Microsoft has given its customers an early holiday present with the first release candidate (RC1) for Windows XP Service Pack 3. Windows XP SP3 RC1 is a pre-release intended for post-beta testing. It also puts to rest the speculation that Microsoft will or will not release a third service pack for Windows XP.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is currently scheduled for full release during the first quarter of 2008, at which time its contents will be fully described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 936929: Release Notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3. Until then, the official description resides in the PDF file Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3. An excellent alternate source of ongoing SP3 information is Paul Thurrott’s Windows XP Service Pack 3 FAQ.

Windows XP SP3 RC1 (Build 3244) is distributed as a single executable file, and is only made available to Microsoft Developer Network and TechNet subscribers. However, the SP3 RC1 installer has inevitably found its way on the to the file sharing networks and is freely downloadable. The genuine SP3 RC1 installation file has the following properties:

Name:	windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu.exe
Size:	336MB (352,395,816 bytes)
MD5 hash:	7A958DD2BB1F4D80867C8D16EED9707B
SHA-1 hash:	A2CA583DEDCD86837796111A632EFA29A23F4CC0

Always validate the file hash of any Windows updates that you download and install. You can get a Freeware file hashing program from 2BrightSparks.

What’s in Service Pack 3?

SP3 RC1 is fundamentally a major roll-up of all security updates and hotfixes created since Windows XP itself was first released in October 2001. SP3 installs the same as the previous service packs do. It can be slipstreamed into an installation of Windows XP the same as SP2 and does not require a product key to install. SP3 is therefore an enormous convenience for people that need to install and update Windows XP systems.

In addition to critical and high-priority updates, SP3 RC1 also includes updates that were formally optional in Windows Update, such as the MSXML 6 parser and Microsoft Management Console. I’ve personally had many customer support issues with software that I had written because a user’s Windows XP computer didn’t have one of these optional updates installed. SP3 will therefore prove to be not only a convenience to IT, but to customer support as well.

SP3 also contains a few new features that you probably won’t care about. These new features include extensions to the cryptographic services, black hole router detection, and a new Network Access Protection (NAP) policy platform the same as in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. If none of this excites you, join the 99.9% of other Windows XP users that feel the same way.

Performance is possibly an unexpected bonus to installing SP3. Reports from testing SP3 RC1 using OfficeBench indicate that a Windows XP computer with SP3 installed performs approximately 10 percent faster than the same computer with only SP2 installed–and also is noticeably faster than Windows Vista SP1. (OfficeBench emulates typical user-initiated operations in Microsoft Office applications.) Many people are skeptical of these results; I’ll have to make some serious use of Microsoft Office installed on a clean Windows XP SP3 machine to see for myself.

What’s not in Service Pack 3?

The biggest Windows feature missing from SP3 RC is Internet Explorer 7. Updates for IE7 are included in SP3, but not the installation for IE7 itself. IE7 is the default (and only) Web browser in Windows Vista, but is only an optional update for Windows XP. Excluding IE7 from XP SP3 seems to be a marketing rather than technical decision. If you want Internet Explorer 7 on your Windows XP computer, remember to install it before installing Service Pack 3.

SP3 is for 32-bit Windows XP only and not for x64 XP. The 64-bit release of XP is updated by the Windows Server 2003 service pack, that latest of which is SP2; there does not seem to be an SP3 yet on the horizon for x64 XP.

One of the major concerns I’ve been reading about on the Web is that SP3 will somehow install the DRM technology that is included in Windows Vista. However, no mention of DRM technology is found in any of the SP3 documentation. I also feel this is very unlikely, as Vista’s DRM required a major overhaul of the Windows kernel, which SP3 certainly cannot not perform on XP.

I have also read that SP3 RC1 does not contain all critical updates and hotfixes released for Windows XP. To determine if this was true, I installed Windows XP SP2 in VMWare and ran Windows Update in Express mode using IE6. After the mandatory installation of Windows Genuine Advantage and Microsoft Installer 3.0, 87 high-priority updates were available to install. The only update I selected was to install IE7 itself (and without Windows Defender).

After a reboot, I then installed Windows XP SP3 RC1, rebooted, and re-ran Windows Update in Express mode. I was relieved to see that the only high-priority update listed was the Windows Defender tool that I had previously declined to install. Be assured, Windows XP SP3 RC1 does contain all significant Windows XP updates released through November 2007.

Conclusion

Should you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 RC1 now or wait for the official release in a few weeks? My recommendation is to wait. 99% of what’s in SP3 RC1 is already available to you from Windows Update, and what isn’t you probably don’t need. SP3 does not transform Windows XP into Windows Vista. In fact, there a no visible changes to the GUI that I’ve noticed (other than a new “Tools” tab in msconfig). Also, problems may still be found in RC1 which lead to the release of an an RC2 (and possibly an RC3) of SP3.

One thing I do advise is that if you’ve been putting off reformatting your sluggish Windows machine and (re)installing XP, the official release of Service Pack 3 is a very good time to do it. That’s what I’ll be doing to most of my XP machines.

Update

On December 18, 2007, Microsoft released a new build (3264) of Windows XP Service Pack 3 RC1. This is the official public release. You can download it from the Microsoft Download Center.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 6:18 pm and is filed under JDMurray. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.