Microsoft Windows XP SP3 - Twice as fast as Vista SP1?
By Dave Parrack
There have been rumours abound for the past week about the possibility of a new service pack coming for Windows XP, and now Microsoft has confirmed that beta testing is underway for a release early next year. There are also claims already emerging of the possible speed and performance boost that SP3 will provide for those of us sticking with XP.
Having completed the first RC (release candidate) for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft set about starting trials of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). The preview version, basically a fully featured trial version being beta tested for flaws, has now been released to 15,000 users who will continually give feedback, and report any errors in the upgrade.
Windows XP SP3 will reportedly “feature more than 1,000 hot fixes and patches that have been issued in the past three years, as well as at least four new features, some of which will be ports of Vista tools.”
The package is currently 340mb in size, and only available to registered Microsoft beta testers. The finished version is expected to be released sometime in the first half of 2008, but a Microsoft spokesman wouldn’t be drawn any further, telling PC World:
“We are targeting [the first half of] 2008 for the release of XP SP3 RTM [release to manufacturing], though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority.”
Whenever it finally gets released on to a public user base eager for a security and feature update, it’s sure to be the last all encompassing service pack for the 6 year old operating system. Microsoft seem intent on moving the company and its customers on to Vista, despite the relatively small number of people actively choosing to change over.
In fact, some analysts now believe Windows XP will see most people through to Windows 7, currently expected to be released in 2010.
SP3 is well overdue, 4 long years after SP2 was released in April 2004. It does seem on first sight, that the upgrade will boost performance of the old OS quite substantially.
Craig Barth, Devil Mountain Software’s chief technology officer claims on their blog:
“We were pleasantly surprised to discover that Windows XP SP3 delivers a measurable performance boost to this ageing desktop OS. Since SP3 was supposed to be mostly a bug-fix/patch consolidation release, the unexpected speed boost comes as a nice bonus.”
“In fact, XP SP3 is shaping up to be a ‘must-have’ update for the majority of users who are still running Redmond’s not-so-latest and greatest desktop OS.”
Earlier in the week, Devil Mountain had claimed that Windows Vista SP1 was no faster than the original, so these new claims could spell bad news for Vista. Barth goes on to say that “[Vista] is now more than two times slower than the most current builds of its older sibling.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m happy with XP as it is right now, and SP3 should only help to maintain my level of satisfaction. I can wait for Windows 7… it’s only 3 short years away after all.
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