Microsoft resources focused almost exclusively on wrapping up the Windows Vista client, and then delayed yet again into 2008, with the deadline set by the summer of this year, Windows XP Service Pack 3 is long overdue, and at the same time in its final stages of development. At the end of December 2007, the Redmond company opened up the testing process of XP SP3 and made available for download a public Release Candidate. The Standalone Update Package for Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate weighs in at just 336.1 MB and was dropped via the Microsoft Download Center.

Not surprisingly, although it was mute for the most part of 2007 on both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3, the Redmond company is favoring, in terms of information disclosure, its latest Windows client. Starting at the end of 2007, Microsoft managed to become extremely chatty about Vista SP1. Not so much about XP SP3. The reason is of course understandable. Vista, made available but a year ago, is pushed to the foreground, with XP left to eXPire in the background. (more…)

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Will the third and final service pack for Windows XP manage to breath new life into the operating system? Will users and original equipment manufacturers be able to apply enough pressure on Microsoft to keep Windows XP alive? There is even an online petition available to save Windows XP. Anything but to move to Windows Vista. Yes, by all means. Save Windows XP. But from what? Is XP even in need of saving?

Last I checked, Windows XP still accounts for the lion’s share of the operating system market. All other platforms, including Windows Vista, don’t even manage to come close to it. And growing on the operating system market means actually eroding XP’s audience, because there is little elbow room with this ubiquitous platform having dug its roots in deep starting back in 2001. According to Net Applications, XP is credited with 76.91%, while after almost a year since it hit the shelves, Vista has only gone as high as 10.48%. By comparison Mac OS X has a share of 7.31% and all the Linux distributions just 0.63%. (more…)

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Written by Jason on January 16th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on otherSoftware and SP3 and Microsoft and Windows XP and Windows Update and Windows.