Submitted by “I asked Microsoft for an official comment on Thurrott’s XP SP3 post and received the following response: “SP3 for Windows XP Home Edition [and Professional] is currently planned for 1H CY2008. This date is preliminary,” said a Microsoft spokeswoman. In other words: at least for now, Microsoft is sticking by the XP SP3 information on its product-lifecycle page.”
I knew that entire story was unsubstantiated crap.
The story may be crap, but until SP3 is actually released it could still be true. As I recall Windows 2K was suppose to get one last SP that never materialized.
The better question is why is it taking until 2008 to get SP3 for XP when Vista is getting it’s first SP after only half a year or so of being out. [That’s a bit of humor by the way.]
Personally, I’m going to see Dvorak.org/blog to see if it’s true. If he thinks there will be no SP3 then there might not be a SP3. [That’s a bit more humor.]
The better question is why is it taking until 2008 to get SP3 for XP when Vista is getting it’s first SP after only half a year or so of being out.
Because Vista and Windows 2007 Server share much in common.
So, when Win 2007 Server is released later this year, many improvements will be moved to Vista throught SP1.
I figured it was because before Vista was release all the IT guys said they wouldn’t touch it until at least SP 1. Of course now I hear they won’t touch it until SP 2.
I knew that entire story was unsubstantiated crap.
It’s not crap until its actually released, given how long it has actually been delayed. Microsoft has had a habit of having things on product roadmaps, only to turn around later and say “After extensive customer feedback we realised that a further service pack was not necessary, and it technically wasn’t possible to roll all the fixes we had planned for Vista into Windows XP”.
They pulled that stunt with Windows 2000, where they came up with totally unspecified technical reasons as to why they couldn’t provide reasonable updates for it.
Thurrot was spot on. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I’ll believe that when I see it, corporations are going to be depending on XP for a long time, longer than most stuck with 2k
It’s not crap until its actually released
Oh, come on..
So, we could also say that Service Pack 1 for Vista is not going to happen because it is not released yet?
I knew that entire story was unsubstantiated crap.
Wouldn’t have anything to do with it coming from Paul Thurrott, would it?
Getting back to the point, I thought Vista was SP3? Maybe they mean SP2.3.
Yeah, I always take that guy with a grain of salt, but I do that with most tech writers, regardless of what tech/software/OS they support.
It’s not like OSNews to release two completely contradictory stories.
Actually, it is. It’s called proper journalism. You correct the wrongs you report.
I wouldn’t call it journalism; all this place is, is a link to an article place where by people can provide feedback in a forum like atmosphere – nothing wrong with that, but its hardly ‘journalism’ from the point of view that this site as dedicated journalists out there getting the latest ‘scoop’.
With that format you’ll have information come in, then information come in later that’ll contradict the first story – nothing wrong with that; at *that* time, when the *link* to the story was published, it was someone’s opinion, and the person who published the link thought it merited enough attention as to provide a link to it on the front page. A follow up link is then provided to another site correcting the first.
This is a site about opinions, there is no ‘fact’, just opinions that sometimes are correct and incorrect, depending on the parties affected by that opinion – the affected party might have changed their opinion after having see the response via the various forums.
Um.. unless you’re authoring the article, it’s not journalism.. it’s linking and your visitors commenting about it.
especially from 2 different sources, written by two different people, whats your point?
… this means never.
I didn’t realize if u fart in your hand, it actually makes your hand smell?!
Is it my impression or OSNews is getting more and more flooded with stupid comments like this, torrent links, suspicious web site links, etc.? Is it supposed to exist any kind of moderation for this posts? I mean, just remove them?
Thanks
Regarding Windows XP SP3, it’s obvious that Microsuffer wants to concentrate their efforts on their latest product and push you to upgrade by making you unconfortable with XP. Otherwise, what are they going to tell the hardware vendors about their unfinished product supposed to justify the never ending grow of techno-junk? The problem is that if you upgrade you’ll probably be sitting on an harder rock.
Edited 2007-04-12 19:36
There is moderation. Look on the left and see “votes”. Use them wisely. You can also set your default rating higher…I browse at 1 so i dont see otrrent link crap and such anymore.
Yes, but there’s still interesting modded down comments, that sometimes are victims of biased users and on the other hand it’s also interesting to also know how certain persons write about their preconceptions (usually also modded down). And read good, educative replies for this too.
What I’m talking about in the previous post is about pure worthless comments.
I’m ending here, this is getting off-topic
Edited 2007-04-12 19:59
Microsoft makes the lion’s share of their money from large enterprise customers and small businesses.
Service Packs make it easier to deploy a large amount of patches at once to a workstation in both types of environments. It also makes it easier to “slipstream” additional drivers and updates onto Windows installation CDs so you can build images for workstations that support newer technologies.
