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Software Windows XP SP3 Specifics Revealed
Brandon Hill (Blog) - October 9, 2007 11:14 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 140 comment(s) - last by murphyslabrat.. on Oct 15 at 12:56 PM
NeoSmart goes over SP3's new features

News on Microsoft's aging Windows XP operating system has surprisingly been coming in at a steady pace over the past few weeks. Although Windows Vista is Microsoft's current bread-and-butter consumer operating system, there is still much love to go around for Windows XP.

In late September, DailyTech reported that Microsoft is providing XP downgrades for unhappy Vista customers. Microsoft followed up on that news a few days later with the announcement that Windows XP sales would be extended to June 30, 2008.

The company followed up with a new build of Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP that doesn't require product activation and released a Service Pack 3 (SP3) beta for a select group of testers.

The latest SP3 beta is labeled as build 3205 and is a rather small 334.92 MB download. The bloggers over at NeoSmart have gotten a hold of the new SP3 release and have detailed many of the new features and bugfixes with the software update.

According to NeoSmart, SP3 contains 1,073 hotfixes and patches; 114 of which are security related. SP3 also adds four major features to the Windows XP operating systems.

The first is a new activation scheme which will not require a product key during installation. The second feature is a new Network Access Protection Module first featured in Windows Vista. Other new items include a Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographics Module and a Black Hole Router detection algorithm.

The release of SP3 coupled with the announcement that XP will be available to businesses and consumers for a longer period of time could breathe new life into the venerable operating system. Many gamers have stuck by the operating system and OEMs like HP and Dell still offer XP on brand new systems.

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now all we need...
By Gul Westfale on 10/9/2007 11:25:58 AM , Rating: 2
... is DX10 under XP and i will never "upgrade" to vista, if upgrade is the right word. i know, i know, it'll never happen, but one can dream...




RE: now all we need...
By MatthewAC on 10/9/2007 11:44:04 AM , Rating: 1
I have Vista, haven't looked back at XP, using 5 year old OSes isn't so much fun...


RE: now all we need...
By phusg on 10/9/2007 12:37:57 PM , Rating: 5
Hmmm. To me an OS is only as old as the time since the latest update. An upcoming SP3 shows that XP is still alive and kicking (and current).


RE: now all we need...
By Arribajuan on 10/9/2007 1:36:51 PM , Rating: 2
Not quite,

Xp's design and architecture is several years old and then has been "upgraded" or patched to adapt to the new market and technological needs.

Even if an "update" is scheduled for tomorrow, the design and core architecture is really old.

If for some reason you don't like vista you will remain with an old OS or jump ship to mac, Linux or whatever and get screwed in different ways (since as much as they are better in some areas, they are not perfect)


RE: now all we need...
By slickr on 10/10/07, Rating: -1
RE: now all we need...
By MGSsancho on 10/10/2007 2:04:27 AM , Rating: 2
im looking for a single statement correct about your post. well this is correct
quote:
But then again in will be 2 years since DX10 is widly addopted.
Im not so sure about the sales of vista vs. xp. tho im sick and im tired. dont feel like writing an essay on the indifferences between XP and vista. they are totally different. not the the UI. but the core everything. oh, is XP able to change audio and video driers with our rebooting? (control panel > system > device manager > properties on a device > driver > roll back driver). also since all the mem in vista is virtualized, vista can just move video mem to main mem, and swap the driver, reboot the video card, then move back the video info back onto the video card it self. granted the screen blanks out for a few secs. oh in vista drivers are in use mode. vista can better emulate older versions of windows. lets see, oh new task manager owns. thanks mike rusnivich (sorry i cant spell it). new disk partitioner is more useful along with the new firewall. starting to rival sygate (still brings tears that symantic bought them out.)

anyways those are just a few differences. I don't feel like insulting you on your ignorance in operating systems and how computers work. nor do i feel like getting any links to back up my statements. i only posted personal experiences. any other features could easily be looked up so i did not bother with them. yeah im lazy i admit it. oh and if you really know what DX10 was, and understood it, you would see why it would almost be very difficult to get it working on XP with out problems. oh well maybe im just cranky and maybe i should not be feeding trolls.


RE: now all we need...
By mathew7 on 10/10/2007 3:51:58 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, it has many core changes, but that's exactly why bussines users won't switch now. By changing all that, they break compatibility with existing applications (I'm talking about application which only they have, for which they paid big bucks to have them).
Also, I personaly don't like the services which start by default. As I recall I had 800MB of RAM used after boot-up (out of which 300MB was due to Aero). XP I think is starts with about 200MB, but by disabling unnecessary services, I got it to around 80MB.
And Vista had a big sales grow only because of OEM sales. But that is going to change as XP is comming back as an option.
My conclusion over the last years is that it's a conspiracy to compensate bad code with fast HW (or should I say fast HW tolerates bad code). I'm sick and tired of the "anybody can be a programmer" idea that MS seems to support. What happened when you could actually choose what to install with an OS?


