Microsoft has officially confirmed that the final version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 is planned for availability in early(!) 2008. According to the original statement from the Redmond company, SP3 for Windows XP will drop in the first half of 2008. At the same time, the fast pace of the XP SP3 development process, managed to contradict such a scenario. The third and final service pack for Windows XP was introduced in mid July 2007 in pre-beta stage, concomitantly with the initial development milestone of Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Since that time, the two service packs have been virtually joined at the hip. Microsoft did reveal plans to synchronize the major update releases for both its client and server operating system, and the almost simultaneous releases of Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008 and XP SP3 are illustrative examples of this strategy taking contour. And while Microsoft's official position remains that it will deliver XP SP3 by the summer of the coming year, a slip of the tongue from Bruce Kyle, Architect Evangelist with the US ISV Developer Evangelism Team discloses other plans.

"The next update to Windows XP is now available for your testing. You can download Windows XP SP3 release candidate. The release candidate is not for mission critical systems, but rather for use in testing your software products. The service pack is to be available early in 2008. The release contains all of the updates since service pack 2, plus some other enhancements. For example, SP3 includes a feature called Network Access Protection (NAP) that's borrowed from the newer Windows Vista operating system. NAP automatically validates a computer's "health," ensuring that it's free of bugs and viruses, before allowing it access to a network," Kyle stated. (emphasis added)

The bottom line is that although "early in 2008" does not say much more than Microsoft's "1H CY2008", Kyle's deadline for XP SP3 is more realistic. Even Microsoft has stated that the first half of 2008 is a preliminary date that is subject to change. However, early in 2008 points to the first quarter of the following year, which may very well mean that Microsoft is planning to drop Vista SP1 at the same time as XP SP3. On December 11, the first public version of XP SP3, namely the Release Candidate was offered for download.