Microsoft is putting the final finishing touches on what is expected to be XP’s final service pack, and it’s about goddamn time. Service pack 2 was released in August 2004–which is centuries ago in computer terms. Last time I did a fresh installation of XP SP2, the system needed more than 80 critical updates before I considered my system to be even remotely secure.

I’ve been beta testing SP3, and I’ve been fairly impressed with it. My workstation at the office is running an old beta build, and I’ve had absolutely no problems with it. However, I upgraded the system from an existing SP2 install, so there were a few things that I missed.

Today, I installed XP on my home workstation using a slipstreamed SP3 RC2 CD–and found a few things that absolutely baffle me.

  • Internet Explorer is still version 6. (6.0.2900.3311.xpsp.080212-0005) That’s right–a year after IE7’s introduction and a service pack later, and XP is still installing the bug-ridden misery that is IE6.
  • Windows Media Player is still version 9. (9.00.00.4503, to be exact.) The current version? 11. (11.0.5721.5145)

As strange as these two items are by themselves, I was even more confused when I ran Microsoft Update–neither appears as an update. While this may well be intentional due to SP3’s release candidate status, it still seems bizarre to me.

At this point, there’s no chance that either IE7 or WMP11 will be included in the final release. Therefore, I’m forced to ask–what the fuck, Microsoft? You’re releasing the first serious update to XP in almost four years–so why wouldn’t you actually go to the effort of seriously updating it?

Update, for anyone who cares: I was about to post this to digg tonight and asked myself, “Why are people going to call me an idiot for writing this?” (They will, trust me. It’s just a matter of what half-baked, specious arguments they’ll come up with.) That’s when it occurred to me: IE7 and WMP11 aren’t included in SP3 because they require WGA validation. It would be far too easy to just download the redistributable SP3 install and get both programs that way.

That said, it’s still very strange that they don’t appear in Microsoft Update.