Many times I was asked about Windows XP service pack 3 by other DW reader. Being Linux user I hardly ever needed any XP service pack for my machine. Anyway for those running Windows XP, new Service Pack is out there. This SP3 is release candidate and may not be stable but this means final version will be out soon (mostly early next year).

As Microsoft quoted, "Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission critical systems". So install at your own risk!

The goals of Windows XP SP3 are to:

• Provide a new baseline for customers still deploying Windows XP, to help them avoid the inconvenience of applying individual updates.
• Fill gaps in the updates users might have missed by declining individual updates when using Automatic Updates, and to deliver updates not made available through Windows Update.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system (updates issued after release of SP2 i.e. year 2004), in addition to a small number of new functionalities.

Most of these new are functionalities are borrowed from Windows Vista including feature called Network Access Protection (NAP) which  automatically validates a computer’s "health," ensuring that it’s free of bugs and viruses, before allowing it access to a network. So you can expect more secure computing!

Personally I liked ease of uninstallation. Yep unlike SP1 & SP2 you can uninstall SP3 from add/remove programs wizard!

Now some very bad news… SP3 is of 336.1 MB in size!

So if you want to be sure whether its worth downloading & installing this huge service pack you make read Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (PDF)!

Finally click here to download Windows XP SP3. You can use any download manager!

SP3 Links: Download Link | Features Link | Microsoft Download Center Page

Recommended Reading: Download Full Microsoft .NET Framework3.5 Setup

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