I read the Windows XP SP3 board and there is an occasional request from people for both IE7 and WMP 11. Now I know my thoughts on the matter (no to including both), but I was wondering the general opinions of those here.

Would you want Microsoft to include a full upgrade (meaning if you have IE6 you'll end up with IE7) of both IE and WMP (of course we all know how well Microsoft listens to its customers )?

This post has been edited by Glenn9999: Jan 12 2008, 09:01 PM

Sure why not. Even if I dont use them, Id rather have the latest version.

Although I like both IE7 and WMP11 more than their predecessors, there are some enterprises that require IE6 for whatever reasons. Also, some people have found the new interfaces in both products to be annoying, confusing, or otherwise "bad". It seems to me that there's no reason why people can't just download the newer products themselves if they want them; no point forcing them on people who don't want them.

That said, I'd still install SP3 since the benefits outweigh the possible losses.

By not including IE7 and WMP11 in SP3 Microsoft is actually admitting to the fact that these are *not* all-out improvements. Back with IE 6 vs 5 or MP 10 vs 9 this was a no-brainer though. Even Server 2003 SP1 shipped with MP10 as opposed to MP9 in the Gold edition. It went without saying that MP10 introduced little in the way of new functionality yet was superior towards MP9 because of revised code. The same held true for IE 6 - the transition from IE 5.5 wasn't perceived as a milestone but rather a minor yet important update.

Now, both MP11 and IE7 come with lots of new functionality which inevitably leads to totally new problems. At the same time IE7 is not 100% backwards compatible with IE6. I noticed that myself when I couldn't view the web interface of my Thomson router using IE7 instead of IE6. Other such issues exist and not all of them have been patched.

So personally I find it very comforting that SP3 won't include either MP11 or IE7. Let's not forget that these were in fact programmed for Vista - and as we all know, Vista is not neccessarily better than XP.

These issues come about because people would often tailor their websites to the broken way that IE6 handled web code. IE7 does a much better job of rendering websites, so if something doesn't work, it's the web-coder's fault, not Microsoft's.

The styling and program layout "fits" better with Vista than XP, but that's no reason to reject them from use in XP. I couldn't imagine running any XP system with WMP10 or IE6... it's a step backwards in terms of functionality and security.

One word: bloat.

GL

And what exactly do you mean by that? People always complain about bloat, but they never bother to take a second and look at what they're getting. Vista offers lots of features that simply don't exist in XP, and third-party replacements just don't cut it. gamehead suggested I use Google Desktop for XP, but I've found that it's slow and tends to be one of those get-into-everything softwares.

they should make sp3 containing just fixes, then a rollup pack (like an addon) that contains wmp11, ie7, and up to date .net, oh and things like updated remote desktop

Call me old school, but I believe OS should be just that - operating system. To enable your computer to boot and support drivers. Microsoft has proved in many ocasions (as court rulings said) that it tries to kill off competition by bunding a similar functionality program - from IE vs Netscape through Media Player (Windows N) to desktop search engine, to name just the well known ones.

Additionally, a general one-size-fits-all program will never be as good as specialized one. For example, anyone who is serious about video editing would never use Windows Movie Maker, but a specialized program. And that's bloat for the thousand others that don't use it - and ever for that person after he has played with it a couple of times.

Also, there are many 'features' that seemed like a good idea to Microsoft at the time of launching an OS (and maybe they were, but never took off) or were made obsolete over the time, but they are installed on every computer in the world anyway (AOL and other ISPs bundled with Windows 98 - right at your face on the desktop, web folders (how many people actually use them?), briefcase, clipbook viewer etc. (if you want more, just see nlite ).

And yet another category that is incredibly useful for the ones who use it, but total bloat for those who don't - terminal services, front page extensions, languages and keyboards, Internet games...

I would not have a problem with those or with WMP11/IE7 (to get back on topic) if they were just a bunch of files, but they take literally thousands of registry entries (com/ole and filetypes), which are read all the time by windows and significantly slow down normal computer operation. And in latest service packs there is no way of removing most of the components - add/remove just hides the shortcuts.

So that's what I meant. (And please note I've not even touched Vista).

GL

I believe a better course to follow than including IE7 and WMP11 in SP3 would be to provide either:

1) An alternative "SP3+" that does include them, or
2) Direct integration capability in IE7 and WMP11 that permitted slipstreaming into an SP2 or SP3 source

Either approach leaves the choice available for the user rather than imposing a particular packaging philosophy on users.

That being said, if forced to choose, I would without question choose to have them included rather than excluded.

This post has been edited by galileo: Jan 15 2008, 08:19 PM

Service packs should do just that - service the OS. No feature adds, no upgrades, no potentials for a service pack to break anything compat-wise by anything other than a hotfix. Including IE7, especially, means potential app and website compatibility issues, which means people will be LESS likely to deploy SP3, not more.

Not a good idea, IMHO.

SP3 includes all previously released updates for XP as mentioned in its download page.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

Does it mean that it includes all updates from SP1 and SP2 only, or plus the released updates which had been released after release SP2?

And if it is true, does it really includes all of them?

Instead of doing a rollup I would rather MS put in new fixes, upgrade the kernel or something, make XP leverage multicores a bit better, increase the file system performance, etc etc stuff like that and oh yeah toss in DX 10 as a treat!

But then I am using XP x64 so XP 32 really has nothing in common with that OS other than the look....but that wishlist could be applicable to x64.

Put 'em in. nLite'll take 'em out anyway!

@cluberti, I respect your opinion not just because I have to, but because I understand why the SP would be better without. IMHO, however, I think it's a healthy trend for M$ to push their newest as part of such a massive update; they brought us DX9 and WMP9 with SP2; shame they can't somehow forge DX10 in by means of a hybrid kernel or what have you, but I'm just picking bones. I've seldom been desperate enough to use full-blown WMP when MPC and Winamp were at my disposal, but 11 strikes my fancy much more than the previous versions. Perhaps it was the fact that I was able to integrate it without a sweat when the option existed last year. I think it's gold no matter (though maybe the slip has some performance benefit over an upgrade). I used IE7 when it was still in beta and thought it could go either way--the final version only differs in stability but continues to lag terribly when starting, even when my homepage is "about:blank"..

So while they might throw those in to the final build (or might not--who knows..), I believe that it's better left a choice for the end-user as a handful have stated, but I personally wouldn't be disappointed at the forced upgrade. It still isn't Vista, right?

Windows XP SP3 is going to have some updates, like MMC 3.0 and MSXML 6.0, not to mention the NAP client for those that have NAP set up on Server 2008 networks. There's a white paper up and a KB article that lay out what is, and is not, in XP SP3.

You will not get updates to DirectX, Internet Explorer, or Windows Media Player in XP SP3, although on a somewhat-related note it looks like the IE8 beta will be released for XP if it stays on schedule (it'll release during the mainstream support phase for XP, which means it's likely to get a release - we'll find out more Wednesday after/at MIX '08, hopefully).

I don't care if they put WMP11 in SP3 as long as they fix Sysprep so it doesn't kill the OS.

I voted yes on all 3. However, for business use it should not be forced as it would literally break alot of things. If these were rolled up into SP3 then there should be an option to install or not to install.