The 'preliminary' due date for the next collection of fixes and patches for Microsoft's desktop operating system is as more than a year later than many company watchers were expecting.
Microsoft has gone public with a tentative date for its third service pack for Windows XP. And that date  the latter half of 2007  is considerably later than many company watchers were expecting.
Microsoft has published the due-date for Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) on its Windows Lifecycle Web site. While Microsoft characterized the date as "preliminary," it is still as much as a year later than a number of customers, partners and industry analysts had been anticipating.
Last April, according to at least one Web report, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was consideringreleasing SP3 before Longhorn (now Windows Vista) shipped. Windows Vista is expected to ship in the second or third quarter of 2006.
Microsoft also has published "latter half of 2006" as the tentative release date for the second service pack for Windows Server 2003. The "preliminary" due date for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) date jibes with what industry experts were expecting.
Microsoft has not made public an official list of planned fixes (and new features, if any) that will be part of either the Windows Server 2003 SP2 or Windows XP SP3 releases.
Last year, TheHotFix.Net site publishes a regularly updated list of likely XP SP3 features and fixes. But Microsoft officials have not said whether that list is accurate.
Microsoft released the most recent collection of bug fixes and patches for Windows XP in the form of XP Service Pack (SP2) in August of 2004. While Microsoft did not go so far as to christen XP SP2 a new version of Windows, the release included so many new features that a number of company watchers considered it to be a full-fledged operating-system upgrade in its own right.
Microsoft officials attributed some of the delays in Longhorn/Windows Vista to SP2. Officials claimed the company's decision to reassign developers working on Vista to finishing and testing SP2 had a negative impact on Vista's schedule.
It is unclear if Microsoft is pushing back SP3's delivery date in order to avoid a similar negative impact on Vista's schedule. It's also unclear whether Microsoft may be holding back SP3 in order to help stimulate upgrade demand for Vista.
Microsoft officials were not available for comment by the time this article was published.
Last week, Microsoft amended dates that it published to its Lifecycle Web site for the phasing out of support for Windows XP Home Edition. Microsoft was scheduled to end mainstream support for all of its consumer editions of XP by December 30, 2006. Last week, the company changed the consumer XP support-cutoff dates to December 30, 2008.
Microsoft has gone public with a tentative date for its third service pack for Windows XP. And that date  the latter half of 2007  is considerably later than many company watchers were expecting.
Microsoft has published the due-date for Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) on its Windows Lifecycle Web site. While Microsoft characterized the date as "preliminary," it is still as much as a year later than a number of customers, partners and industry analysts had been anticipating.
Last April, according to at least one Web report, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was consideringreleasing SP3 before Longhorn (now Windows Vista) shipped. Windows Vista is expected to ship in the second or third quarter of 2006.
Microsoft also has published "latter half of 2006" as the tentative release date for the second service pack for Windows Server 2003. The "preliminary" due date for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) date jibes with what industry experts were expecting.
Microsoft has not made public an official list of planned fixes (and new features, if any) that will be part of either the Windows Server 2003 SP2 or Windows XP SP3 releases.
Last year, TheHotFix.Net site publishes a regularly updated list of likely XP SP3 features and fixes. But Microsoft officials have not said whether that list is accurate.
Microsoft released the most recent collection of bug fixes and patches for Windows XP in the form of XP Service Pack (SP2) in August of 2004. While Microsoft did not go so far as to christen XP SP2 a new version of Windows, the release included so many new features that a number of company watchers considered it to be a full-fledged operating-system upgrade in its own right.
Microsoft officials attributed some of the delays in Longhorn/Windows Vista to SP2. Officials claimed the company's decision to reassign developers working on Vista to finishing and testing SP2 had a negative impact on Vista's schedule.
It is unclear if Microsoft is pushing back SP3's delivery date in order to avoid a similar negative impact on Vista's schedule. It's also unclear whether Microsoft may be holding back SP3 in order to help stimulate upgrade demand for Vista.
Microsoft officials were not available for comment by the time this article was published.
Last week, Microsoft amended dates that it published to its Lifecycle Web site for the phasing out of support for Windows XP Home Edition. Microsoft was scheduled to end mainstream support for all of its consumer editions of XP by December 30, 2006. Last week, the company changed the consumer XP support-cutoff dates to December 30, 2008.
