14 DAY TRIAL // Just for the sake of going back in time, Microsoft is still serving the Release Candidate development milestones of Windows XP Service Pack 3. Both XP SP3 RC1 and XP SP3 RC2 continue to be available for download from the Redmond company's Windows Update servers, even though the actual pages in the Download Center have long been removed. End users will still be able to grab Windows XP SP3 RC1 Build 3244 which was dropped in the first half of December 2007. At the same time, Windows XP SP3 RC2 Refresh Build 5508 is also still live since the end of March 2008.
Windows XP SP3 was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2008, approximately two months since the RTM of Windows Vista SP1, indicating Microsoft's real focus in terms of its Windows clients. The gold bits of the third and last service pack for Windows XP went live on May 5 via the Download Center and Windows Update. However, it took Microsoft another couple of months to start distributing the service pack through Automatic updates on July 10.
But at the same time, even though the final version of XP SP3 has been available for almost three months, and with the company having discontinued sales of the operating system through the retail and OEM channels, support is still offered for issues associated with XP SP3 RC1 and RC2. According to Microsoft, deploying the RC1 and RC2 builds of XP SP3 on top of a copy of XP SP2 could generate the following Stop error message: "STOP: 0xc0000139 {Entry Point Not Found} The procedure entry point GdiGetBitmapBitsize could not be located in the dynamic link library GDI32.dll."
"This issue occurs if you install security update 948590 (security bulletin MS08-021) before you install Windows XP SP3 RC2 or RC1. You may experience this error because the version of the Gdi32.dll file that already exists on the computer is newer than the version of the Gdi32.dll file that is included in Windows XP SP3 RC1 or RC2. Additionally, the existing version of the Gdi32.dll file is incompatible with the version of the Gdi32.dll file in Windows XP SP3 RC1 or RC2," Microsoft informed. According to the Redmond company, users will have to remove the incompatible version of the Gdi32.dll file using the Recovery Console in order get copies of XP SP3 RC1 and RC2 out of the Stop error scenario.
- Windows XP Service Pack 3 Build 5512 stand-alone version is available for download here. - Windows XP Service Pack 3 Build 5512 Checked Build Network Installation Package is available for download here. - Windows XP Service Pack 3 Build 5512 CD Image is available for download here.