AfterTek

We were not at all surprised to see that Microsoft has delayed the release of the new Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP. Microsoft released a statement yesterday stating they were trying to fix certain compatibility issues and would be suspending downloads on a massive scale.

It said in an email that the update, which was released to manufacturing and volume licensing customers a week ago and was supposed to be generally available from yesterday, will not be pumped out to the masses via its Windows Update (WU) website as planned until the company fixes the bug. However, the firm hasn’t pinpointed when XP SP3 will be available, much to the chagrin of Vista-shy customers who have been patiently waiting for the update to land.

For weeks consumers have been waiting patiently to hear what Microsoft would be doing with Windows XP. Would they be keeping or discarding it? The CEO for Microsoft - Steve Ballmer - has finally reached a decision this week.

While stopping far short of announcing a major rethink over the venerable old OS’ June 30th death warrant, he certainly appears to have his hand hovering over the lever in preparation for a bit of handbrake turn action. “XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one,” he told Reuters yesterday. “If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments.”

Many unsuspecting people were surprised and excited to see early downloads of the new Windows Vista Service Pack 1. The new Service Pack was not supposed to be released until the middle of March – but due to certain glitches it was released early.

“A build of SP1 was posted to Windows Update and it was inadvertently made available to a broad group,” Microsoft said in a statement. “The build was intended only for our more technically advanced testers, and was meant to only be offered to those with a specific registry key set on their PC. For general availability, we are still planning to make SP1 broadly available in the mid-March timeframe.”