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Windows Operating Systems Software Microsoft

Details On Windows XP SP3 Leaked 140

Posted by kdawson from the man-on-the-inside dept.
crazyeyes notes the leak of 7 pages of secret Microsoft information on the upcoming Service Pack for Windows XP. Quoting: "We were the first to break the news on the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and the final RTM schedule of Windows XP Service Pack 3. Now, we will be the first to release the full details on Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 3, which as we know will be available for manual update on April 29, 2008."
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Details On Windows XP SP3 Leaked More

Details On Windows XP SP3 Leaked

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:19AM (#23212738)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • DO NOT RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:35AM (#23212806) Homepage Journal
      It's an empty non-story with NO new information. Don't reward them with ad hits.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Once again adblock allows me to see just how appalling the site is without helping fund this "news".
        • I generally only block pop-ups, because I recognize that if someone is providing me with free (to me) content then they have a right to make a little revenue. If site has lots of annoying ads then I either don't go there or I step up my blocking.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by el americano ( 799629 )
            That's the main reason why I want an adblocker for FF that loads the ads, but doesn't display them. The other reason is that I don't want to be detected blocking ads, although that hasn't been a problem so far.

      • Re:DO NOT RTFA (Score:5, Funny)

        by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:58AM (#23212878)

        It's an empty non-story with NO new information. Don't reward them with ad hits.
        Furthermore, the operating system that it is about is a non-story with NO meaningful improvements. Don't reward them with an install.
        • There is the question of if the information in the article is even accurate to begin with. I searched http://support.microsoft.com/ [microsoft.com] for 3 of the KB articles that it listed, (KB950719, KB950720, & KB950721) and none of them showed up. Google only showed links back to that article...

      • Re:DO NOT RTFA (Score:5, Funny)

        by WK2 ( 1072560 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @05:02AM (#23212892) Homepage
        Way ahead of you, man. I already didn't RTFA, and didn't plan to. I was just going to leave a bunch of comments on it, and imply that I read it.
        • Actually there are a couple useful tidbits in the article. For instance, WPA2 WILL be included in SP3 (FINALLY!). And there are some known issues that could be helpful for some users. Most importantly, most of the useless Vista features that people feared would be included...arent. Yay! I'm actually looking forward to SP3 again now.

      • Re:DO NOT RTFA (Score:5, Funny)

        by IBBoard ( 1128019 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @05:03AM (#23212896) Homepage
        How likely is that anyway? 1) It's TFA and this is Slashdot and 2) it's about Windows and not Linux/Unix/other geeky stuff. That leaves a tiny proportion of /.ers as potential link clickers ;)

        • What we need... (Score:5, Funny)

          by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Sunday April 27, 2008 @06:44AM (#23213222) Homepage Journal
          ...in HTML 5 is the ability to generate negative clicks. Negative clicking an ad-ridden site would give them negative numbers of viewers.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
            I wonder if we could build a plugin, that would give them so many extra clicks, such that their advertisers wouldn't believe that they actually generated that many hits, and would refuse to pay, on the grounds that they couldn't have possibly gotten so many hits. Basically just reload the page 500 times, possibly deleting any cookies so and making a minor change in the user agent so you look like a different person. Sure it's the same IP address, but I don't think they would really want to only count uniqu
            • I am sure we could, but why would we want to undermine a revenue model that brings us all the benefit of free (for us) content? Doesn't make any sense at all to me, as this content has to be paid for somehow. Would you prefer to personally pay for page views of information that would be important to you? I wouldn't, and therefore am quite happy to accept pages decorated with advertisements if it contains content interesting to me.

              • Doesn't make any sense at all to me, as this content has to be paid for somehow. Would you prefer to personally pay for page views of information that would be important to you?

                Yes, I would. "We're not asking you to pay, so we get to annoy the shit out of you," just doesn't work for me.

                But why pay when I can just block the ads?

