14 DAY TRIAL // Nothing spells out the hunger for the third and final service pack of Windows XP as the volume of leaked copies of SP3 RTM that are available for download from torrent and warez websites. It was the case with the initial standalone English version of XP SP3, to which were added the remaining language variants, almost immediately after the service pack was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2008. And now it is also the case of the slipstream builds of XP SP3, containing both the operating system and the service pack.
Initially Microsoft was planning to drop XP SP3 to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers following the general availability scheduled for April 29. Following a strong wave of feedback from MSDN and TechNet members, the company reconsidered its plans and released all the standalone versions of XP SP3 for download. And as of May 2, MSDN and TechNet subscribers also got the slipstream builds of XP SP3 RTM Build 5512.
The integrated versions of XP SP3 are delivered as ISO images containing the full bootable setup installation CD and DVD. In this manner MSDN and TechNet subscribers have the possibility of performing a clean install with the service pack, and not deploy it on top of an existing XP SP2 installation. A plethora of images have been leaked and are made available for download via torrent trackers and warez websites.
The downloads promising the gold bits of XP SP3 already integrated into the operating system offer both the full retail and the volume license versions of the platform. Of course the stars of the show are as always the 32-bit English versions of XP Professional with SP3 weighing in between 589.14 MB and 597.83 MB for the N edition. But also XP Home SP3 (RTM x86) at 564.72 MB. Still, the offer is much more diversified than this, featuring XP SP3 RTM ISO images in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 FINAL is available for download here.