Highlights of Windows XP SP3

Change/Feature	Details	Impact/Benefit
Revised Network Stack	"Black Hole" router detection; WAP2 Wi-Fi security support; NAP (Network Access Protection) support	Improved performance; works with newer wireless security standards; policy-based protection of network against unhealthy PCs
Internet Explorer 7.0	Latest version of Microsoft’s Web browser	Tabbed browsing; phishing filter; better standards compliance
Windows Media Player 11	Latest version of Microsoft’s audio/video playback application	Bug fixes and security improvements; supports broader range of media types
Performance Improvements	Better throughput at a variety of business productivity tasks	Gives IT shops one more incentive to stay with Windows XP

Read Randall Kennedy's guide to the Vista and XP service packs.

Posted by Doug Dineley on March 20, 2008 03:00 AM

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FYI, IE7 is *not* part of SP3 (and AFAIK, WMP 11 isn't either). If you have XP SP2 with IE6 and install SP3, it will still have IE6 when you are done. AFAIK, SP3 has *patches* for both IE versions though.

Personally, I *wish* MS would help move the web forward instead of this attitude that 'our enterprise customers want their ancient IE-only web apps to run forever' (you want to hear scary? MS still supports IE*5* on W2K; no joke! Yes, it renders like a drunk monkey, but some company somewhere still uses it).

IE7 isn't even so great, but at least its better than IE6. You could even skip directly to the beta of IE8. Of course there's also Firefox (use a FF3 beta if you don't have any extensions you really need), Safari (just became stable with version 3.1) and Opera 9 (stable) or 9.5 (beta). Heck, install one of each of the major browsers (they don't take up much space) and try each for a couple days and see which one(s) strike(s) your fancy.

Posted by: Limulus at March 22, 2008 08:01 PM