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Once again I turned to Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows for the details on what was going to be included in SP3. Here’s essentially what it comes down to.
The first thing that SP3 is going to do is make your system as current as it can be, patch-wise, including everything that was in both SP1 and SP2. Microsoft does require, however, that SP1 already be installed on your PC prior to adding the new service pack. They also recommend, but not require, that SP2 also be installed prior to the upgrade.
There’s also four new minor features that Microsoft has included in SP3 that they’ve effectively drawn from Windows Vista, although these aren’t really ‘user end’ features. In other words, they won’t affect your experience of using XP in any really noticeable ways. They include:
- Network Access Protection compatibility: allows Windows XP computers to interact with the NAP features built into Windows Server 2008.
- No need to enter a Windows product key during setup.
- Kernel Mode Cryptographics Module: this module will “encapsulate several different cryptographic algorithms”. According to Microsoft.
- Black Hole router detection: if your router drops certain types of networking packets, XP will now ignore it. Not generally something you’ll need to worry about, though.
And that’s it. Have I lost anyone yet? Admittedly, there’s nothing particularly sexy about SP3, but if for no other reason than it’ll patch your machine to a state that’s as current as can be, get the update when it becomes available. It’ll help deal with some of the XP issues you might be having.
Tags: sp3