              • There's a difference between well used adverts on a page and hell on earth where it's hard to read the content for flashing GIFs and loud images.
              • I don't mind ads for the most part. I don't block ads on most sites. Slashdot seems to do a pretty good job supporting themselves, and the ads are pretty minimally invasive. Google doesn't do too bad either. And their ads are about as non-invasive as you get. What bothers me are the sites that put each paragraph on a separate page, or those that give you giant flashy pop-ups, or flash/js ads that hover over the text you are trying to read. I am much more likely to click on an ad if it doesn't annoy me

      • Re:DO NOT RTFA (Score:5, Funny)

        by niceone ( 992278 ) * on Sunday April 27, 2008 @05:14AM (#23212936) Journal
        DO NOT RTFA

        I have mod points, but unfortunately there is no +1 Redundant.

        • Re:DO NOT RTFA (Score:4, Interesting)

          by .orvp ( 208389 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @07:08AM (#23213294)
          Oh yes there is...

          Modify your Comments Configuration [slashdot.org], and place a +2 Redundant reason modifier. I do this as I think Redundant is the second worst mod option (after Overrated on Funny comments)
          • Actualy "Overrated" for me is always an unfair moderation. And I metamoderate accordingly.

            • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

              by nmb3000 ( 741169 )
              Actualy "Overrated" for me is always an unfair moderation. And I metamoderate accordingly.

              Umm, not sure how you do that considering that Overrated and Underrated mods do not show up in metamoderation. How could they? The only way you could fairly metamoderate the mod would be if you knew the moderation score before the other user modded the comment.

              This is why Overrated/Underrated really are the weasel mods of Slashdot. I only hope that the likelihood of a user getting points is based in part on how often
            • I rarely use "overrated", but when I do it's when someone's comment was shot up to +3 or higher when it contained false info. I've seen that happen numerous times -- post containing false info is modded up by mods who didn't know better, but it remains modded up after being shown that the info is wrong.
              • That may be, but believe it or not, in my relatively short Slashdot history, I was always overrated when I wasn't even rated! So I'd end up at 0. Time for it to be replaced with "Incorrect as far as I know."

      • It's an empty non-story with NO new information. Don't reward them with ad hits.

        I totally agree, those features were previously discussed here [slashdot.org].
        And the list of those features is listed in a pdf file on the website of microsoft itself [microsoft.com]

    • From TFA:

      Before we start, let's take a look at what we have posted in the past about Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

      At least read what you're trying to disparage.

      That said, about the only thing of (remote) interest is the fact that the installer package is only 72 megs.

      • Re:This big news... (Score:5, Informative)

        by blake1 ( 1148613 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:45AM (#23212834)
        SP3 is 316MB.
        • Ah, so their "secret" news isn't even accurate.

          I can't help but care less and less that I've never heard of this site.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 )
            It's not exactly secret - the RC has been available for months and the final release has been on MSDN for ages.. and we're geeks right? We either have MSDN or know someone that does.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by poulbailey ( 231304 )
            The story isn't wrong per se. Here's what Microsoft has to say (from the PDF I linked elsewhere):

            Through Windows Update, the download size varies, but it is typically 70 megabytes (MB), depending on the
            computer's configuration. Through the Download Center, the download size is approximately 580 MB.
        • Can you slipstream it into an install less than 700mb?
      • I found it to be very interesting, and I doubt that I am the only one, as his pages are nearly slashdotted at the moment. For some reason, my installation of WinXP Pro stopped accepting updates about 8 months ago, and I shudder to think about what unpatched vulnerabilities exist on it now. I really look forward to SP 3 resolving the problem and bringing my OS up to date, as I will continue running XP for a long time to come yet. I have no intention of upgrading to Vista. I certainly don't mind if the author

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by paganizer ( 566360 )
      I think the really big news will be that we find out just how frakking evil microsoft is, or isn't.
      Please, take a moment to think about Vista, and how reliable, quick, stable and trouble free it has proven to be. I'll wait.

      dum-de-dum.

      do-waaa. dum-de.

