Windows XP Service Pack 3

When you spend hundreds of dollars on a new computer, the last thing you want is to lose it because of bad software. Bad software is that that is prone to viruses, information leaks, and attacks. Most of this can be prevented by the operating system that the computer runs underneath. No operating system is perfect; we know that. Windows Vista definitely wasn't. It wasn't even good. Windows XP had it's share of faults, but one thing that was great about Microsoft and Windows "back in the day" was the updates; more specifically, the Windows XP Service Pack 3 updates.

With Windows XP, Microsoft made a name for itself as a trusted brand. Not to say that it wasn't before, but with XP, they promised updates and they delivered. Many of us became very familiar with the application Windows Update as we always had notifications from Windows Update regarding new updates that we needed immediately. What we did not know was that Microsoft was also working on these big update clusters which they called service packs to be delivered to users all at once rather than the incremental updates that Windows Update brought us.

Service Pack 3 was one of those large update clusters that contained hundreds of thousands of updates to the system. These updates went a long way to ensuring that the operating system was less vulnerable to information leaks, attacks, and viruses. A complete changelog is posted on Microsoft's website for all to see these changes. Because Service Pack 3 is a big update, you should follow the instructions thoroughly regarding changes, installations, and uninstallations that you may need to make to your computer before and after you install the service pack to ensure that you do not have any issues afterwards.

Windows Service Pack related software:

Windows XP service Pack 2
Windows XP service Pack 3