Microsoft Releases Windows XP SP3 Beta

The major update to Windows XP is going to be released soon. Late last week Microsoft has released the latest beta of SP3 to its tier-one beta testers.

SP3 will put some new features into Windows XP instead of releasing all the hotfixes and patches. The new features in service pack 3 will be somewhat similar with windows vista.

The new few features sp3 would be as follows:

• Network Access Protection modules and policies
• New Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic model
• New "Black Hole Router" detection
• New Windows Product Activation model

There are somewhere around 1,073 patches and hotfixes included in the release - 114 of which are security related updates. The remaining are reliability updates, BSOD fixes, bugfixes, performance fixes, and improvements to the kernel.

Service Pack 3 is compatible with all 32-bit versions of Windows XP, so no matter if you're on windows XP Professional, Home, or Media Center Edition, you'll be able to get all the updates and improvements.An update to Windows XP is going to show just how hard of a fight the OS is going to put up before it is eventually put down late next June.

Note:We can expect finalised version of SP3 to be released sometime in the mid of 2008 and microsoft has already released internet explorer 7 which is ready to be used.