The ‘preliminary’ due date for the next collection of fixes and patches for Microsoft’s desktop operating system is as more than a year later than many company watchers were expecting. Microsoft has gone public with a tentative date for its third service pack for Windows XP. And that date – the latter half of 2007 – is considerably later than many company watchers were expecting.
… the baby with the bath, obviously … despite Vista on the horizon.
This seems to indicate that Microsoft will be supporting/patching/updating Windows XP for many years to come.
So, next time when you do a fresh install of WinXP SP2, there will be 40 or 50 something patches and updates waiting for you in Windows Update. :/
Edited 2006-01-17 14:49
You may integrate hotfixes into your Windows Setup as well.
And there is a great way to do it – RyanVM’s Windows XP Post-SP2 Update Pack:
http://ryanvm.msfn.org
You may also use nLite to integrate service packs and hotfixes (roll ups, etc…) into a unified Windows installation.
Tell me about it. Last night I did a fairly standard install of Fedora Core 4 (tweaked the dev workstation install a little) and upon running yum -y update I was presented with 300+ packages that needed updating for a whopping total of 809 megs. This brought my total install time to around 3 hours. :/
//…did a fairly standard install of Fedora Core 4 (tweaked the dev workstation install a little) and upon running yum -y update I was presented with 300+ packages that needed updating …//
I ran into the same thing last week. We need to face the fact that nearly all OS’s need constant updating, and the older the original insall, the longer it will take.
SP3 won’t just be bug fixes, as Microsoft release those anyway.
=> SP3 must contain new features
But Microsoft wouldn’t release new features for an old operating system if they were trying to market a new one
=> Vista must be released after SP3
=> Vista will be released after 2nd half of 2007
=> Vista will be released 2008 at the earliest
They would if they needed to get developers to make software for the new operating system… Why would developers make Vista only software using the new features if it forced them to alienate all the XP users… So SP3 will probably contain the compatibility stuff that has already been mentioned elsewhere.
I’ve used it for a while now, just grab the latests and in one shot your up to date on patches, including some hotfixes and what not that don’t hit Windows Update
http://www.autopatcher.com/
A Neowin Sponsored project.
Just think of the Bandwith usage if you’ve got several hundred PCs needing patching and you use Windows Update? And how many resets?
Why the need for all these 3rd Party Patch complilations?
Microsoft you’re letting us down..
Thats why you would use Windows Server Update Services in such an environment, to manage how, when and which updates are applied to machines.
I have no idea why Mr. Dee was modded down. WSUS is THE way to manage a set of computers of that size. If you’re not using WSUS you’re just not doing it right.
Even with my RHEL servers I NFS mount the up2date spool directory and set the config options to save all downloaded files, it works great. Only one machine will ever download an update and then the rest will have it. Saves a lot of time when installing a new machine and then installing updates.
Agreed mym6 – WSUS is a must – even for a “small” environment (~10 servers, ~50 workstations)
if I rememer correctly, WinXP sp3 will contain some new stuff from vista possibly IE7, thats why the wait..
-Nex6
IE7 will be released this year, before Vista RTM.
I too use RyanVM’s update packs (although I tend to use them with nLite and XPize as well instead of RyanVM’s own updater) and accordingly I’m looking forward to XPSP3 as a way to cut down on the inevitable updates needed when I hit Windows Update. I’m also interested in playing with whatever new features we’ll see ported back from Vista. That said I’m not too comfortable with the idea of doing such a major overhaul on a system when Microsoft has a new release on the horizion.
Does anyone else recall the ‘fun’ we had prior to the release of Windows 98FE when Microsoft released their ‘Shell Update’ for Windows 95 as a part of IE4? I wonder how many problems will be introduced by these new features with Microsoft’s idea of support being to upgrade to Vista?
That’s assuming that we’ll actually get to see a SP3 for XP; I recall all the talk there was over SP5 for Windows 2000 and all we got was this buggy roolup pack that Microsoft admitted to not having tested properly.
–bornagainpenguin
PS: I do know about the unofficial SP5 for Windows 2000, but we’re talking about Microsoft’s promises of there being an official service pack for Windows XP and their track record with doing same.
I have my doubts that SP3 will ever see the light of day. We can’t forget what happened to NT 4.0 SP7 and Windows 2000 SP5. Microsoft promised, and then Microsoft changed their minds. Perahps by putting off SP3 until after Vista ships, Microsoft is just setting us all up for another non-existent service pack?
They’ll probably just release a security roll-up and tell everyone to upgrade to Vista.
Actually WinNT 4.o SP7 does exist but only if you’re a member of NASA…
[ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/27/nt_4_0_sp7_available/ ]
–bornagainpenguin
Some one please explain why Windows needs so many service packs and so many bugs fixes?
SP1 + sp2 is over 300Mb + Windows update patches, SuSE comes nowhere near and it has tons more software.