Microsoft typically offer two Windows operating systems for the burgeoning netbook market.

Windows XP Home and  Windows Vista Business

Now getting Windows Vista Business on this generation of underpowered  netbooks is like going to a car dealer and asking for their slowest most expensive car.  It’s also going to be  painful to use.

Windows XP Home by all accounts runs pretty well but the gotcha is you cannot join Windows XP Home to any corporate environment that has a  Windows Server. Due to the inbuilt limitations of XP Home (that have been in place since XP’s launch in 2001).

So between this rock and hard place netbooks for now won’t be making much impact into the business world and this is just exactly what Microsoft wants.

They want to stave off the Linux onslaught so end users don’t get too comfortable with it, while at the same not eating into their core Windows business too much.

Well after about 700+ days of good service  my Windows XP based Dell Precision 390 was chunking a bit.

The hardware is absolutely fine but Windows was crudded up after being hammered over the last couple of years.

The original hard disk was a 500gb drive that was almost full so I elected to put another 500gb in the system and install Windows on it and boot from it.

Tip: Because my machine can have multiple hard disks connected I can still access the data on the old drive as both are connected.

Tip: For good measure I placed the new windows swap file on the old disk drive . So I now treat the old drive as storage without having to backup and restore 480gb of data.

I also swapped the video card from an ATI one to an  Nvidia one  as I prefer their multi monitor support.

Decisions, Depictions, Decisions

Again I elected to have Windows XP Pro SP3 as my Operating System. I am still knee deep in legacy applications. XP on this machines fly’s. Done Deal.

Office: Microsoft Office 2003 SP3 (again for legacy).

Anti-Virus: Nod32 Business Edition

Observations

I seem to be regressing but this configuration just works well in terms of performance and application compatibility.

I would have no problems replacing the lot with faster machine running Vista and Office 2007 but I just don’t think I would be any better off.

I would prefer Vista for security reasons but that’s about it.

After a being pretty vague on the release date Microsoft have announced this will start appearing on selected Windows Update users machines starting 10th July.

As an I.T. person I knew this was coming but little more notice would be helpful.

I am going to be watching the early deployment of this Windows Update version closely.

Tech Tip: If there are widespread problems there is a panic button in the form of a Service Pack Blocker. This tool offered by Microsoft will delay the automatic SP3 install.

Link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d7c9a07a-5267-4bd6-87d0-e2a72099edb7&displaylang=en&tm

My Other Windows XP SP3 Coverage: View all posts filed under Windows XP SP3

Some users with AMD CPU’s have been having a bad time upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 3.

They end up in with a PC that is stuck in a error > reboot > error > reboot cycle.

This is caused by the way their version of Windows was originally installed by the OEM/Supplier.

The link below delves deeper into this issue and some other SP3 specific problem areas.

Link: http://msinfluentials.com/blogs/jesper/archive/2008/05/08/does-your-amd-based-computer-boot-after-installing-xp-sp3.aspx

ZD Net also have a good article about taking steps to minimise any potential pitfalls with SP3.

Link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1819

Remember Microsoft offer free technical support for SP3 issues.

Link: http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&prid=11273&gprid=522131

There seems to be some confusion about what you can and cant do with Internet Explorer on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

In a nutshell:- A brand new PC with XP will ship with IE6. If you upgrade to Windows XP SP3, IE6 will still be your installed Microsoft Internet Browser.

If you choose to install to IE7 on Windows XP SP3 you *CANNOT* uninstall it, you have to uninstall Service Pack 3 as well.

There is a workaround (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/05/ie-and-xpsp3.aspx)

Users who want to retain the ability to downgrade from IE7 to IE6 should uninstall the former before upgrading to XP SP3. Once Windows XP has been updated to SP3, users can then install IE7. That process allows for reverting to IE6 in the future.

“The restriction on uninstalling only applies to when you install a Windows Service Pack release on top of a stand-alone IE release.

So this really is a line in the sand. If you need IE6 for compatibility reasons then do not upgrade to IE7 on Windows XP SP3.

For your average user I would say IE7 on Windows XP SP3 would be the way to go.

I understand why Microsoft has done this. I am just worried what happens if IE7 get corrupted on a Windows XP SP3 machine. It sounds like it could get messy.