On Tuesday, Chris Keroack of Microsoft announced that Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP has released to manufacturing (RTM). Windows XP SP3 bits are now working their way through their manufacturing channels to be available to OEM and Enterprise customers.

Microsoft is also in the final stages of preparing for release to the web on April 29th, via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center. Online documentation for Windows XP SP3, such as Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and the Microsoft TechNet Windows XP TechCenter, will be updated then

For customers who use Windows XP at home, Windows XP SP3 Automatic Update distribution for users at home will begin in early summer.

View: Original Article
News source: Microsoft TechNet Forums

Yeah! ...I'm tired of having to do 90+ updates on client machines. This should speed up reinstalls nicely!

I hear ya Phonics. Should definitely be a time saver.

Where can I get patched uxtheme.dll for XP SP3 RTM English ?

Here. But you'll have to wait to Rafael gets SP3 and re-patches uxtheme.dll. So keep your eye on the link.

thats so nice, i am waiting it too, it gonna save a lot of installing time.

Just a tip for future reference: Integrate all updates before installing. Simple

Not to mantion the last batch of updates has been a complete nightmare. The group that just showed up with the activXkillbit (something to that effect) update has been either failing to install or just flat killing the machine (I had 5 go tits up on this last week). Has anybody else had problems with it?

This is going to reduce my company's image size, and update time. I can't wait.

My installation disc is 180MB with SP3, IE7 and WMP11 (with all hotfixes) integrated.

And no, I don't use WMP.

Going to install it tomorrow.

XP SP3 Final patched uxtheme.dll

I've patched the uxtheme.dll and confirmed it as working on XP SP3 Final.

Enjoy!

The installation took me 8 minutes and didn't cause any trouble. The only thing I had to do, was disable the security center again. Oh, and re-patch the TCPIP.SYS.

I didn't expect it to be this trouble free.

Amen to that!

Here's the MD5SUM for the final WinXP SP3:

as much as I would love to download it now, i have to be proper about it for my company. and I'm running vista on my main home machine.

It's a free update... The same file that's on TechNet and MSDN... And it's going to be made public in a few days.

yea..so I'm just gonna wait. I know its free.

great...when's it coming out for X64? >:/

It's not.

X64 is Server 2003 with a different name, hence a completely differnet kernel. AFAIK.

As far as I have read, there are no plans for SP3x64 for a while.

Anyone else having issues with product keys not showing as valid in slipstreamed sp3? I have two legit corp keys that I can copy and paste directly from our volume license website into the winnt.sif file but it reads them as invalid. I can delete the pidgen.dll from the iso and replace it with the one from sp2 which allows the installation to accept the key but it fails on first boot. If I apply sp3 to an existing sp2 installation there are no issues with keys.

same problem here. slipstreamed into SP0 media. no vlk key legit or otherwise seem to work that i can find... not even tablet edition vlk.

also, i love this here. applying onto sp0... guess we lost the all-inclusiveness of service packs...

Yeah, I heard about that. I was able to slipsteam it into sp0 though. Still the same problem with keys so I don't know if the install would have actually finished.

have you gotten any other info about the keys? how the h3ll do i install this clean if i can't get any keys to work.

i just built a dell oem cd from an sp0 cd with sp3 slipstream and am going to test that out on a dell system to see if it rejects that key or if it installs.

also, i was under the impression that you could do 'product key-less" installs. that doesn't seem to be happening with the slipstreamed vlk media either. i am going to try again without ever having tried a key.

I know other people who have slipstreamed it just fine and since posting this I've run into one other person who has my same difficulties. I guess if you're lucky your key will work and if it doesn't you'll have to wait until you have it officially before contacting Microsoft for a new key.

From what I've gathered they keyless install only works for non-corp versions although I'm not 100% certain about that.

i slipstreamed sp3 into a dell sp0 oem cd and it isnalled fine. no key errors and windows is activated.

i just grabbed sp0 retail from msdn and am going to slip in sp3 and see if you are right about this keyless thing not being for vlk.

edit: so i slipstreamed sp3 into sp0 retail. i cannot install without entering a product key. it does take illegitimate keys and will install, though i know i won't be able to activate.

how do you do a product key-less install??? it didn't work with vlk or retail media, at least for me. not that it matters so much since i don't seem to have a valid key that i could put in later anyway if i did get vlk to install without entering a key...

Someone on another forum posted that they may be key issues when slipstreaming from a vista or server 2008 machine. I was doing it from a vista x64 box. I loaded up an xp32 vm, did the build exactly as I did it before and it worked fine!

