Windows XP Service Pack 3 Not Due Until 2007

vitaly.friedman writes "Microsoft has published the due date for Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack 3) on its Windows Lifecycle Web site. The preliminary due date (the latter half of 2007) for the next collection of fixes and patches for Microsoft's desktop operating system is as more than a year later than many company watchers were expecting."

Comments

Interesting commentary on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whitedust posted an interesting commentary on this this other day. I agree with them.

But..

[JonJ]

I thought Windows Vista was due this year?

huh

[c0dedude]

"2007" is a funny term for "whenever we get around to it"....

XP SP-3 in 2007

[thriemus]

I read that and I wasnt one bit suprised in the least.

Somethings wrong...

last one left turn out the lights...

[DeveloperAdvantage]

I think by then half of their team will be working at google!

W.. T.. F..

[StikyPad]

This story reminds me of a co-worker I used to have, who used to spout off completely worthless information. One day he decided to inform everyone that the history of the letter W was not in the dictionary, much to his dismay. Nobody was ever quite sure why he cared, let alone why he felt it necessary to verbalize his observations. I suspect he submitted this story as well.

Not that big of a deal.

[gasmonso]

This shouldn't surprise anyone. MS wants Vista to be out before any major patch to XP. Its in their best interest as it compels more people to upgrade to Vista. XP will be treated like a red-headed step child so Vista will look more appealing. So long as they issue security patches I'll be happy. It's what I've come to expect.

http://religiousfreaks.com/

"date"?

[deep44]

So their release "date" is 2H 2007? Since when is a 6-month window considered a "date"?

A precedent like that really makes you wonder about the release "dates" they still can't commit to.

Re:horrible analysis

[elinden]

...they might as well be throwing darts at conclusions...

no no -- they used a mat. with conclusions printed on it. and then they jumped onto the mat...

2007?

[AeroIllini]

This just in: Microsoft Windows XP SP3 is now renamed Microsoft Windows Vista, and will ship sometime in early 2009. Possible new features include an updated icon, a completely new marketing campaign, one driver for an HP scanner written in a drunken coding blitz at 3am, and a new desktop wallpaper prominently featuring the Microsoft Logo.

Re:2007?

[H0p313ss]

Possible new features include an updated icon, a completely new marketing campaign, one driver for an HP scanner written in a drunken coding blitz at 3am, and a new desktop wallpaper prominently featuring the Microsoft Logo.

That would be Windows ME

Wrong, it's already out.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Service Pack to fix windows is already out. It's actually up to version 4. It's called OS X 10.4.4

Re:Wrong, it's already out.

[GoatPigSheep]

Too bad that update requires an expensive proprietary hardware dongle.

Interesting...

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

Has anyone else noticed Microsofts gradual decrease in providing updates?
For example, NT 4 had 6 service packs and number 7 was not released. But supposedly was pretty much complete, number 7 added a bunch of features that were supposedly in Windows 2000.. and with the release of Windows 2000 just around the corner.. why would they want to make 2000 less appealing?

Also, notice that 2000 has just 4 service packs..

And it's looking more like XP will be getting just 3 by the end of life period, now... either Microsoft have absolutely amazing QA which means they're fixing all the bugs in their OS's by the last service pack or they want to force people onto their newest OS with the promises of bug fixes etc.

This is disheartening, they're trying to force people into a perpetual upgrade cycle and are being very successful at it too. I guess we can only hope that stuff like Linux and OpenOffice start making some inroads to at least reduce the price of Windows to help reduce the pressure on people who are locked into MS solutions.

Re:Interesting...

[kawika]

Corporate America told Microsoft that they didn't like service packs because they required a lot of IT effort to roll out across the organization. As it stands, any true security patch needs to be installed ASAP, so anything in a service pack is probably something most IT departments would prefer to avoid unless it scratches their itch.

Microsoft has been listening to big companies; they created "patch Tuesday" as a way to reduce the pain for corporate IT departments. Think about it, why wouldn't MS release the patch ASAP for consumers? In fact, that would be better for MS debugging because it would be easier for MS to tell if a particular patch caused problems. As it is, they're all clumped together each month.

If nobody in particular is clamoring for an update, Microsoft will oblige them by not issuing one.

Re:Interesting...

[misleb]

To be fair to Windows (ha!), I have found that the useful life of a Linux installation is a lot shorter than Windows. I would never consider installing a Linux distribution from 2000, but Win2k isn't all that bad (as Windows goes) even 6 years later.

Of course, distributions such as Debian make up for this in being very easy (and cheap!) to upgrade to the latest version, but still. I've run into situations where I really want to upgrade a Debian system but fear breaking something. Eventually I just bite the bullet and do it. Things usually work out pretty well, but if it were Windows, I would be able to upgrade individual programs without worrying about support from the underlying OS because most programs work on all Windows platforms going back to NT 4.0.

Just something to keep in mind next time you lament the Windows upgrade cycle...

-matthew

why is that silly?

[nurb432]

They put out service packs for 2000 after XP came out..

Or NT after 2000 came out.

While the product is still under 'support', you can expect fixes to come out. Support doesnt end on day 1 of the release of a new version, in the real world.

uhhhhh...

[commodoresloat]

Not SunOS, Solaris, the BSDs, Linux, OS X, OS/2- you get nice little security patches and bugfixes on a continual basis

How often do you get security patches and bug fixes for OS/2?

Re:What does this mean for Vista?

[MojoStan]

Microsoft doesn't love releasing service packs for any OS that isn't the latest one.

They might not "love" it, but they released two service packs for Windows 2000 after Windows XP Professional was released:

• October 21, 2001 - Windows XP released
• August 1, 2002 - Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 released
• September 9, 2002 - Windows XP Service Pack 1 released
• June 26, 2003 - Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 released

Win2K SP4 was released 20 months after WinXP Pro was released.

Re:Microsoft's behavior is extremely abusive.

[praxis]

"We find we need to re-load Windows XP often because of its vulnerabilities and instability."

I am not sure to whom your "we" refers. I know I am not in that set as the last time I had to reinstall Windows XP because of its vulnerabilities and instability was...well, never. Reboot, why yes I have had to do that countless times when a patch was pushed out. Hopefully that kind of architecture will be out the door with Vista. Until then I can live with reboots due to certain patches. This box has been running the XP SP2 install since, well, I installed SP2. I use it heavily every day to develop code, test, install and reinstall applications, and do my daily software development work. It could be that my company has a competent IT department, but I am sure a lot of it has to do with me not running as Administrator and not installing suspicious software or browsing suspicious websites when I am. My point being that with proper care and feeding an XP system does not need to be reinstalled often.