beforeyoukillyourcomputer.com Saving computers one at a time from their owners

Majorgeeks has posted download links to the 316MB Windows XP Service Pack 3 Final download. It seems like you can get it sooner than the MSDN and Technet folks. Oh… they’re not happy. No. Not happy at all after Microsoft delivered a second “slap to the face”. Not my words… Read story below.

Download Windows XP Service Pack 3

Subscribers to TechNet and the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), who pay Microsoft hundreds of dollars a year for the right to download software for testing and development purposes, called the move a “farce,” a “slap in the face” and “ludicrous.”

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it had finished Windows XP SP3, the last major update for the six-and-a-half-year-old operating system, and said that it would post the upgrade on Windows Update and its own online download site next Tuesday, April 29.

But subscribers to the TechNet and MSDN services won’t be able to obtain SP3 until sometime “within the next month,” according to Chris Keroack, the service pack’s release manager.

Another Microsoft employee, Nick MacKechnie, a senior technical account manager with the company’s New Zealand operation, was more specific about dates. In a blog post yesterday, MacKechnie listed several dates in an SP3 timetable, including a May 2 release to TechNet and MSDN. The timetable has since been pulled from MacKechnie’s blog.

The delay — whether a month or several days — did not sit well with some TechNet and MSDN subscribers. Many, in fact, brought up the February incident, when Microsoft first refused to let subscribers download Vista SP1. After pressure from users, it reversed that decision about two weeks later.

“This is the same garbage that was pulled initially with Vista SP1,” a user identified as Rick Dee wrote in a message on the TechNet support site. “Are you trying to discourage people from subscribing to MSDN & Technet?”

“I’m not normally one to complain, but I can’t believe that Microsoft is screwing over their paying subscribers again!” said a user identified as Chris Mahoney. “Did [Microsoft] not learn anything from the Vista SP1 debacle?”

Source

Posted under Software, Tech News