RE: now all we need...
By Xerstead on 10/14/2007 1:53:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:

Also, I personaly don't like the services which start by default. As I recall I had 800MB of RAM used after boot-up

If you don't like the 'SuperFetch' feature Turn It Off!
Yes, XP can be trimmed down to run without using much RAM. But that just leaves the rest of it sitting there doing nothing. Vista pre-loads your most frequently used programs into your spare RAM so it can load them quicker when you do open them. If the RAM is needed by another program its freed up for immediate use.


RE: now all we need...
By cbo on 10/10/2007 11:55:16 AM , Rating: 2
On the sygate note I was a fan also. At my last gig we use sygate's SEP


RE: now all we need...
By mars777 on 10/10/2007 2:44:26 PM , Rating: 2
Actually he got it pretty close, he only forgot to say that they added a "please enter your password" when you do administrative things.

The rest of added futures are not so useful to bargain so much ram memory for them (without going into the stability /performance area).

Maybe the SP will help. As we all know Xp was crap until SP1 + a few more automatic updates, or better say Sp2.


RE: now all we need...
By GotDiesel on 10/9/07, Rating: 0
RE: now all we need...
By Flunk on 10/9/2007 1:32:58 PM , Rating: 1
bool LinuxExperience(Userlevel L, bool Gamer)
{
switch (L)

case Userlevel.Low:
throw new Exception "User cannot login, does not understand."

case Userlevel.Mid:
throw new Exception "User is confused by interface."

case Userlevel.High:
throw new Exception "User is confused by lack of GUI controls for applications. What is a terminal?"

case Userlevel.Enthusiast:

if (Gamer == false)
return true;

return false;

default:
return false;
}

Anyone who uses Linux should be able to get that. If you don't what I am saying is that Linux is designed for people with a high level of technical knowledge. I find that it annoys and purplexes the average user.


RE: now all we need...
By FITCamaro on 10/9/2007 1:49:43 PM , Rating: 5
I have a high level of technical knowledge but I still don't want to put up with the hassle of getting Linux set up properly. Even other friends of mine who are also programmers don't like dealing with Linux as their OS for their desktop PC.

You install Windows, it works. Simple. You might have to set up a few settings but its all GUIs. You don't have to crawl through text files trying to find certain settings. Linux has come a long way but for me, its still not good enough.


RE: now all we need...
By omnicronx on 10/9/2007 2:03:45 PM , Rating: 2
not all nix distros require that kind of setup. I had ubuntu (or kubuntu if you like kde) running and ready to go just as fast as windows with only changing gui settings like in windows. the Debian style apt-get installation makes getting programs easy, and the included software installer gui which shows you all available packages available for Ubuntu is easy to use. I can do any day to day things on my nix box, it is not until i want to do something fancy such as play games (which you can still do with a little setup).

Of course i had to do some in depth configuration for certain programs, but the normal windows user coming to nix would most likely not need these features anyways. (ftp, shh, etc)

So for day to day activities like most members of your family are a custom to, many nix distros are more than sufficient ;)


RE: now all we need...
By jonmcc33 on 10/9/2007 3:12:21 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, Ubuntu looks great for kids. I have it installed for my 5 year old daughter so she can play her Nick Jr on the intarweb.


RE: now all we need...
By Gholam on 10/10/2007 12:22:04 AM , Rating: 2
Last time I tried Ubuntu, you had to type in several pages' worth of text into terminal to get basic things - like java - working. Of course it wasn't documented in the manual either, and without lots of specified options, the package manager utterly failed to do anything.


RE: now all we need...
By jonmcc33 on 10/10/2007 7:21:31 AM , Rating: 2
I was kidding. My point was that the only thing you can really do on a Linux OS is browse the web. For kids, the perfect thing is a Windows OS because of all the applications - especially learning applications - that work with it. Most of the hardcore Linux users that I know usually have no life. They tend to sit in a dark room all day long and are very pale skinned as the sunlight rarely touches them.


RE: now all we need...
By jtemplin on 10/10/2007 8:58:12 AM , Rating: 2
Lol...I was sitting next to one of those in class yesterday. Sometimes stereotypes come true. What you said reminds me of that episode of King of the Hill where the computer nerd kid turns albino from his reclusiveness.


RE: now all we need...
By goodstuff on 10/10/2007 10:18:04 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, I think he turned green :)