Continuing on its promise, a part of Microsoft has been busy with Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. Although it might look to be little late but for those die hard XP fans this delay might be worth the wait considering the kind of features which SP 3 will bring to the good old Windows XP.

The Redmond company made SP3 beta (build 3205) available for download (via Microsoft Connect) for its 12000 testers, most of them being already involved in the test-driving of the development milestone of Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. However the number is considered to jump up considering the leak of Windows XP SP3 (build 3205) to torrent websites.

The information associated with the downloads points to the fact that the torrent delivers Windows XP SP3 Beta Build.5.1.2600.3205, 2007.9.1, KB936929. Additionally, the file offered via torrent trackers weighs in at 334.9 Mb, while the English language standalone installer for XP SP3 Beta Build 3205 is windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu.exe 334.92 MB.

Contrary to popular belief, Windows XP SP3 does ship with all-new features - not just patches and hot-fixes, most of them back-ported from Windows Vista:

• New Windows Product Activation model: no need to enter product key during setup. Thank God for that!
• Network Access Protection modules and policies have been brought to XP after being one of the more-well-received features in Windows Vista. You can read more about NAP here.
• New Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module - the Windows XP SP3 kernel now includes an entire module that provides easy access to multiple cryptographic algorithms and is available for use in kernel-mode drivers and services.
• New “Black Hole Router” detection - Windows XP SP3 can detect and protect against rogue routers that are discarding data.

Windows XP SP3 is compatible with all versions of Windows x86, included Embedded, Fundamentals, Start, Professional, Media Center, and Home Editions.

Windows XP SP3 now contains 1,073 patches/hot-fixes, not including those in previous service packs. Of the 1,073 included updates, 114 are for security-related issues. The remainder are updates to performance & reliability, bug-fixes, improvements to kernel-mode driver modules, and many BSOD fixes.

Vista has hit the shelves since January 30, 2007, but XP is not going down without a fight. Even in the context of the general availability of Windows Vista, Windows XP is making the mother of all comebacks driven by customer demand. Just a few days short of three months following the release of Vista, Dell has announced that it will bring back XP on home systems. Dell has made it clear that customer input is the catalyst for the XP revival on some of the consumer machines the manufacturer is shipping.

Microsoft officially continues to ship Windows XP to OEMs and via retail until February 2008, and to System Builders until February 2009, but companies such as Dell have jumped at the chance of pre-installing Windows Vista on their computers. In this context, Windows XP was left to fade in the background and to follow an artificially induced expiration process.

Still, the customers were not ready to lose the XP option and managed to convince Dell to bring it back. “Starting now, consumers can now purchase Windows XP or XP Pro on Dimension E520 and E521 desktops, and on Inspiron 1501, E1405, E1505, and E1705 notebooks,” Lionel Menchaca, Dell Digital Media Manager stated yesterday April 19, 2007.

According to data made available by Market Share by Net Applications Windows Vista has been slowly eroding XP’s share on the operating system market. XP is down to 83.57% in March 2007 from 85.02 in January. In the same period of time Windows Vista got a hold of over 2% of the market in just two months.

Source: softpedia

Despite consumer resistance to Vista, its compatibility problems, extra hardware requirements and high prices Microsoft has decided to stop the supply of Microsoft Windows XP by the end of this year.By early 2008, Microsoft’s contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. “The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January,” said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. “At that point, they’ll have no choice.”

In a recent post on its Direct2Dell blog, Dell reaffirmed to concerned customers that it wasn’t about to force small business users — who typically purchase PCs piecemeal, rather than in large enterprise-style orders — to shift to Vista, which has experienced a less-than-stellar reaction from many buyers because of driver issues and moderately beefy hardware requirements.

“Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that more time is needed to transition to a new operating system,” the post read in part. “The plan is to continue offering Windows XP on select Dimension and Inspiron systems until later this [northern] summer.”

“From a local perspective, the post was a reminder more than an announcement,” Dell ANZ corporate communications manager Paul McKeon told APC.

There’s general agreement amongst PC resellers that Vista has provided a minor boost to PC sales, but hasn’t produced blockbuster numbers. A similar story applies in the retail space. Figures from marketing consultancy GfK suggest that after an initial sales surge, around 1500 copies of Vista are now being sold through Australian retailers each week, according to a recent report in the AFR.

While Dell’s post suggested it wouldn’t be promoting Vista systems to the home market, manufacturers still have the option of selling RelXP-based systems for consumers this year.

Source: APC Magzine