Windows XP Service Pack 3 is now officially available through Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Centre.

Link for Windows XP Service Pack 3 Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers

It is not suggested you download the standalone package unless you are updating multiple computers.

I have personally tested the final version of Service Pack 3 on my Windows XP SP2 virtual machine, and I have not encountered any problems yet with it. Interestingly enough, I haven't seen any speed improvements that reviews have been talking about.

I have downloaded the big installer package but I couldn't get it to install. For some reason, it failed when trying to create a system restore point. I will try again later but I do suggest closing all programs when trying to install it as it uses quite a bit of processing power.

The whitepaper that Microsoft provides does give the changes that this service pack includes, but that doesn't seem like a lot if you continually update your computer through Microsoft Update.

can someone tell if is worth to upgrade?

everything works fine as it is, so I'm not sure.

According to my research, service pack 3 was made for the purpose of adding more possible licence keys to Windows XP, and not to add any features.

If you want to know what new and improved features are in Windows XP Service Pack 3, I suggest you download this PDF file from the Microsoft Download Center:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

I have not encountered any problems during the installation of Windows XP Service Pack 3 manually except for a minor error message that came up after restarting at the end of the SP3 installation.

If you encounter problems with the manual method of installation, I suggest you install the Windows XP Service Pack 3 using Windows Update or Microsoft Update. It is a more easier method and the update program will automatically check for compatibility problems prior to installation.

The Windows XP Solution Center has information that may be able to help you in your installation:
http://support.microsoft.com/ph/1173

I've installed it, nothing special about it actualy. I haven't had any problems, neither did it improve or degrade the performance. Just give it a go, if you don't like it you can still uninstall it (like I did, but that was because it had installed a lot if applications I don't need on my nLited XP installation).

Well I glanced through the release notes for SP3 (had my fingers crossed & luckily there were no Genuine Advantage checks for the meagerly 324KB pdf download, phew! 'cause going through that ordeal diverts you from what you were originally doing on your sparingly-compatible Firefox on the Microsoft website & makes you forget what & why you were trying to download in the first place!) and the summary says it all. Unlike previous service packs, this pack is intended to -

QUOTE

Fill gaps in the updates users might have missed by declining individual updates when using Automatic
Updates

So basically if you have been updating XP regularly via Microsoft Update, you don't need to have this. If you haven't been updating (or haven't ever done that) and are still living with it, you don't need to have this.

Don't you think Microsoft is undermining the importance of its own updates by publishing such comments in their own articles?

QUOTE

This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.

What we can make out of this is, choose your own updates. Fortunately, the 'white paper' describes in detail the abstract contents of SP3 and apart from NAP

QUOTE

NAP is a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista, Windows
Server 2008, and Windows XP SP3 with which you can better protect
network assets by enforcing compliance with system health requirements.
Using NAP, you can create customized health policies to validate
computer health before allowing access or communication; automatically
update compliant computers to ensure ongoing compliance; and optionally
confine noncompliant computers to a restricted network until they become
compliant.

it clearly states that nothing has been ported to XP from superseding versions of Microsoft's products. (This too, doesn't seem to be of any deemed importance to most XP users and virtually all Microsoft Windows® XP Home Edition users!)

So is Windows® XP SP3 next on the list of downloads for this week? Most probably not.

Unlike Windows Vista SP1, there are no performance upgrades. Obviously, Microsoft wants their existing customer base to move up to Windows Vista from XP. However, not a lot of people are able to run Windows Vista properly due to weak hardware. However, all new computers should have the capacity to run Windows Vista quite fine.

For gamers and people who do a lot of multimedia editing or use virtual machine should have at least 4GB of RAM. A lot of motherboards have 4 DIMM slots now a days like my ASUS M3A motherboard.

Other than that, I wouldn't expect XP SP3 do anything except adding a few features for corporate users who need some features available with Vista and for better Vista compatibility.

xboxrulz

A review of Windows XP Service Pack 3 from a computer magazine (APC Magazine) that I read showed that their were no noticeable improvements in performance or stability, because most of the updates that came with Service Pack 3 were already installed as updates via Automatic Updates or Windows Update. Also, it said that some of the new features were already available as a separate download before Service Pack 3. I suppose installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 is not really a 'must' if you have already updated your computer with the latest patches or have installed the new features via separate downloads.

I agree, I am not even thinking of using SP3 unless I will reinstall Windows XP, due to when you reinstall it for example Today, for a month you'll be getting a lot of updates for that and that and who knows what else and in the Control Panel section Add or Remove Programs you'll see a lot of Updates, so this is really good to use when you have a fresh Install of Windows XP and only then you update to Windows XP SP3 and continue using it, in my opinion, this should have come at least 2 years ago, due to there were not service pack since SP2 and now most of people don't continue to use XP, they move to Vista if they have the hardware, sometimes they move to Vista, even though their computer isn't having a suitable hardware and they stick with lower performance, as I usually said, I remember the same things happening with XP and Win98 + a bit with Win2000, even though XP is very similar to 2000 except for the add of "cool" graphics. Besides, till Windows NT Windows weren't an OS, it just was a GUI for DOS