• February 21, 2008 •
Microsoft Releases Windows XP Service Pack 3, Release Candidate 2
By: Arie Slob
This week, the very latest build of Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP was made available to beta testers and the general public. Windows XP SP3 includes all previously released updates for the operating system. It also includes previously released updates to the latest versions of some system components, as well as functionality for improved compatibility with Windows Vista.
The script to enable the Windows XP SP3 RC2 download can be found at the Microsoft Download Center. The script sets a registry key on your system. This registry key is required for Windows Update to recognize your machine as a valid target for Windows XP Service Pack 3 RC2.
Versions of Windows XP Service Pack 3 prior to Release Candidate 2 should be removed before attempting to use the registry key. Windows Update will not offer Release Candidate 2 to machines with previous versions of the Windows XP Service Pack 3 beta.
It is recommended that you apply the resulting update package to an activated, genuine copy of Windows XP, in a test environment. As with any pre-release software, it is also recommended that you back up files and settings on your machine before applying this update package.
You can find the Release Notes for Windows XP SP3 on the Microsoft Download Center. More information can also be found on the Microsoft TechNet site.
Note: When testing I found that SP3 is only offered a fully updated SP2 install (i.e. after a clean install of XP SP2 there are still a huge number of updates to apply before SP3 was offered).
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