Well, Microsoft is releasing a third service pack for Windows XP. Some might see this as a sign that Microsoft isn’t going to be ditching XP any time soon, in spite of the “excellence” of their “new and improved” version of Windows known as Vista. That Vista that inspired the class action lawsuit. That Vista that so many people are having problems using because Microsoft couldn’t even get simple file operations to work flawlessly. That Vista that is having so many problems with its first service pack. Yeah. Gee. I wonder why Microsoft might be dedicating itself to releasing a third Windows XP service pack to extend the lifespan of Windows XP…

Of course long time Windows XP users are wondering WHAT $#!7ing TOOK MICROSOFT SO LONG TO DO THIS?!?!?! The answer, of course, is that Vista probably occupied Microsoft’s programmers far more than it should have. That, or Microsoft was hoping to kill all interest in XP by stopping all major support. One could make all sorts of wonderful arguments for why. Chances are, it’s a little bit of all of them. Whatever the reason, personally I can’t think of any that I would consider “good”.

Okay, so enough ripping on Microsoft. (In theory.) Let’s get down to the details. What is actually in Windows XP SP3?

For starters, XP SP3 contains all of the bug fixes that you should have already gotten regularly every Patch Tuesday through Windows Update since SP2. Or, in other words, nothing new or of value to existing XP users. Boring. Let’s skip the intricacies of that then. We really don’t need to rehash the hundreds of updates you should have already gotten over the years.

New stuff? Well … not much. There’s “Black Hole Router Detection” (routers that silently discard packets), now turned on by default. I’ve never had a problem with this or needed it. Have you?

How about “Network Access Protection (NAP)“? It’s a networking security feature, a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. So in other words, now network administrators running a Windows Server 2008 network with Windows Vista clients can now migrate you sorry lot legacy Windows XP users that have been driving your IT department mad onto their shiny new server. Or at least that’d be the case for the very few who have bought into going whole hog on Microsoft’s latest and greatest. This is a feature that the incredible vast majority of you won’t give a flying fig about. And of those that do care, they’re probably wondering what took Microsoft so long.

Next new feature? “Descriptive Security Options User Interface” That security options control panel in Windows XP? Well now it has slightly more descriptive text. Yay. I’m sure that one gets to the heart of all of you readers. I’m sure glad Microsoft released a service pack for that. Sadly, this may actually be one of the best new features they’ve added to Windows XP with SP3. Ouch.

Next. “Enhanced Security For Administrator and Service Policy Entries” Microsoft now forces an Administrator user policy and a Service user policy, each with preset default values. Oh, and the user right “Impersonate Client After Authentication” will no longer remove these policy settings. Let’s hope these new forced policies don’t screw anyone up, eh? Still nothing for the masses to even notice, not to mention care about getting.

Oooh. Here’s a goodie. “Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module” It’s a library of cryptography cyphers and protocols. On the kernel level. Written by Microsoft. So that, in theory, things like device drivers and other software can use to provide you with completely software-based insecurity. By itself it offers no Windows XP user anything new. It’s just for developers to use in future drivers and software. Probably because Vista driver developers already have this library, and are complaining to Microsoft for not including it in XP so that they can write their drivers using it for XP too. Yipee! I’m sure that means a lot to you all.

And last new feature, but certainly not least? We have “Windows Product Activation“. So now, like in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, you can do a complete Windows install without having to enter your product key. You still have to enter it some time later, after the install is finished. You just don’t have to enter it during the install. That does anything for existing Windows XP users how? It doesn’t. Hmm… Seems to be a trend here…

Okay, so that’s all of the new features you get. They help the common Windows XP user how? Well, quite simply, they don’t. Not a single new feature is actually all that useful to the common user. Or even noticeable. Not one.

So then what’s the freaking point?!?!

I wish I could say, “Beats me!” But actually I do understand. The point is that any future Windows XP install CDs are going to come bundled with SP3 now instead of SP2. So that anyone building a new system using Windows XP won’t have to run Windows Update until they’re (screen of death) blue in the face. And likewise some of these new features further help system builders as well. And some of them help Microsoft continue to promote their product superiority to corporate IT departments in a world that (rightfully) doesn’t yet trust Windows Vista, so that they can now actually use Windows XP clients in place of Windows Vista clients on their Windows Server 2008 networks.

But all-in-all, there’s not a single reason for much of any existing Windows XP user to install service pack 3. Most of you could give it a miss and never even notice. I’d say install it anyway, just in case there’s a bug fix somewhere that Microsoft didn’t tell about in their white paper. Or just so that Windows Update stops annoying you about it.

When all is said and done however, a lot more has been said than done. Windows XP SP3 is, by far, the most underwhelming service pack that Microsoft has ever released. I don’t see a single thing for existing XP users to get excited about. It doesn’t even include Internet Explorer 7! You still have to install that yourself, manually. (If you haven’t already.) It’s like Microsoft isn’t even trying. I guess they’re too busy trying to fix Vista.