First off, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion as to whether SP3 has been formally released yet, and near as I can tell it hasn’t.

As covered in ZDNet (“UPDATED – XP SP3 available for download from Microsoft“) the release appears to have been delayed, with Microsoft indiating they have “uncovered a compatibility issue between Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) and Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1).”

For now this means XP users will not be prompted to download and install SP3 through the automatic updates, nor is there a landing page for downloading the service pack from the Microsoft website.

That said, ZDNet blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has provided a direct link to a download file for SP3, saying:

“XP SP3 is now available for download from the Microsoft website. Note that this is a direct link to the executable file and contains no information about the download. If you are uncomfortable with such things, don’t download this update and wait for the update to be officially released.“

I’ve decided to take the plunge and experiment with the installation, however as a precaution I’ve opted to start with the virtual instance of XP I’ve got running on my MacBook. That way if something explodes (figuratively, not literally) I can restore the snapshot of XP SP2 without losing anything.

I’m happy to report that everything has gone according to plan so far; however as I said, at least on the surface there are no major new feature additions to be seen anywhere. Almost certainly these are being saved for Vista.

As stated by Microsoft in a whitepaper titled simply “Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3“, SP3 is seen as a new baseline for XP users, which:

“…includes previously released Windows XP updates, including security updates and hotfixes. It also includes select out-of-band releases, and a small number of new enhancements, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system.”

Notably the document refers to XP as “nearing its end-of-sales period”, perhaps pointing to the logic behind why few new features have been included in the release.

Interestingly, Internet Explorer version 7 is NOT included in SP3.

References:

• “UPDATED – XP SP3 available for download from Microsoft“, ZDNet, 29 April 2008
• “XP SP3 performance gains – Nothing to write home about“, ZDNet, 24 April 2008
• “Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3“, Microsoft, 1 April 2008