They are not likely to provide any enhancements. Many see the success of
XP as holding back sales of Vista. Microsoft would be foolish to enhance
XP if by doing so it reduces current and future cash flow.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HEMI-Powered wrote:
Gerry added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

I would not get excited. It will only be a collection of
Hotfixes already issued and Security Updates.

You seem to have the more common spelling of my name.

I agree with you about not getting enthralled with the next MS
compendium of fixes. First, MS's long track record of really bad
releases of not only individual patches but SPs has taught me to
be VERY wary of being the first kid on the block to install the
latest and greatest. e.g., I waited over a year after SP2 to be
sure that the early adopters were happy. While I obviously do not
think SP3 will be that big a deal as you say, there is still a
STRONG likelihood of a major blow-down upon install, especially
if it includes IE7. I say that because I have declined to install
maybe 10-15% of today's SP2 critical updates after lurking for
awhile in these many MS NGs and seeing that those with auto
update turned on had grievous problems. And, I have a strong
philosophy of not trying to fix things that aren't broken, so if
I think I've gotten the updates I need/want - and I do think that
- then in all likelihood I will simply acquire SP3 but not
install it on my present PC.

My older PC, bequeathed to my wife who is not a heavy CPU user
like I am with raster graphics, is still running XP SP1 just
fine, even though MS allegedly disavows support. My next PC,
probably a year or more off, will be state-of-the-art minus 1 for
multi-core AMD CPU, many gigs of memory, and - Gasp! - Vista
because I feel only it will be able to take advantage of a very
expensive HW platform. But, because I have important legacy apps
that won't be able to take advantage of Vista, and may not even
run, e.g., my old-but-still-fine flatbed scanner, I will approach
Vista gingerly and spend a LOT of time running both systems until
I get the Vista box tuned to my preferences.

All I can say for the early adopters of ANY new version/update of
ANY software is Thank God for people who want to beta test with
THEIR Visa cards so I don't have to with mine! grin

I am hearing about XP SP3 about to be offered by MS.
I've looked, but have not been able to find any list of what
'upgrades' are included in XP SP3, post SP2. Is there such
a list, say by KB#?
Where?

I've read that it is a 1Q2008 release. Maybe I'm off some,
but it is still a ways off AFAIK.