Windows XP SP3 Postponed Until 2008

Rockgod quotes an article saying "With Microsoft now saying that its next major service pack for Windows XP will not ship until 2008, some Windows users are wondering whether the software upgrade will ever be released." and then later "Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, agrees that Microsoft may very well decide to drop XP Service Pack 3. "It absolutely could happen. Microsoft is under no obligation to produce any service packs, ever," he explains. "They feel that because these fixes are available through the auto-update that there's less need to create a service pack."

Comments

Re:Sounds sensible

[Lonewolf666]

The whole SP thing is a throwback to the bad old days of 28.8k modems and CDs by post. Now we can add the fixes as they come along so why bother with a monolithic chunk of code that must be a testing nightmare for MS as well as corporate end users?

Because you can read the SP from a CD and have the fixes installed before you connect the computer to the internet at all.
In the past, there have been some security holes that could be exploited as soon as your PC is on the net, making it a race between the malware and the patches which gets to your PC first. Loading the SP from a CD removes this problem.

Re:Available from autoupdate?

[theRiallatar]

I wasn't going to reply, but I kept seeing more and more of the same posts as I was reading through. Try a test. Connect a simple out-of-the-box router to a DSL/Cable connection with default settings. Connect an unpatched Windows XP SP0 machine to the router and make sure it has web access. Don't use that computer. See how long it takes to get rooted/malware. Answer? It NEVER will. Because the router blocks all unsolicited incoming traffic, unless you've monkeyed with the config to change this. The only way a computer can get rooted/malwared through a default-settings router is by stupid user tricks, or by another already infected machine on the NATed network.... which would have got infected by stupid user tricks.

For those who are worried about their darknets ...

[mmell]

Granted, installing WinXP followed by the latest SP's from CD-ROM is a secure way to install a machine with some measure of confidence that it won't be hacked immediately upon exposure to the internet, but . . .

Most people who are responsible for such systems are presumably intelligent enough to slipstream the latest Service Pack AND all current security patches onto a WinXP installation CD which can then be used to install a machine - in fact, this would be the recommended procedure, as it results not only in the machine having the latest SP from the start but also all the miscellaneous security updates which have been published since the last SP.

Remember, a fresh install of Windows XP + Service Pack 2 is still vulnerable to known exploits. Being able to incorporate all the security updates which are available at the time the machine is brought online results in a signifigantly more secure situation (although Microsoft's well-documented history of ignoring certain inconvenient security holes until they get their collective nose rubbed in them would still make me nervous, personally).

Of course, this only works for i386 versions of Windows - from what I can gather, it's not possible to slipstream the x86_64 version. If I've got that wrong, somebody please correct me (and provide a link to instructions).

Re:Could they at least...

[Lumpy]

you CAN slipstream all updates into windows. I suggest you get up to speed where the rest of us have been for over a years now...

nlite integrates ALL patches, fixes, hotfixes, etc... into a windwos install CD. hell I can even automate the de-xpify process so I dont have to do it on every machine.

Service packs and traditional slipstreaming is very old hat as microsoft does not care anymore.