There's another change I really liked a lot-as someone who can never find a product key when he needs one or who mistypes it, given half a chance. For instance, Wi-Fi networking now supports the new and improved WPA 2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2) for security. It also brings existing protocols up to date. For example, it includes Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0 and Windows Installer 3.1. XP SP3 also makes some needed improvements to older management and security programs. For example, if the server requires a PC to have the latest patches installed, it won't let the PC login until it has gotten those updates. It blocks any PC from joining a Server 2008-based active directory (AD) unless it meets the server's security update policy standards.

NAP, which works with Windows Server 2008, is a security checkup protocol. The one truly new XP SP3 feature is Network Access Protection (NAP). Since many Web-based applications still expect IE6, that's fine as far as I'm concerned. If you have them installed, it does include the latest patches for those applications. For instance, XP SP3 doesn't come with Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Windows Media Player 11. With 2GB of RAM, there was no swapping to the disk with 512MB, the hard disk light was almost never off.įirst, hard benchmarks aside, it certainly seemed to me that SP3 made Windows XP and its applications livelier than they had been under XP SP2.Īs I worked with the two operating systems, I noticed that Windows XP SP3 is a more of a rollout of updates than the dramatic change in functionality that XP SP2 was. The problem is that the patch update uses a lot of memory. It was a much slower process on the a350n. The service patch installation from its compressed 350MB executable download took less than half an hour on the 503GR. Your offices are probably full of systems of a similar vintage: too new to replace, too underpowered for Windows Vista. In other words, they're state-of-the-art 2005 systems. This system has a 2.6GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of dual-channel DDR333 SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) and a 120GB SATA hard drive. My other PC was a stock HP Pavilion a350n. This system uses a 3GHz Pentium IV CPU, 2GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon 250 graphics card, and a 300GB SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment). Window XP: Did You Say It Was a Pleasure to Upgrade?! Here's what I've found in working with the pair over the last few months.

Windows xp sp3 full