Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been released

Microsoft has released Service Pack 3 for its Windows XP family of operating system. This release does not affect the end user’s experience with the operating system but mostly contains the previously released fixes and updates.

However, this release contains many smaller but newer functionalities that might be of some help to IT Administrators and people in IT department in-charge of end user computing.

The new and enhanced functionality that, are worth mentioning, comes along with SP3 is as follows:

• Black Hole Router Detection - Windows XP SP3 includes improvements to black hole router detection (detecting routers that are silently discarding packets), turning it on by default.
• Network Access Protection (NAP) - NAP is a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows XP SP3 with which you can better protect network assets by enforcing compliance with system health requirements. Using NAP, you can create customized health policies to validate computer health before allowing access or communication.
• Enhanced security for Administrator and Service policy entries - In System Center Essentials for Windows XP SP3, Administrator and Service entries will be present by default on any new instance of policy. Additionally, the user interface for the Impersonate Client After Authentication user right will not be able to remove these settings.
• Windows Product Activation - As in Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows Vista, users can now complete operating system installation without providing a product key during a full, integrated installation of Windows XP SP3. The operating system will prompt the user for a product key later as part of Genuine Advantage.

Additional things to note about XP SP3:

• Users can install SP3 on top of Windows XP SP1 or SP2
• Tools and guidance for system administrators have not fundamentally changed from Windows XP SP2.
• Windows XP SP3 is for x86 editions of Windows XP only.

The XP SP 3 is for the following versions of XP: Windows XP; Windows XP Home Edition ; Windows XP Home Edition N; Windows XP Media Center Edition; Windows XP Professional Edition ; Windows XP Professional N; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2; Windows XP Starter Edition and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

As an end user, SP3 is not of much importance that will require you to install it as it doesn’t impact how you use your system.

» More info on XP SP3 [here]