Windows XP SP3 - Release Notes Reviewed And Simplified
Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack) entered RC2 (Release Candidate), that means a registry key change and uninstalling any previous versions to install it.
The notable add-ons which have been “back ported” from 2008 and Vista are the following:
Black Hole Router Detection – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/159211
Resource reference helps you to understand technically what a black hole router is and what to do to detect one. This seems really out there to me as I have never come across this myself (that I know of). But oh well one more thing running in the background can’t hurt…. Can it?
Network Access Protection (NAP)
NAP FAQ - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/network/nap/napfaq.mspx
Lashed straight from the FAQ:
NAP is one of the most desired and highly anticipated features of Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008. NAP is a new platform and solution that controls access to network resources based on a client computer’s identity and compliance with corporate governance policy. NAP allows network administrators to define granular levels of network access based on who a client is, the groups to which the client belongs, and the degree to which that client is compliant with corporate governance policy. If a client is not compliant, NAP provides a mechanism to automatically bring the client back into compliance and then dynamically increase its level of network access.
The NAP platform is built into Windows Vista™, Windows Server 2008, and Windows® XP Service Pack 3.
Windows Imaging Component – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=110598
Another image writer, enough said and really who cares when there are so many other alternatives out there already.
WPA2 Support
WPA2 will be part of this service pack and will make many admins sigh with relief that its no longer an issue of a single hotfix.
Apple Bootcamp
Wow i hope this is planned to be fixed by the final release!
On a variety of systems running bootcamp will get an “out of disk space” error will occur and the fix is a registry key change. Instructions given below from msoft.
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and click String Value.
4. In the text box under the Name column, type BootDir and press ENTER.
5. Right-click the name BootDir, and then click Modify.
6. In the Edit String Value dialog box, type the drive letter for your system drive, and then click OK. For example, if your system drive is C:, type C:\.
7. Close Registry Editor.
After you have created this registry key (or if you created this key when you installed a previous version of this Service Pack), you can proceed with the installation.