XP SP3 slipstream should not be created while in Vista or Server 2008.

I learned that the hard way.

i had to know what the difference was. attached is a beyond compare shot of the differences between the two i386 directories, one slipstreamed on vista x64 (E:) and one slipstreamed on WinFLP (Z:\tempty\xpsp2\build)

Click to view attachment

this is probably happening because update.exe cannot correctly determine what version it is slipstreaming into by analyzing the current pidgen.dll/dpcdll.dll or maybe just looking into the setupp.ini, and instead puts the default retail/oem license files; that is why the dell oem cd i tested worked, and also when i compared slipstreaming into a reatil sp0 cd, the i386 matched the vlk media slipstream.

if you look into update inf, it appears this code here determines which dpcdll.dll and pidgen.dll go into the directory.



i am now wondering what versions Evl and Mnt are, and the difference between Start and StartEN. Sel are the files that are used for VLK. I would have thought Evl was 'Enterprise Volume License' but maybe it's eval, since Sel appears to be 'Select'.

None of this explains how to do a key-less install, which still didn't work for me now matter where it was slipstrreamed.

you'd have thought all they had to do was add a quick test into the executable or modify the inf so that if the slipstream is run on a vista/2008 system, it will tell you that it isn't supported. instead it just says "integrated install completed successfully"

I'm sorry Chugworth, I just had to laugh. Not that you were stupid, or you did something wrong - simply because it wasn't ME who encountered some time waste for once!

Thanks for the heads up, although I'm already running it.

I recall encountering the same kind of thing Chug with trying to slipstream Windows 2000 SP4 from XP, but thanks for reminder all the same.

I had no problems with a slipstreamed SP3 accepting a legit VLK. I made the mistake of poking around the Windows Update site (looking for driver updates) and ran foul of some ActiveX content there - it initially crashed IE, then the whole system started to run like treacle....eventually had to reinstall. Managed to make the same mistake a second time before the penny dropped so I'm on my 3rd install in 4 days. All is well, just fighting shy of any possible updates.

Ircsum.

XP SP3:
http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownlo...e2300ebfde4.exe


kernel posted some links to other languages in the German forum:
http://board.iexbeta.com/index.php?showtopic=73148

So, uh, quick question. SP3...does it have WGA integrated and checks to make sure you key is legit

WGA is never integrated.
Microsoft installs it on demand, at your first try to update, but only after asking for your consent first...
They seem to have learned after so many debacles.

No problems with any of those updates on any of my 6 machines.

Waiting to hear what transpires with SP3 updates.
This DOES cram IE7 down your throat, doesn't it? WMP11 (or whatever version it is?) also?

Unfortunately, no. Because of that, I had to go through nLite to add them rather than just having a pure, clean installation disk.

Glad to know I'm not the only one that finds IE7's absence from SP3 annoying. That's a rather large hole to leave in a "Security Roll-up"...

SP3 contains the latest, totally renewed, version of IE6!!!
I am VERY happy with this. Never liked IE7...

From a business standpoint, I'm VERY HAPPY they didn't include IE7. It would have been a major setback for us, as our environment is still on IE6.

Well then it sounds to me like you have already been setback. IE7 has been out for well over a year now.

I see here that the integrated XP SP3 is now available to MSDN/TechNet subscribers.

Ircsum.

...Can You say Hole in Security...

I was unable to install XP SP3 on XP gold edion, as expected, but I had no problems with slipstreaming. So I'm runnng XP SP3 slipstreamed on XP Gold. Is that Ok, or I should Install XP with SP2, and then install SP3? Thanks!

Actually, its limited resourced from the applications department to upgrade/test/work on compatibility for IE7. I suppose all your companies are on it?

Yepper, our office uses it, and all the networks I remotely manage are using it. Only thing I did do was a staged rollout to avoid having a single large flood of "I can't find my Favorites Menu" support calls.

Thats our plan as well. But we've only started to get our standards put in. (there was no update system until I started here.)

At this point, we may look towards IE8 rather than do IE7, then IE8. Plus, I don't know how large your company is, but we're nationwide, so it would be alot of calls when we do it.

It's now on MDC.

• Windows XP Service Pack 3, Checked Build
• Windows XP Service Pack 3 Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers
• Windows XP Service Pack 3 - ISO-9660 CD Image File
• Windows XP Service Pack 3 MUI Pack Update

The resulting download link for the network installer is currently broken Singh, but thanks for the info.

I also noticed that SP3 came through Windows Update today.

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Now that download link is working, so ... **DL in progress**