up anythign important.

I installed SP3 on one machine and have had no problems.

I'm still sniffing around the message boards to see how things are going for others before I do the other machines.

I loaded service pack 3 on may 12th 2008 on two of my HP AMD computers which ran fine previously. Both crashed the hard drive. You could not reboot and fix it in the safe mode as described by microsoft. I ended up paying a computer company $200 to wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows on both computers. Thanks microsoft.

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