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Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate – Publicly Available

Release Candidate 1 for Windows XP SP3 has been released to the public, available hereI have just installed this on my XP SP2 machine and install was flawless – then again, there isn’t any significant changes in this service pack apart from updates I have already installed through Windows Update. Once this service pack is finalised and released, slipstreaming into my Windows XP SP2 will be my priority implementation of it.

As I have only had this service pack installed for a single day I am not too sure if I’m just experiencing the Placebo effect else my install does feel faster… (Reports said, when the first Sp3 beta was released, that there was up to a 10% increase in performance). None of the new features in this service pack will benefit me personally, e.g. the product key-less install as I already have a cd key. As per a report on Paul Therrott’s, SuperSite for Windows (see here), I would have to agree with his statement regarding how the security improvements in SP3 will never stack up to that on Windows Vista as the underlying XP structure since Oct 2001 is becoming outdated – everyone using Windows who would like to continue in a secure environment will need to move to Vista (Vienna if they are stubborn) sooner or later.

Overall, if I didn’t know Sp3 was installed, apart from this performance boost (assuming it’s not Placebo :P), I wouldn’t have noticed any difference between SP2. On the hotfix side of things that means no more excessive updating after the Windows install of a slipstreamed sp3, for now anyway.

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