Following the announcement earlier this week that Vista Service Pack 1 had been shipped to manufacturing, Microsoft today confirmed that it seeded another build of Windows XP SP3 to a closed set of testers. “Yesterday, we released Windows XP SP3 RC 2 to private beta testers,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “This release catches the build up on previously released hot fixes and responds to critical feedback from previous betas.”
I mean reading from the article is it not a good thing that Microsoft is stepping up its quality and making sure that the SP1 for Vista when it gets released does not have any of the aforementioned driver related issues? One would think that it is better for the company releasing a fix make sure it all works than send it out in a hurry and then the end user will have to suffer through fixing all the problems. People sometimes do not make sense to me at all. Big deal you have to wait a month…in the mean time go out get some beers meet some girls and enjoy life! OS is not the end of the world!
I completly agree with you and just the fact the hardware drivers that were written crappy are on a certain type of machine from a certain vender
The users probaly wouldn’t have a clue how to manually reinstall them and blame Microsoft along with the press.
.. and MS’ response:
Customer Feedback:
My computer is not crashing anymore… I haven’t seen a BSOD since I used SP3.
MS’ response:
Oops! We must have f%&/ed up somewhere. There has to be a problem with our coding somewhere…. SP3 release delayed another 6 months.
😀
Edited 2008-02-10 17:32 UTC
I’ve been waiting a long time for SP3 I hope it comes out soon but I’m also curious about when its end of life is? Not sure I want to buy an OS that is only good for a year.
If worse comes to worse I’ll buy a ps3 for games and just go 100% Fedora for computing.
Your post puzzles me what do you game on now?
Good for one year with a possibility of new features added. Good until 2014 (maybe longer) with security updates. So I guess it depends on your value of XP.
Good idea about the console for games. Linux? Dumped that time waster yesterday but if your happy with it, meh.
What about Windows Server 2003, will there be a new service pack, too?
I tested SP2 which you generally get invited to the next build or SP when you test and I can tell you it has not come up yet but, I would imagine that they might start after Server 2008\XPSP3\VistaSP1 gets released out in the wild.
The computerworld article is a little confusing to me: “Microsoft ships new XP SP3 code to testers”
and then a sudden “seeded another build of Windows XP SP3 to a closed set of testers”
I don’t suppose that Microsoft will show its code even to a “closed set of testers” (“some 15,000”), unless the company wants to see it on the torrent trackers 😉
Edited 2008-02-10 20:29 UTC
Personally, I find it irritating that something like SP3 has to be tested at all. As I understand it, SP3 is essentially a collection of updates that have been available anyway for some time and thus have been used and tested extensively before. (Via Windows Update, c’t Offline Update or whatever.)
There shouldn’t be notable bugs anymore. Or have I missed something?
There was one or two new things included i read somewhere before.
There are more than just current updates rolled together. There are some new security features backported from Vista like blackhole router detection, the new product activation system from Vista, and of course they have to test and make sure all of the “rolled up” patches install properly and don’t break anything. I believe they also include a lot of patches that aren’t available on Windows Update (the kinds you would have to specifically request from them before now).
The reason why it needs to be tested is this lets start with RTM during the beta they wind up with a list up bugs most are fixed some are not this is kind of like a snapshot of the OS (It acts a certain way and all the known bugs are heavily documented so they can be planned around) then comes the security updates which are not as tested as much but are not meant to change the way the OS behaves under certain conditions. The Service Pack which is basically what you said a collection of updates which together as a whole change the way the OS behaves, which get tested, heavily documented and so on.
IT departments depend on this documentation when deploying or migrating their systems.
I seriously hope you were joking there. Imagine all the outcry if they released service packs without testing!
There are four minor features in this SP (not a huge update like SP2 was):
Network Access Protection compatibility.
Announced years ago, this feature allows Windows XP machines to interact with the NAP feature in Windows Server 2008. This functionality is built into the RTM version of Windows Vista as well.
Product Key-less install option.
As with Windows Vista, new XP with SP3 installs can proceed without entering a product key during Setup.
Kernel Mode Cryptographics Module.
A new kernel module that “encapsulates several different cryptographic algorithms,” according to Microsoft.
“Black hole” router detection algorithm.
XP gains the ability to ignore network routers that incorrectly drop certain kinds of network packets. This, too, is a feature of Windows Vista.
They are discussed in greater detail here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/7/687484ed-8174-496d-8db…
With MS’s track record, I’m surprised and dismayed you’d have this attitude. Not all the fixes in SP3 are available elsewhere at this time.
Check this out:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/7/687484ed-8174-496d-8db…
Well, if you’ve released any updates through WSUS, you’ll know that each time is a “hold your breath, and close your eyes” mouse-click. I’ve personally taken out a user32.dll error by releasing an update to a small group of compaqs. Turns out something in the update hosed the Realtek audio driver. MS had released a patch for it, that I found rather quickly, but it was nerve-racking to say the least.
I, for one, am glad that MS is doing some due-diligence by taking the time to make XP3 as bullet-proof as they can. Will make adoption much quicker/easier on my end as an admin.
Do we XP Professional x64 users get some SP3 love or do we have to wait for the 2003 Server SP3 release?
From what I gather, they will send all three of you a CD with the updates at a future date…
*claps hands with glee*
i don’t like wista.
http://emlak.ilkon.com/“>kredinin