Do not download this. I don't know if any body had the same problem as I did. But when I download it just after searching for updates and I went a head and download it not thinking noting of it and it restarted my pc which I thought noting about after it was done but something happened and it nearly killed my pc. Lucky I end up having to do a fully system removery and run all these updates on everything and redown stuff again, lucky I have High speed cable so things download rather fast for me.

Just thought I pass this along. I may go ahead and write MS about this issue.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the service packs. I just stay away from them altogether.

Yeah, the 3rd one was the only one I have ever had problems with as far as I know of.

It should be noted that XP/Vista SP3 is a BETA as of right now and isn't meant for prime-time. As such, it's bound to have loads of problems with it. Heck- depending on where you've downloaded it, it might evne have all sorts of spyware (courtesy of hosting companies hosting bogus versions of the SP).

I've got all the service releases and updates (short of SP3, that is) installed on my copy of XP, and I haven't had ANY problems. At least not yet, that is.

Your best bet would be to wait until the service release is officially released... whenever that is.

That, or just go to Linux.

There's nothing wrong with the official versions. And they usually fix a lot of things that are broken when the OS ships. Usually.

i leave mine on auto update ..

It`s only the BETA version , wait for the final version , don`t install it

I've loaded and installed the final version of SP3 from the official Microsoft website last weekend and there ain't no problems at all - just a few new drivers, the common security updates and e.g. options for WLAN (WPA2).

Service packs are wonderful, I'm not sure what you have heard. Try XP SP1 and XP SP2 and you will see a huge improvement in SP2.

Well maybe the problem was when it download from windows update it self, I mean when I checked for updates that's what happened to me. So I don't know.