Microsoft is advising Windows XP end users to make room for the third and final service pack designed to update the predecessor of Windows Vista by mid 2008, according to the official timetable provided by Microsoft. The move comes as testers of beta builds of XP SP3 have come across an error message when trying to deploy the service pack followed by the failure of the installation. "You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files," reads the Service Pack 3 Setup error.

"Additionally, the following error may be logged in the service pack installation log: 8007F02B - STATUS_NOT_ENOUGH_WITH_UNINST. This installation log typically resides in the following location: Drive_Letter:WindowsSvcpack.log. This problem may occur if the free disk space that is available on the computer is insufficient to archive the uninstall files. (The uninstall files are also known as the backup files)," Microsoft revealed.

The real problem is that Microsoft fails to inform users of the free disk space necessary for the deployment of XP SP3. On the page offering Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 on the Microsoft Download Center there are no system requirements listed, except a reference for the supported operating systems. The Windows XP TechCenter is not more helpful in this regard. The official Overview of Windows XP SP3 also does not provide clues as to the disk space that needs to be available for the installation of the service pack. And the release notes are no help either.

However, for Microsoft the issue is rather simple: "to resolve this problem, free some disk space by deleting files that you do not require. The additional free disk space that you must have to archive the uninstall files is specified in the error message."