Just wondering what people think of the new Service Packs for Windows XP (SP3) and Vista (SP1). Vista's service pack will most likely be released by the end of the year, or the beginning of 08, and XP's most likely in the first half of 08 (after Vista's). I'm sort of wondering why they're itching to release a service pack to a new OS so soon... are there lots of problems they didn't tell anyone about? Or perhaps it's a financial move, trying to rack in more customers. In any case, I've changed my stance on getting Vista from "Wait for SP2" to "Wait for SP3", since SP1 is coming out way earlier than I anticipated.

The conspiracy theory explanation is that Vista SP1 is because of people who prefer never to install an RTM build, but instead wait for the first service pack.

The technical theory is that there are a lot of problems.  Although unfortunate, this is not entirely unforeseeable since this is Microsoft's first desktop OS release in 5-6 years, and they did make fairly substantial changes to some components (MIC, UIPI, UAC, and a new IPv4/IPv6 stack all come to mind).  Once the number of hotfixes exceeds a certain threshold, applying all the patches gets to be such a pain that people want a roll up patch.  Roll up patches sometimes take the form of service packs.

XP SP2 already has like... 60 updates to it after a fresh install. What's vista at? Maybe 30? (Honestly, I don't know. I don't intend to touch Vista for 4 years or 3 service packs, whichever's last.)

I have had no problems with an out of the box vista installation.

Me neither. I think the problems people describe are PICNICs since I can't re-create hardly any of them.

It's not just security, it's compatibility with hardware and applications. It's an issue of popularity and usage, and security becomes an issue because of popularity. If no worms or major viruses break out in the first year, it's pretty safe. Three years and it's a great OS.  Never, and it's Linux ;)

They need to add DX10 to XP.

delete. not enough time to start arguing about compatibility issues with hardware and linux.

My previous post was meant as a joke. Sorry if you misconstrued it.

any idea what will be in SP3 mainly? other then all the hotfixes? like any new/major changes?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-XP-Service-Pack-3-Leaked-Details-57825.shtml

[quote author=Andy link=topic=17024.msg172886#msg172886 date=1190086279]
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-XP-Service-Pack-3-Leaked-Details-57825.shtml
[/quote]

Doesn't say anything important?

Not really.