      OK, back from throwing up? sorry, I'm a jerk. OK, now think of the position Microsoft is in; there are millions of XP users out there, and more every time most people with Vista manage to get hold of a XP license (as with everything, there are exceptions.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by YaroMan86 ( 1180585 )

        They could make a deal with game developers so that new games would only run on Vista. Hmmm. Might work.

        I doubt it. I've written about this before, though I'm far from an authority. Game makers want to develop for the largest platform. You really htink they would shoot themselves in the foot by switching over en-masse to DirectX 10, where gamers haven't really gone? Have you noticed that despite Vista's length of time out (Relatively short compared to XP, but long enough.) the door, the game market is sti

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by pdusen ( 1146399 )
        Vista runs fine on my Athlon X2 4200+ with 2 gigs of ddr. Hardly what I'd call 'quantum core massively parallel'. Go cry in a corner now, I won't judge.
        • Yeah, I guess if Vista runs fine on your Athlon X2 4200+ with 2Gb of DDR, they have really met the needs of the casual computer user.
          If you don't mind, I'll restrict myself to crying in the corner because I got modded offtopic; I could have seen troll, or overrated, but offtopic?
          • Well, Vista runs fine on my X23800+ with only 1 GB of PC3200 ram. Of course, the CPU is the NEWEST part of that computer, and I've had the current setup for over two years now. And the 3800+ wasn't by far the fastest processor of the time either.
    • Well, the important point to take home is that SP3 will be at least as vapid as this "techarp.com" article was, and that will surely be good news for anyone who was worried that Microsoft would go all Vista on this final XP service pack.

    • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

      by palewook ( 1101845 )
      "Windows XP Service Pack 3 will contain hotfixes and updates released since Windows XP SP2." Stunned that I now possess trade secrets of this caliber pre-release. I fear receiving a cease and desist letter any day now. These new languages are now supported : â Klingon

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by galaad2 ( 847861 )
      "Windows XP Service Pack 3 contains hotfixes and updates released since Windows XP SP2."

      there..fixed it for you.
      Btw, i already got SP3 final since a few days ago, it's been posted on April 23rd 2008 on Softpedia [softpedia.com] :D
      Current download count: 300,000 and counting like crazy.

    • here it is (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Right from the source:

      http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/5/53519680-fcc0-4a00-86e0-e7d5cba84461/WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe
    • worse yet, this same page was available way back when the other story from this same site was on slashdot and yet they're acting like this is some new breaking news. I think they just split up the stories into 2 to get more people to their website now. Next will be the "how big is it" page that they also have up lol. Btw here's a little tip they can add without calling Miss Cleo: It'll fuck up your system :P

  • Slow news day? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is absolutely no new information in the article. The site linked to is also downright ugly and sensationalist (Secret Pre-Release Details On Windows XP Service Pack 3).

    Thanks for wasting my time.

  • Something to take note of (Score:5, Informative)

    by blake1 ( 1148613 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:34AM (#23212800)
    Allows users to complete their software setup without having to provide a product key.

    This isn't the case as far as I've experienced if you slipstream existing SP2 media with the latest service pack. Maybe you have to use new SP3 media from MS, who knows.

  • Secret Details? rubbish (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:47AM (#23212836)
    Every information about XP SP3 is available from MS website, and thats even more detailed. This is a crap article.

  • Links to service pack here... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 27, 2008 @04:56AM (#23212872)
    The service pack has already been leaked (more info here [hishamrana.com] with usenet and bittorrent links). So far its working fine. There have been some scattered reports of problems but this is mainly due to people missing updates via glitches within Windows Update.

    1. My suggestion is everyone download Secunia PSI [secunia.com] to scan their systems for older/vulnerable software. Update all software it finds to be out of date.

    2. Use Filehippo.com's Update Checking utility [filehippo.com] to update any software that PSI misses.

    3. Use a registry cleaner and temporary file cleanup utility to CCleaner [ccleaner.com].

    Then do the update. It should go perfectly well then.

