Although Microsoft started pushing out a public check develop of Windows XP Services Pack (SP) 3 the week of December 10, it wasn;t until December 18 that the business would acknowledge officially the existence of that develop.Around the 18th, Microsoft made the XP SP three Release Candidate (RC) construct available for download in the Microsoft Download site. Microsoft permitted the same, near-final build to become released last week on quite a few public file sharing web-sites. When I asked Microsoft December eleven whether the public RC of XP SP3 was accessible,
Office 2007 Enterprise, the enterprise declined to comment.Yesterday, Microsoft sent me the following statement:“Today, Windows XP SP3 RC was produced obtainable to the public via the Microsoft Download Center. While Windows Vista provides the most advanced security and management capabilities of any Windows Operating System,
Windows 7 License, Windows XP SP3 will ensure PCs running Windows XP will have thelatest set of updates, as well as compatibility with the Network Access Protection functionality of Windows Server 2008. That said, Windows XP SP3 does not bring significant portions of Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP.“As this is a release candidate,
Windows 7 Professional Key, we strongly encourage only those who are comfortable installing pre-release code to download Windows XP SP3.”Did Microsoft also release a different/updated check construct of XP SP3 to testers on its private Connect internet site about the 18th? A couple of Microsoft-watching internet sites posted that a new construct of XP SP3 was made on the market yesterday. Posters on those web sites say that a new XP SP3 construct was not launched on Connect at all. (I can;t check directly myself,
Office 2007 Product Key, as I am not an XP SP3 tester with access to Connect, but the build numbers cited for the private and public builds are both 3264, leading me to believe there was not a private build refresh.)When I asked a Microsoft spokeswoman regardless of whether there was a refresh of the private XP SP3 check create out there, she said she wasn;t sure.Update: On December 19,
Windows 7 Starter Key, the spokeswoman confirmed the new develop on any references to “refresh” or “update” about the Connect web site and the public XP SP3 test build on Microsoft Downloads are referring to the identical XP SP3 RC bits.Sick of all the secrecy about support packs yet? It sure seems counterproductive to me.I understand that Microsoft is especially reticent to talk about updates for XP, given that XP is getting better press than Vista these days and Microsoft doesn;t want to encourage users not hold off on Vista by talking up how the company is improving XP. But a little translucency on company packs would go a long way to helping users plan, in my opinion. What do you think?