Windows XP SP3 Preview Surfaces Online

Though Microsoft still won’t confirm that it will release a third service pack for its Windows XP operating system, a preview version of the software update has been made available on the Web.
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Ethan Allen, creator and administrator of The Hotfix, said Wednesday that he assembled the preview pack from software updates sent by an internal Microsoft source that are expected to be released in SP3.

The updates include Windows log-on improvements and features that fix current problems with connecting Windows XP computers to various networks, according to the SP3 forum on the site.

Allen, a Microsoft beta tester who previously worked on a contract basis for the Redmond, Washington-based software company, updates the list of technologies for Windows XP SP3 daily based on information found on Microsoft’s Web site.

“Microsoft makes it freely available about what’s going to be in the next hot fixes, but they hide it,” Allen said. He said he found information on updates that will be made available in Windows XP SP3 by using keywords contained in articles on Microsoft’s Web site. This is the same way he discovered the technologies that were released in Windows XP SP2. He posted those updates on a Web site before that service pack was released in August 2004.

Allen now works in software assurance for a Bellevue, Washington-based high-tech company that he declined to name. He said Microsoft has not contacted him about The Hotfix, which he launched in July.

Allen’s site has also published a transcript of a chat discussion in which Microsoft engineers fielded questions from beta testers about whether Internet Explorer 7 will be included in SP3. According to the transcript, Anurag Jain, a program manager on the Internet Explorer team, said that the service pack won’t include IE 7 but will “support” it. Instead, Internet Explorer 6 will be a part of Windows XP SP3.