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As the Service Packs Turn

Oh, it's a slow news week. What better time to drum up a little drama? On top of much ado about not much regarding the first Vista service pack, this week we have news about ol' reliable XP and its forthcoming major update.

Apparently, XP SP3 could RTM -- how's that for alphabet soup? -- as early as April. Now, given that we've all been running XP for the better part of a decade now -- and given that most people seem to have almost a Brett Favre level of totally irrational love for it -- it wouldn't seem to be that big a deal if XP SP3 comes out in, say, June, instead of in April...right? After all, it's been a while, almost an Olympiad, since the last XP SP.

Oh, no. The conspiracy theorists are out, raging hot about Microsoft possibly delaying the release of XP SP3 in order to further pump up Vista SP1 and, by extension, Vista itself. (OK, so it's only one sort-of, would-be conspiracy theorist. We told you that it was a slow news week.)

Whatever. First of all, of course Microsoft wants people to upgrade to Vista now that SP1 is out. Is Redmond delaying XP SP3 in order to help that happen? Maybe. But, really, who cares? Apparently some people do...in a slow news week.

Are you bothered by Microsoft's service pack release schedule? Sound off at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on March 26, 2008


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