Ok, so finally the REAL service-pack 3 for WinXP (32-bit) shows signs of appearing, and its been only 3 years since SP2, wow!
Its not a hoax, is about ~300+ MB, and reports say that it is pretty stable.
Over 900 fixes, WMP is still v9, and IE6sp3 is included.

It could be called a pre-beta, and is at build 3180 at the moment.
And no, providing links would mean warez, but this news was posted here for the sake of those who want to know.

This post has been edited by prathapml: Aug 8 2007, 07:56 PM

~332 megs is what i see for the size.

http://bink.nu/photos/news_article_images/...8/original.aspx

They better sure as hell make sure it's surely slipstreamable!

does this mean RyanVM wont need to worry that much over the update pack anymore?
Since this package bridges the gap between SP2 & now, and SP3 should be out in a few more months with (most probably) leaks of new builds all along the way.... With an official pack available, keeping up with making the unofficial one would mean quite some redundant effort, which might be used elsewhere?


Oh, and slip-streamable it surely is. That primarily is one reason I like service packs, for the clean integration.
Same old switches too - extract using /x or winrar, then run "update /integrate:<path>"
Preferably slipstream onto an RTM disc instead of a disc that already has SP2.

This post has been edited by prathapml: Aug 8 2007, 07:52 PM

I just used nLite and it worked.

Does anyone know what patches and hotfixes are included in this pre-beta? Is there anywhere we can go to find out? I'd like to know if KB921883 is included, and what the latest security updates for IE6 and OE6 are included. I already know that SP3 (at least at this stage) does not include IE7 in the package. Thanks

I hope I will be happy with my XP for years to come!

The best you could do at the moment though, is to visit this page - http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/updatepack.html
At the minimum, atleast those hotfixes are surely in sp3.

weirdly, its looking like .NET framework is also integrated in a limited way?

What about SATA drivers ? Are them integrated to SP3, or will we still have to deploy the drivers by ourselves ?

--ThundernetBR

As it stands it really just looks like a collection of hotfixes.

Freshly installed XP, installed SP2 as I had problems reading my SD card without it (where I stored SP3), then installed SP3 on top. Went to Windows update and collectively had 3 optional updates to do after installation. .NET 1.1, .NET 1.1 SP1 and .NET 2.0.

Nothing majorly new - but big disappointment not to see WMP11 or IE7. Maybe in the final we will?

This post has been edited by Biohead: Aug 9 2007, 09:16 AM

thats right, only hotfixes. No new drivers until beta2 atleast is my guess.
(SP2 was 260 MB or so, this is 332 MB & all of the difference in size is purely because of updates...?)

has MSFT ever distro'd new drivers in a service pack??

Yes. A good example of that is SP1 vs SP2 in regards to USB 2.0 support and HDAA (High Definition Audio Architecture) support.

This time the XP service pack is on the hands of the former Windows Server 2003 SP2 Beta Team, that happened to do a pretty good job both in the last year and now, with this SP3 v.3180.

I've been notified yesterday to download my copy and AFAIK this is a compilation of all hotfixes and patches to XP up-to-date. (as in ~900 problems with XP SP2). You can see in the screenshots from Part 5 of my guide that there aren't any visible changes since SP2.

changes

Main impact at this point is for Windows XP Starter Edition, if you have SP2 I'd recommend you slipstream this SP3 now. There are also some minor improvements in Bluetooth and USB support.
There are some new drivers for WDM in ATI and NVIDIA, and AMD K8. Mostly driver improvements that were made available earlier for Server 2003 SP2.

product keys

MSDN and Technet subscribers' keys are available. A lot of retail keys have been blacklisted.


From the looks of PID, I'd say Microsoft is aiming for allowing the installation of XP SP3 without a product key, using a default staged one, that you can change later.

nLite support

As nLite already supports all the hotfixes integrated by Microsoft in this v.3180, I bet compatibility is close to 100% for removal. I tried 3 combinations today and all work.
The only possible bug is that slipstreaming SP3 into SP2 Media Center 3.0 results in SP3 Media Center 2.8. I think they might be rolling back some code for a new Media Center 2008, but it's too early to tell.

priorities

As for the priority of the SP3 Beta, it's quite obviously the last. The delay is perfectly justified because both Server 2003 SP2 and Vista RTM were, are and will be more important than XP.
Microsoft never handled more than 2 concurrent OS beta programs and we've just had:

1) 2003 SP2 Beta -> RC / Vista Beta 2 -> RC
2) 2003 SP2 RC -> RTM / Vista RC -> Vista RTM

Vista RTM codebase becomes Server 2008 Beta 3
2003 RTM codebase becomes 2003 Home Server Beta

3) Server 2008 Beta 2 -> Beta 3 / 2003 Home Server Beta -> RC

and now, we have:

4) Server 2008 Beta 3 -> RC / XP SP2 -> SP3 Beta , with the server taking priority.

I'd say this list pretty much explains the delay If you've tested Server 2008 Beta 3 after testing Beta 2, you already got the general feeling of "codebase sharing"

Enjoy!

This post has been edited by dexter.inside: Aug 9 2007, 01:33 PM

nm

This post has been edited by ricktendo64: Aug 19 2007, 11:02 AM

If you remember, until SP2 you could actually open unattend.txt & use the key listed there (valid to install as an xp-pro with PID of 012, with the caveat that it wouldn't get activated by the MS clearinghouse). You must change the key after installation to a proper licensed one!
Now it looks like you can get a working key from i386\PID.inf too, using generic keys such as the one listed for [Media02].

This post has been edited by prathapml: Aug 10 2007, 05:02 AM

Which directx version is contained in sp3?

DirectX 9.0c will be the only DirectX for XP until it goes defunct. XP is not bringing profit to Microsoft so that's why they'd rather terminate support than port new features onto it.
Server 2003 brings profit but there would be no reason to port the WDDM driver schema on it to support DirectX 10.

On the other hand, we will see a new WGA/OGA more unified system to handle all versions of Windows.
Now seriously, think a bit, if somebody were to make DirectX 10 run on NT 5.x that would mean those 10 million gamers that bought a Vista license would have never paid.

My suggestion: if you want a gaming kiosk wait for Server 2008 to RTM (as it will have DirectX 10.1), get a 180-day evaluation version and vLite it. I am very happy with it.