    • Windows IS user friendly (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You mean I only have to download three programs from three different obscure sites and then I might just be able to install sp3. Awesome. Compared to that, updating Linux really is a PITA.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Holy crap...glad I haven't had to waste my time on windoze all these years...! :-)

      That's quite a list. And how many hours is an individual required to waste on all of this junk, just to have a (temporarily) functional system?

      (Snickers while browsing the net on ubuntu system, with firefox and 5 tabs open, while downloading several files, posting to /., etc.)

    • Re:Links to service pack here... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thePsychologist ( 1062886 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @11:23AM (#23214762) Journal
      And they say Linux is harder to use than Windows.

    • Re:Links to service pack here... (Score:4, Informative)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @01:00PM (#23215594) Journal

      2. Use Filehippo.com's Update Checking utility [filehippo.com] to update any software that PSI misses.
      "Privacy Policy
      The Update Checker will not send any personal information back to FileHippo.com. The only information collected is a list of programs and their versions, along with the operating system details to help with processing. Additionally none of this is linked to your IP address and the logs are deleted after processing."

      What a refreshing privacy policy.
      I'm a convert.
  • This article[Next page] has absolutely no[Next page] new or "secret" information[Next page] at all.[Next page] What a waste of [Next page] 5 minutes of my life.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Barny ( 103770 )
      {huge banner ad}I am glad{huge banner ad}[Next page]{huge banner ad} it is slashdotted to{huge banner ad}[Next page]{huge banner ad} hell then.{huge banner ad}

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @05:12AM (#23212930)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • DOJ mandates windows user interface now?! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gd23ka ( 324741 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @05:35AM (#23212988) Homepage
    Check this: Address Bar on taskbar missing. This is no longer available at the request of the US Department Of Justice (DOJ) [techarp.com]

    If those parasites don't like it they should ask for a private build. What's next?!?
    • I don't think you understand. The DoJ likely demanded they remove it because Google came pissing to them about how it's anti-competitive that users can use a non-Google address bar in the task bar.
    • God damnit... yer right (just installed SP3 like 10 minutes ago)...

      Thats annoying... normally I dont use it, but somtimes I do for the history (almost as quick as keeping 8 folders open without doing so)... gonna have to find a (reg edit) way around that or something...

      • Further into it... it only applies to the Taskbar, not any extra toolbars you have (top, sides, etc) which means you can get one on the Taskbar by simply...

        1. Create a new toolbar (drag a folder or 'My Computer' to a screen edge)
        2. Right click, select Toolbars - Address
        3. Click and Drag/Drop it onto the Taskbar...

        Downside is, its gone on reboot...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zugok ( 17194 )
          Oh man that was one change that stood out for me. I like having that address bar so I can just type in an URL and Firefox will automatically open up for me. It's used all the time. I currently have it as a stand-alone toolbar but if it is gone after a reboot, it's pointless.
    • I'm sure some friendly neighborhood hacker will come through with a Windows patch. Just like the uxtheme.dll patches and the TCP > 10 concurrent connection attempts patch.

  • Microsoft clarified that there will not be any integrated SP3 release for Windows XP Media Center Edition or Windows XP Tablet Edition. That means you won't be able to buy or obtain a complete Windows XP Media Center Edition / Tablet Edition SP3 CD. In addition, users of Windows XP Media Center Edition or Windows XP Tablet Edition will only be able to update to Service Pack 3 through Windows Update

    MS does some things that really boggle the mind sometimes. I can't possibly understand THAT behavior, but mayb

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by repvik ( 96666 )
        you are aware that Vistas SP1 can't be slipstreamed either? It's just as difficult in Vista as in XP ;)
    • not true, just updated a media center pc with the stand alone instal yesterday. went without a hitch, except for my daughter asking where the address bar went that used to live in her taskbar.
  • Sp3 final has already been leaked, and is actually available from microsoft's webserver

    http://findfiles.com/list.php?string=Windowsxp-Kb936929-Sp3-x86&db=Mirrors&match=All&search= [findfiles.com]

