Windows XP was made available to the general public at the end of October 2001. Since then, the operating system has grown to become ubiquitous, and is currently accounting for the lion's share of the operating system market. According to statistics from Market Share by Net Applications, Windows XP enjoys a share of 82.65% of the world's machines. Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 2 in August 2006, postponing Longhorn, because of the development effort that went into the service pack. The next refresh for the operating system was initially planned for 2006.

Of course that in January 2006, Microsoft announced that Windows XP SP3 was pushed back to 2007, and at the end of 2006, the service pack was postponed again, this time to the second half of 2008, generating speculations that the Redmond Company will end up canceling the upgrade altogether. Of course there are strong reasons pointing to why Microsoft could indeed cancel XP SP3, however, this can be argued both ways.

The fact of the matter is that, despite the numerous delays, Microsoft has never either canceled SP3 or declared Windows XP expired. This is the first argument in favor of SP3. The fact that Microsoft has not confirmed the service pack's cancellation is an indication that the upgrade still has a chance, or at least that the company is still undecided on its future, but that it could swing both ways.

The second reason why Windows XP SP3 could still make it out of Redmond is the support for Windows XP. At the end of January 2007, just one week before Windows Vista was scheduled to hit the shelves, Microsoft announced that it was adding an Extended Support phase for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition. With the extra lifecycle time, the two versions of the operating system will benefit from Mainstream Support until 2009 and from Extended Support until 2014. It is hard to believe that Microsoft will support XP until 2014 on a service pack from 2004.

Last... and lest, Microsoft is not talking about Windows XP SP3. Why is this an indication about the future possible existence of the service pack? Well, Microsoft's Omerta extends to Windows Vista SP1, Windows Fiji, the next version of Windows Media Center, Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft is not breathing a word about all these products that are currently under development, and the company is also not talking details about XP SP3. Can you see a pattern here?