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XP Service Pack 3 Pushed Back to 2008

For IT shops that do not plan to immediately deploy Windows Vista or who have a lot of legacy XP machines, the wait for XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) just got a bit longer.

Recently, Microsoft quietly posted a change to its service pack lifecycle documents.

The changes mean that XP SP3, which was previously scheduled to ship in the second half of 2007, has now been pushed back to the first half of 2008. Microsoft shipped XP SP2 more than two years ago in August 2004.

It was known that SP3 would have to wait until after Vista was released. However, the latest dates, which Microsoft terms “preliminary,” put the time between SP2 and SP3 at nearly four years.

In addition, Microsoft has moved the date for Windows Server 2003 SP2 out. Instead of the second half of 2006, SP2 for Windows Server 2003 is now slated for the first quarter of 2007, according to Microsoft’s service pack lifecycle page.

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