Many of their larger customers are not going near Vista for an enterprise solution anytime soon, and they know this. This is because:
1. Vendors still haven’t gotten it quite together with printer drivers. The larger printers, such as the Toshibas (which I have personally seen), Ricohs, and Canons of the world still have issues to shake out.
2. Vendors need to test for backward compatibility and functionality in a lower-permission environment. Realistically, this should have been done three years ago, when XP Service Pack 2 came out, however, many vendors put this off as you could still make users have administrative rights without annoying them with UAC. Unfortunately, this means many decent corporate apps are not at 100%. For the customers, this also means that many of the apps from smaller vendors, and/or the customized/in-house apps will need updates.
3. Windows Server 2007, and the additional support for enterprise features, such as Group Policy and the Active Directory changes made for Vista, is not out in production yet. XP Service Pack 3 may contain fixes for XP to support these additional server-based features.
4. The supporting tools for Windows Server 2007 and Vista administration from ancillary vendors such as Quest Software, CA (Unicenter), NetIQ, Symantec (Veritas and the rest of what they bought) and HP (Openview) aren’t out yet either.
5. Enterprise Antivirus solutions aren’t quite at 100% yet, specifically Symantec’s (10.2 supports Vista, however). McAfee/ePolicy Orchestrator works just fine.
6. Internet Explorer 7.0. There are a large amount of corporate web applications, specifically Oracle 11i and SAP, which do not work well with IE 7.0 or Vista by its inclusion. Unfortunately, these applications require a lot of hand-tooling to work properly for each implementation, and it will take years, in some cases, before some shops will be able to move to a different version of their ERP software.
A large portion of Microsoft’s money comes from large enterprise contracts. For them to not support XP properly and try to force a move to Vista in corporate environments, small or large, will make them look bad, and will make a Linux/Citrix solution look much more viable. They know this, and know better than to bite the hand that feeds them, aka corporations and government. That’s why you’ll see Windows 2000 patches until 2010, and XP patches until 2014.
this is great now they can ad the indego framework, and winFS and all the other great selling points into xp like they had planned……oh wait..
Here are versions of other major Linux vendors when XP came out:
Redhat 7.2
Suse 7.3
Mandrake 8.1 [pre-Mandriva]
What are the chances that any of these vendors will be releasing a service pack for one of these versions next year?
That’s why I think Ubuntu’s LTS (long-term support) releases are important.
What are the chances that any of these vendors will be releasing a service pack for one of these versions next year?
Very good, unless you are rabid about wanting the words “Service Pack” splattered all over the box…er download. I can see all of these releasing between two and four minor versions, or two minor and one major version, between now and end of December 2008. As against one SP for Vista and, if we’re lucky, a third SP for XP.
I’m not talkiing newer versions of the OS. Businesses want a stable base. For example, where I work, they are still using several Solaris 8 boxes. They are just now starting to switch some of them to 10. Businesses do not want to upgrade to a new version every 6 months. They want their current version supported – just security updates. Imagine if RedHat was still doing this for 7.2. Instead, Linux dudes (like me) just keep upgrading. Businesses do not want to do this. It is amazing that Microsoft would be offering a patch to a 7-year old OS (next year). I must again state, this is why I believe Ubuntu LTS releases are important. I’m still using 6.06, and I probably won’t upgrade until the next LTS release in 2008. I am a developer, and it important that I not upgrade and break anything. For instance, I use Parallels to do any Windows development I must do – I can’t just keep slapping in a new kernel, or it may not run.
I have other laptops that I use to satisfy my “distro buzz”, but not my main machine.
The difference is that you can update them yourself. You have source access so you can compile your own packages.
Or you can update to a newer binary version.
Before the Fedora project one could get Redhat Linux for free. The equivalent for that today is Fedora which you can upgrade to for free – constantly. (FC7 can be considered a SP for FC6 can be considered as SP for FC5 … FC1 can be considered SP for RHL 9.0).
Other systems like Arch Linux and gentoo has rolling updates. They stay supported in terms of an equivalent to Service Packs. And even for free.
I wasn’t aware that Linux vendors released service packs..?
I meant keep on offering updates. I wasn’t aware that Redhat was still releasing updates for Redhat 7.2 (not upgrades to newer version of the OS).
<humor> SP3 will slow your system to 50% current speed and have subliminal messages appear every 10th screen refresh.. BUY VISTA … YOUR SYSTEM IS TOO SLOW …BUY VISTA … YOU NEED AN UPGRADE … BUY VISTA … ITS ONLY $200 … BUY VISTA …</humor>
🙂
Granted there was no SP-5 for Windows 2000.
The uptake for 2000 was nothing compared to XP.
MS has no choice in this matter. I’ll take a wild assed guess at least 80% of the desktops in the corporate world are currently running XP.