Microsoft released Windows XP SP3 to manufacturing on April 21, 2008, and by all means the company took its due time with the service pack: a couple of additional months to develop it on top of what it needed for Windows Vista. But even with the extra development time, XP SP3 RTM Build 5512 should is not refined. Far from it, in fact. The gold version of XP SP3 ships with a range of issues that have survived the RTM stage. And they are by no means limited to the faulty integration between the service pack and Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1. And then, there is the additional incompatibility with the Dynamics Retail Management System which contributed not only to postpone the general availability of XP SP3 but also to the cancellation of Vista SP1's delivery through Automatic Updates.

"If you use Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) Store Operations or Microsoft Dynamics RMS Headquarters, you should not install this service pack without first installing the related hotfix when it is available. Installing the service pack could cause the following: data loss in both the store and the Headquarters databases, Headquarters communications failure, loss of functionality, and applications that fail to respond or unexpectedly quit," Microsoft revealed.

And if you think that this is it, you would be wrong. SP3 also features problems with the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) Packs, Remote Desktop Connection, scripting, and Windows XP Media Center Edition. Despite this Microsoft initially planned to make available the gold bits of XP SP3 to end users on April 29, 2008.

"On a computer that is running the English version of Windows XP SP3 with the Windows XP SP2 Multilingual User Interface (MUI) Pack, you can select a non-English language for the user interface (UI). However, text may appear in English in the UI instead of in the selected language. The English text may appear in lists, menus, dialog boxes, product Help, and other locations," Microsoft added, informing that Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0; Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 6.1; Network Access Protection (NAP) and Scripting binaries are among the affected components.

XP SP2 users that have deployed the prerelease version of Remote Desktop Client 6.1 before installing Service Pack 3 will find that it is impossible to remove the solution. Furthermore, the desktop will continue to display the following message 'For testing purposes only. Build 2600.xp_sp2_gdr…'. Microsoft advised users to uninstall Remote Desktop Client 6.1 before deploying XP SP3.

"If you install Windows XP SP3 on a computer running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002 with SP1, Windows XP Media Center Edition may malfunction. To avoid this, install Windows XP SP2 before you install Windows XP SP3. If this issue has already occurred, uninstall Windows XP SP3, install Windows XP SP2, and then reinstall Windows XP SP3," Microsoft explained.

Additionally, on copies of XP SP3, the modification of regional and language configuration to settings that do not coincide with the ones used during the installation of the service pack will cause region-specific areas of Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) to malfunction.

All these issues were presented by Microsoft in the final draft of the Release Notes for Windows XP SP3 made available on May 5, 2008. The documentation refers to the final version of XP SP3, which Microsoft wrapped up as of April 21.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 FINAL is available for download here.