Windows XP SP3 final trudges into the torrent

You know the drill. Days before the official consumer release on the 29th, out pops the final version of Windows XP SP3 on torrents, usenet, and warez sites. We haven't confirmed it for ourselves but we've received multiple reports that this final, unmodified version features a legit Volume Licensed Key which handles that pesky WGA check without breaking a sweat. Should you be brave enough to install it then by all means drop us a line in the comments about your experience. Then again, why rush? You'll likely have until 2012 to perform the update.

[Thanks, Chris]

[Dreamscape86 Posted Apr 25th 2008 11:41AM]

"Fuck MS. (Except not too much because where would I be without their software?)"

Ass.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 2:57AM]

this here is the final build or some beta version ?
Thanks.

[SSUK Posted Apr 25th 2008 6:43AM]

"Windows XP SP3 final trudges into the torrent"
"XP SP3 final trudges into"
"SP3 final trudges"
"SP3 final"
"SP3 FINAL"

Read.

[Knight Posted Apr 25th 2008 7:42AM]

So it's still in beta. Thanks ssuk!

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 3:01AM]

Yeah i'm going to wait for everyone else to jump in the pool first. :)

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 3:25AM]

I think in the picture above Microsoft is Gollum

[deciBels Posted Apr 25th 2008 3:37AM]

Striving for the ring of power?

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 4:03AM]

It is Gollum! LOL

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 4:13PM]

Sam and Frodo are soooo cute!!

[HumongousBlunt Posted Apr 25th 2008 4:47AM]

MS Windows XP SP3 FTW. I'll wait for the early downloaders to find any problems (which there shouldn't be many) and then I'll download. I've got a couple of VM partitions to install it on. I have my fingers crossed that it will be as good as promised.

[hambone43 Posted Apr 25th 2008 7:28AM]

downloaded sp3 from torrent 2 days ago. no problems since and actually i've noticed a bit of a performance boost from this old rig.

[Crsh Posted Apr 25th 2008 7:42AM]

Isn't this only a package consisting of 3 years of security patches/updates so that ppl who reinstall XP don't have to download ~130 files via WindowsUpdate?

[JAmerican Posted Apr 25th 2008 7:54AM]

Its installed on my machine and its really fast. Also my XP is not randomly crashing anymore. I used to get x000000F4 and x00000077 Bluescreen errors.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 4:14PM]

You may have bad caps. Check your motherboard.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 8:46AM]

"You'll likely have until 2012 to perform the update."
Um... You'll have as long as you want. You just won't get any tech support after 2012.

[ZeroCool Posted Apr 25th 2008 9:13AM]

I've had the beta installed for months now and nothing at all has gone wrong. I'm an intensive gamer and haven't experienced any crashes or anything like that while I've had it. Microsoft may have actually looked for the bugs in there code this time!

[Computermaster Posted Apr 25th 2008 9:20AM]

I assure you doubters that this really is SP3. I integrated it into my SP2 image, reinstalled, and it is working perfectly.

Here's a pic from my system properties if you don't believe me.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s297/Chris122990/XP.png
Yes, it is Professional, I just like Royale Noir.

Also, I can't believe I was actually the first person to send this in.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 9:29AM]

How is that budget level celeron.........

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 9:39AM]

Running RC2 flawlessly. The RTM will be released to everyone on April 29th. Don't take the chance on a 'copy'.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 9:52AM]

This is SO relevant. I think you should leave. NOW.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 25th 2008 10:09AM]

Works perfect, I downloaded the version with all the extraneous crap removed already and I am running it in Parrallels on a Macbook w/ the 2ghz core duo and 2gb of ram.

[boe Posted Apr 25th 2008 11:55AM]

I wanted to see how the graphics were for some of my games that run great in XP so I tried Vista, tried Vista w/SP1, tried Vista with SP1 and just about every feature turned off. WOW - VISTA IS SLOW and I'm not talking about gaming, I'm talking about booting up, shutting down, copying files on the hard drive, opening apps, copying files to the network, ANYTHING. My goodness it is bad.

So I read a lot of web pages about Windows 2008 running well which surprised me since 2008 has a lot of the same code ad Vista SP1. Since I like learning things and since I might have to support some 2008 servers I decided to give it a try. WOW- 2008 is PEPPY - seems to do everything as fast as XP (outook even opens and closes faster which is great as I have more than one profile). I went ahead and installed sidebar gadgets, the aero interface - everything I threw at it didn't phase it. It uses up a lot of memory like Vista but I'm not seeing my processor going crazy like Vista and my hard drive isn't being thrashed.

I would probably have upgraded over 1000 clients to Vista if Vista ran even remotely as fast as Windows 2008 as a workstion OS. It is a shame MS won't make a "2008" edition of Vista that runs as fast as 2008 Server.

[OrbitalGun Posted Apr 25th 2008 5:57PM]

I downloaded my copy from TechNet. The only difference I've noticed since installing it was a warning message when I tried to open a remote connection to one of my servers. Other than that, there's been no difference in performance.

[mickrussom Posted Apr 25th 2008 8:59PM]

John @ Apr 25th 2008 8:56AM
C:\> erase *.*

No no no; its :

C:\> rmdir . /s /q

Much more effective.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 3:32PM]

Waiting til 4/29.
- WGA is nothing to complain about.
- If you've been running XP this long and don't own a legit copy, you need a swift kick in the junk.
- Props to MS, I hear they may keep selling XP after the june cut off date, good move.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 26th 2008 12:18PM]

Microsoft is one of the most hated companies among computer users, yet it is the most widely used. But the story of updates/ new software being out on torrents/ warez sites has become a very common story. Microsoft can try as hard as they like, but there will still be some IT guy out there who will crack it. Abhishek www.dibugs.com

[OblongChz Posted Apr 26th 2008 7:56PM]

Sweet. I'll probably have to roll this out at work soon.

[Slayer Posted Apr 28th 2008 11:00AM]

Did SP3 fix the 4GB RAM limit? If you have two 768MB video cards and 4GB of RAM, that's 1,536MB missing. I have 8GB of RAM, so my choices are either Vista or XP64 unfortunately.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 30th 2008 6:33PM]

I think this is great personally, maybe it does have some issues that need to be ironed out but that said, I am running Leopard on my iMac at work... which to be frank is a peice of shit.

For me, Windows XP is the best OS and its nice to see them making an effort to improve it :)

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 30th 2008 6:34PM]

I just installed rc2 and it installed with absolutely no problems. Seems to be slightly faster, however this is probably the placebo effect. On the other hand, my pc now does start up alot faster (timed before and after) which is nice.