Hey I know we were talking about this awhile ago and were knocking it back and forth, but I don't remember ever reaching a strong conclussion on it. Now I know that SP3 is mostly a compilation of all the updates that have been released over that last year or two... But there are supposed to be a few extra things in there that are not just those updates.

Any smart tech folks out there with a good final opinion of all of this??? Just got another offer to install it on my New Dell laptop... Thanks much.

BUMP! Come on guys every computer in the office is asking and telling me to take SP3... What is the final verdict here???

Just upgrade to Vista and this problem goes away....

Seriously, I can not see any problem with upgrading to SP3. You could just image with Norton ghost the computer and then apply the upgrade. In the future you may have to go with SP3 to insure software compatibility just like a lot of current software requires WinXP SP2. SP3 gives the computer a features freeze in that you would know that every required update is actually installed whereas just having regularly updated the computer does not give you that assurance.

There are some additional networking and permissions features that are rolled out in SP3. I believe these features exist to allow better integration with Server 2008. I am not sure what the significance of these new features are.

This wiki explains some of the features:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

I am not sure that you are required to do so but (knock on wood) service pack upgrades are not too much of a problem in XP. Vista SP1 trashed my computer, requiring a reinstall. You will need to upgrade all of your computer if you decide on SP3, a mixed environment is a bad idea.

Hey thanks. I will look into this when I get back from official's camp after the weekend...

Be good y'all, catch ya on the other side...

Paul

No need to do it. Waste of time. XP is still the best. I would leave it at SP2.