WinXP Service Pack 3 to be released on April 29th

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The Masked Marauder
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WinXP Service Pack 3 to be released on April 29th

Post by The Masked Marauder »

Microsoft says XP SP3 complete, available imminently
The final SP3 code has been released to manufacturing and will be available via Automatic Update on April 29

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/ ... tly_1.html

Here's another article with some details about what was added / improved / fixed:

Windows XP SP3: A quick, painless upgrade
http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9924689-57.html

It isn't much of an "upgrade". From the looks of things, most of it is just a roll-up of patches that were released after SP2.
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rbsterli
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Post by rbsterli »

Anyone here participating in the Windows 7 Beta?

I've been running it in a VM for the past couple weeks. Just loaded it on a spare HD in my laptop about an hour ago (yeah, it's still working! :banana: )

I hear it's a bit faster than Vista; it was supposed to be comparible to Windows 2000 in speed without all the kindergarten graphics that Vista has. After running it for an hour or so on a real HD, I can kinda say it's "faster" but then again I installed (as I do any OS) from scratch. It's bound to "feel" faster.

So, even considering the total computer enema and the 'bound to be expected' computer performance gains, I still feel it is a fancy, schmancy OS with all that good stuff that "homeowners" will like; beautiful (I know, a matter of opinion) graphics and canned visuals, but NOT really what I would expect to use for a business edition OS.

I still feel and always have, that there should be at least three installation options, with distinct differences. When you download, purchase, intend to purchase, whatever - if you want a business edition, that's what you should get. Yeah, yeah, I know.. just go to the Windows visual & display options and set it for "Best performance" as opposed to "Let Windows decide what's best for me" or "Adjust for best appearance" OR the biggie - Let ME decide.. and continuously check and un-check boxes, click apply - I might as well be adjusting the electric seats in my car to accomdate my 5' 9" build with aching sacariliac after my 4' 9" wife drives - ... AND leaves the seat all the way up!

From a tweaking, kinda developing and installer programming professional point of view, this is by biggest frustration with Windows in general. My forte, if I have to self-proclaim it, is Installation Scripting. This is something that would be SO EASY to include. I have to live with Windows the way it is because I support 1000 nodes in a very "political" (as far as decisions go) environment. I just really had my hopes up that we would finally have an OS for us SysAdmins and not the general masses.

Thanks for letting me vent :x

PS: Did you notice I said I reinstalled the OS from scratch about an hour ago and within an hour I am already on Rick's (and TEAM!) site?

No, Rick - It wasn't because I just needed to re-populate my Favorites! True geek's save them ahead of time. :ubergeek:
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Hubird
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Post by Hubird »

I installed it on a spare drive on my trusty AthlonXP 3200+ (dual boot with XP) but to be honest I have not bothered to give it much of a go. Speed wise it may be a bit faster than Vista and it did seem to have a decent amount of device drivers (especially for a BETA release). I have no problems with a "fancy, schmancy OS" to a point, a fresh UI, new icons and such never hurt anyone !!. The only tweaks I do these days are to turn off the annoying fade / scroll effects MS insist on having on by default, doing this make for a much "snappier" feeling OS even on a high end machine.
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LanikSJ
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Post by LanikSJ »

rbsterli wrote:From a tweaking, kinda developing and installer programming professional point of view, this is by biggest frustration with Windows in general. My forte, if I have to self-proclaim it, is Installation Scripting. This is something that would be SO EASY to include. I have to live with Windows the way it is because I support 1000 nodes in a very "political" (as far as decisions go) environment. I just really had my hopes up that we would finally have an OS for us SysAdmins and not the general masses.
I've been using something called nLite which basically allows you to add updates/patches/drivers to your installation CD/DVD. You can't add your installed programs AFAIK. I don't think you can define some of the settings but things like updates/patches/drivers can be included in your CD/DVD saving you hours of installing and waiting after.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it."
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rbsterli
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Post by rbsterli »

I have no problems with a "fancy, schmancy OS" to a point, a fresh UI, new icons and such never hurt anyone !!.
Yeah, wont hurt you, me anyone that would probably actually even visit this forum. But give it to a secretary or high level exec that has no interest in "computers" at all and multiply it by 1000 and see what happens. You'll see the light of day in about 3 weeks after the initial deploy.
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