    List of Mirrors there, enjoy.
    • Some of the mirror sites: www.p0wned.com, www.dlwarez.com and www.freetoolbar.com

      But seriously, seven different file sizes, depending on the mirror you go with? This sounds more like Harry's House of Mirrors...heh, I look pretty good in the thin one!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Vacuous ( 652107 )
        Well you could do what I did and use the download.microsoft.com mirrors, I bet those are legit:P
  • An old bug where any version of visual studio (up to VS 2005) often hang in debug breakpoint if language toolbar enabled ?
    Latest I hear bug considered fixed because it fixed in Vista. But I still have some hope...
  • What is this, amateur night or bring the kids to work day? How could an editor pick this up as newsworthy? The Microsoft "secret" docs are actually public information, and have been since 11 April. We need an "R U 12" button around here.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • rtfa (Score:2, Funny)

    by spandex_panda ( 1168381 )
    I think that alex zarkoff is the worst for next page, to find out what I mean go to page 2... Oh and I love that nobody RsTFA (and I hope that actually DOES stand for reads the fucking article, and not something sophisticated)

  • Guys Chill (Score:5, Informative)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @07:04AM (#23213284) Journal
    Microsoft seems to have actually gotten this one right. Its the least envasive service pack I have seen in a long time. Its not that interesting really. It truely is as advertised pretty just a patch rollup. Which was long over due because there were like 78 patches out there against sp2 or something similar. The other thing this provides is the new rdp 6.1 client. I down loaded it to put on my test machines becase we are looking at deploying a few blades running Server 2008 for terminal services to replace or tired Citrix servers. You need the new rdp stuffs for that work right client side.

    All this does is let people who admin Windows networks to clean up the WSUS boxes, maybe make some slip stream disks more easily for new installs and image building, and use the advanced features of 2008's terminal server.
  • Why spend time reading an article that claims to be leaked information about the service pack. You can just install the also leaked service pack and see for yourself. Anyone who claims to be worthy of reading /. already knows at least a dozen places to download it :-)

    And I've had no problems with the three machines I've installed it on.
  • I'm not really surprised that this document had nothing new to say. I think its main intention was to suck in more views of advertisements and sum it all up for the less clued up bunch.

    But first and foremost ads.

    I guess I'll get around to installing this on my XP laptop then, just for security updates that I've been ignoring. That's what the service packs had going for them, mass deployment of updates.
  • This information has been available since April 1st on Microsoft's website. This is not leaked... Everything in the article is in the Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3.pdf http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68c48dad-bc34-40be-8d85-6bb4f56f5110&displaylang=en [microsoft.com]
  • I've tested it on 9 different boxes, and it works fine.
    Disable any download managers you might be running, as I limit apache to 1 connection per IP.

    http://phb.btfh.net/temp2/ [btfh.net]

  • Link to direct download from M$ (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I googled the filename (WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe) from the blog mentioned earlier:
    http://blog.hishamrana.com/2008/04/23/windows-xp-sp3-leaked-onto-bittorrent-and-usenet

    I came across a Microsoft page that wasn't up anymore, 5th result down linked to a page that isn't up anymore. Using google's cached results I came up with this link:
    http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/5/53519680-fcc0-4a00-86e0-e7d5cba84461/WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe
  • We know this animal. With SP3 being released so close to the XP end of life, isn't there concern that it includes a killswitch, to force users to upgrade to the next OS? Just because I'm paranoid don't mean they're not after me.
  • If I would ever have to reinstall XP from the legit cd(which I have), there's of course a ton of updates I have to install afterward. I wish MS would let me sign up for a legit, printed, same serial # CD with all the updates,etc. Then I can trash the original CD & use the new one. That would save a lot of time, and especially at the workplace when they have new boxes to setup. Hmm..

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