Windows XP SP3 Final
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Over the weekend I decided to go ahead and try the final release of SP3 on my test machine to see how it worked. It is always exciting to try something new, especially when in the back of your mind you are thinking ‘I hope this works right’. Anyway, over at ZD-Net they have a link for the RTM version of SP3 for Windows XP, which is designed to update multiple versions of XP, if you need to do so.
There has been some discussion whether this is the full RTM version or not, but it seems that this issues has been finally put to rest. This does appear to be the final and ready to go. A word of caution. Microsoft has pulled this release since there were some issues with some of their other software, so be careful. You may wish to wait until SP3 is available through Windows update. But that is up to you.
The download was fairly quick running at over 300kbps. I then burned the file to CD and installed it on my test box. The install, with reboots and other standard stuff took about an hour. I really didn’t time it since I was doing other stuff while SP3 installed itself. The installation was a non event and my system booted up normally. I checked some of my apps and all seemed to work well.
Is there any performance increases using SP3? None that I could see. As most have previously reported, this is basically a roll up of all previous fixes and patches released my Microsoft over the past few years since SP2 was released. That’s about it. Nothing Earth shattering to write home about.
Caution: I would wait until Microsoft releases SP3 to the masses. Just my 2 cents.
ZD-Net site is here.
Comments welcome.
PS There is no official date as to when Microsoft will release SP3 to the masses. 
Tags: windows xp, sp3, download, install, upgrade, patches, fixes, cd, burn, disk, update
9 Comments
Doug
May 6th, 2008
at 7:41am
Judging my the paragraph that you wrote before the “Caution.” It sounds like you didn’t install it on a fresh setup of Windows XP SP2. Is that correct? Only curious because I will be putting it in an image which won’t be a brand new install and if it takes an hour to install, I’m not going to be happy.
Ron Schenone
May 6th, 2008
at 8:31am
Hello Doug,
Nope. It was an old copy of Windows XP SP2. What seemed to take a long time, at least on my system, was the ‘checking disk space’ message. This was on a 120G HD with about 90G free. At first I thought the install had stalled, but after a good 15 minutes, it started the install process.
Hope this helps.
Mike
May 6th, 2008
at 8:58am
I installed both the RC2 and Final (before they pulled it) and my home system (and system at work) is running without issues.
That said, I keep all of my personal and Corporate machines up-to-date so I’m sure the changes brought about by this SP are minor to us. Others who are lax in their updating may encounter issues but I would bet those would have been seen regardless whether they were delivered via a Service pack or as monthly updates.
Funny how M$ can release an entire OS that has so many issues and incompatibilities in apps that many of us use every day YET they will pull an SP because it affects some small, point-of-sale customer base? Makes no sense to me.
good luck if you apply it..I haven’t seen any issues nor noticeable performance boost so don’t get your hopes on that aspect.
Peace!
Jason
May 6th, 2008
at 3:30pm
Just thought i’d give a heads up. SP3 just popped up in the updates about 1/2 hour ago (6:00 pm EST)
Ron Schenone
May 6th, 2008
at 3:55pm
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the info.
Regards, Ron
Doug
May 6th, 2008
at 5:52pm
Check out my post at the URL below. I have links to the stand-alone download files. There are two different versions that can be downloaded. One is a standard EXE file and the other is an ISO image that seems to be similar to when Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 2 for free on CD.
http://www.lockergnome.com/dabrace1984/2008/05/06/windows-xp-service-pack-3/
Denny
May 7th, 2008
at 6:58am
It Just Popped Up On My UPDATE NOTIFICATION — 66Meg’s
…I Unchecked it…. I Have a Bad Feelin about the Poor Dial-Up people
……..That Have AUTO-UPDATE-ON
Usman Javed
May 14th, 2008
at 2:33am
windows xp sp3 feels more secure in my opinion but a slight performance decrease i mean it takes more boot up time than on sp2
Ron Schenone
May 14th, 2008
at 5:12am
Hi Usman,
Thanks for the comments.