Soon, there will be nothing standing between Windows XP and Windows Vista users and the automatic distribution of the latest service packs for the two operating systems. Microsoft provided a heads up related to the imminent expiration of the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit, a tool that is designed with the sole purpose of blocking the delivery and installation of Service Pack 3 for XP and SP1 for Vista through Windows Update and Automatic Updates. Traditionally, Microsoft allows customers a period of one year following the availability of a service pack in order to prepare for the upgrade, and offers the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit as a way to patch the platforms to ignore refreshes.

“If you have used the Service Pack Blocker Tool for Windows XP or Windows Vista, then make sure you’re prepared for the expiration of the blocker tool. The Windows Vista blocker tool expires on April 28, 2009. The Windows XP SP3 blocker tool expires May 19, 2009,” a member of the Microsoft Update team stated.

Following the expiration deadline of the Service Pack Blocker Tool, the operating systems will be able to download and deploy the latest service packs with no issues. Of course, the Blocker Tool Kit did nothing to prevent end-users from manually grabbing the Vista SP1 and XP SP3 bits from Microsoft and installing them.

“For those of you who haven’t used the blocker tools. They temporarily prevent certain updates or service packs from being offered to a computer through WU. The service pack blockers work for one year after general availability of the service pack. We provide them for business customers who don’t manage software updates using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or our System Center products and solutions,” the MU representative added.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM is available for download here.

Windows XP SP3 is available for download here.

Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit can be downloaded from here.