Microsoft is wrapping up the third and final service pack for Windows XP. Today, April 21, 2008, is the date when the Redmond company will release to manufacturing Windows XP Service Pack 3. But even with the wait for SP3 nearly over, Microsoft is managing not to breathe a single word on its plans. Until this point in time there has been no official confirmation pointing to the RTM deadline of XP SP3. At the end of the past week, I asked Microsoft to either confirm or deny the leaked availability dates for XP SP3. Representatives from the Redmond company have done neither so far.

The latest movements on the XP SP3 front come from Mary Jo Foley, who has received unofficial confirmation from sources familiar with the evolution of XP, and the development of SP3, pinpointing April 21 as the milestone when the service pack will go gold. This date was previously made public the past week. According to the leaked information related to XP SP3's ship target, Microsoft plans not only to RTM the service pack today, but also to make it available for download via Connect and to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet subscribers. Additionally, it also seems that the company's Volume License customers as well as OEM partners will be the first to get their hands on XP SP3.

With XP SP3 going gold, further down the road the service pack will be made available for download on April 29, 2008, through the Download Center and Windows Update. The first wave of XP SP3 downloads will be focused on the following languages Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. And just as it was the case with Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft will then drop XP SP3 gold via Automatic Updates on June 10.