Windows XP Service Pack 3 is here!

The much anticipated - and I suppose latest Microsoft OS release is here! Microsoft released Windows XP SP3 to manufacturing on Monday. The release schedule for North America is as follows:

April 21: OEM Channel
April 29: Windows Update
April 29: Download Centre
May 2: MSDN/Technet Download
May 19: Windows XP SP3 Fulfillment Media
June 1: VL Customers via download
June 10: Automatic Updates


C|Net reported the release in their article: Windows XP SP3: A quick painless upgrade
Microsoft has a Windows XP Service Pack 3 Overview available for download. But information is limited. I imagine a full list of hotfixes included in the service pack will be published soon.

I've seen griping by people that XP SP3 doesn't include DirectX 10 (available in Vista). But I'm not sure XP users are really missing out on all that much. There are quite a lot of sites comparing DirectX 9 to DirectX 10 and finding negligible differences. Here's a site that actually demonstrates the differences quite well in one of the few DirectX 10 supported games - Crysis. It goes on to describe how to eliminate a "false ceiling" in DirectX 9 mode and allow the use of very high detail normally only available for DirectX 10 mode.