Even with MSXML 6.0 available, Microsoft remains committed to the evolution of MSXML 4.0. The Redmond company argued that the continuous development of MSXML version 4 is designed to support legacy applications that fail to play nice with v6.0. In this regard, the software giant released Service Pack 3 of MSXML 4.0 the past week. Still, despite the release of SP3 for MSXML4.0, the Redmond company is urging users to upgrade to version 6.0, the latest release of Microsoft XML Core Services.

“We officially released MSXML4.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3) on the Microsoft Download Center as a stand-alone installer in multiple languages. MSXML4.0 SP3 is a complete replacement of MSXML4.0, MSXML4.0 SP1 and MSXML4.0 SP2 and contains a number of bug fixes to enhance security and reliability. Approximately nine years ago, MSXML4.0 was released to the web. MSXML4.0 was superseded by MSXML6.0 six+ years ago and is only intended to support legacy applications,” revealed a member of the Microsoft XML team.

MSXML 4.0 SP3 features support for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP (including SP3), Windows Vista (including SP1) and Windows Server 2008. Microsoft informs that users of MSXML 4.0 SP2 have until November 2009 to upgrade to SP3. Come November, SP2 will expire. At the same time, SP3 is the last evolutionary step for MSXML4.0, as Microsoft plans no more service packs.

“MSXML4.0 customers are recommended to upgrade to MSXML6. MSXML6 has new functionality, performance and security improvements. In addition, MSXML6 provides improved W3C compliance and increased compatibility with System.XML in .Net. MSXML6 is now available for all supported down-level platforms. It is either “in-the-box” in Windows (e.g in XP SP3+ and Vista+) or can be downloaded,” the Microsoft XML team representative added.


MSXML 4.0 SP3 is available for download here.

MSXML 6.0 is available for download here.