Hi,

"Official RTM release" already available at the Major Geek pages:

http://majorgeeks.com/

Cheers for now.

Good find thanks. :ok:

No doubt it will follow the current trend of providing nothing at all of use to the average user, but concentrate on increasing the squeeze of their DRM.

Ha!

from the Microsoft Website (my bolding, Microsofts words):

Feckers!

Microsoft results hit by weak Windows sales

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1...9405244,00.htm


He said IF !?

Ballmer: Microsoft may keep XP if users demand it

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1...9405240,00.htm

- it needs everyone to DEMAND XP on new machines - then they may get the message. You will always have the 'upgrade option'.

You will find if you 'turn down' the Vista deal most companies will 'find a way'. Funny that - they need the sale!

I was talking to a chap from a smallish software company last week who, after the latest 'we're going to chop XP' date announcement from MS, got on the blower to Dell (who provide all their computer hardware) and sought some reassurance, in strongly worded terms, that they would continue to support XP (pre-installed on new hardware and support services).

He got the assurances that this would be forthcoming until at least 2010, as there's a huge amount of demand for it. Of course, this is for business clients but still, shows if you shout loud enough you get.

According to Ballmer MS are aiming to get Windows 7 (the Vista replacement) out the door by the end of 2009 now; I'm not surprised they wish to move on from this episode as soon as practical and am quite sure you'll be able to get XP until Windows 7 is bedded in - I suspect a large proportion of people upgrading to that version will be doing so directly from XP.

Polikarpov,

I think a lot of companies are looking to stay with XP for as long as they can, especially as the main driver is getting Office 2007 out there which XP will support.

XP SP3 is mainly aimed at getting XP ("Windows 5") & Vista ("Windows 6") systems to co-exist peacefully so that home & business users won't have the excuse against Vista to the effect it won't talk to legacy PCs with XP on them.

Personally I'm not holding my breath for Windows 7 - it is a major change for Windows and the early developer presentations that have whispered in hushed tones about the Windows 7 kernel (if you're intrested there is something useful on InfoQ, but under the guise of Windows virtualisation futures) but it's a long way from user ready.

Reading between the lines, Windows 7 is looking like an attempt to build an "all things for all men" release that could be made small enough to go on the new super-PDAs, yet big enough to cover the mega-gaming PCs. End 2009 looks very agressive for Windows 7 development to meet the necessary QA standards - I would like to be proved wrong here.

I would suggest that we keep watching MS Towers, there could be a play to use the new Windows 2008 kernel for a desktop release. Win 2008 is already starting to be packaged as we suspect Windows 7 will be, and it's not beyond the wit of man to suspect that MS might push for a desktop version (like they did with Windows 2000).

Ok I bit the bullet and downloaded SP3, it took 5mins to download and 10mins to install it and so far it has not caused any problems (I did make a restore point before install). I will let you all know if there are any problems that arise :ok:

Same here, except it took about 10min to download, 20 min to install. No problems at all so far, except that it is no longer an option to uninstall IE7, should you want to.
For those that want to retain the ability, uninstall IE7 before installing SP3.
I saved SP3 to a folder, installed from there, so if I ever have to reinstall Windows, I can just slipstream the service pack on to it, or at least install it following the reinstall.

In my case the install offer was an update between 66Mb and 332Mb. In the event it was 66Mb.

The setup took about 5-10 minutes but the install took nearer 40 with one item failed and one still to install before I had to go to work.

Now when they just upgraded the work machines to SP2 - yup, we got SP2 last week - we also got Java errors and a couple of other errors one of which pops up a Kernel32 error every few minutes :)

Wader did you download the SP as a program and then run it or did you allow the auto upgrade system to install it?

GG, I used the auto install routine. Although I got a file not installed message the only file I could find not installed was Framework 1.1. The system now reports XP SP3.

I found a 'strange' icon in my Control Panel, something to do with notecards, I didn't note the name or check it out. I also found two new folders in the Programs folder. Both empty and I have no recollection or recognition of them.

I will need to browse my backups pre-sp3 to see if they were there before the upgrade.

I know it says that if you are using a home computer allow the auto update to install SP3, but I think that's where most peoples problems arise from. I would suggest that downloading the file and then installing it is probably a safer option.

You may want to read this before installing XP SP3

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...boots_crashes/

Well, I certainly won't be installing SP3 on my main laptop until I've had a chance to check it first on the back-up!

Both Dells, so I hope that this AMD thing won't be a factor!

The AMD problem seems to stem from OEMs that have used their Intel XP images on their AMD machines.

This isn't the fault of Microsoft. It would work if the OEM used a separate image for their AMD machines, instead of being lazy and using one image for all.

Formerly working for an OEM myself, I'm all to aware of the problems a 'one size fits all' type of image can lead to.

That said, I've so far updated 5 custom built (by me) PC's with SP3, and all have been successful.

Are you saying, Hurn, that if my machine is an AMD based self-build with XP Pro installed by me from XP CDRom I should be OK?:eek:

Assuming you installed the correct drivers in the first place... :}

SD

Well, I have installed SP3 on my own AMD X2 3800+ system which was self built and had Windows installed from scratch and it worked just fine.
No problems whatsoever, so yes you should be ok.

However, with any major upgrade, you should always have your data backed up just in case.