Neowin reports that the Windows Service Pack Road Map has been quietly updated. Service Pack 3 for Windows XP Home and Professional is now planned for release in the first half of 2008, nearly four years after the Service Pack 2.
Crap. That’s an awful lot of roll-ups and individual patches for Windows XP users to have to deal with.
Mary Jo Foley says out loud what you’re probably thinking:
There’s no doubt that some (many?) Microsoft customers will see the latest slip as a less-than-subtle attempt by Microsoft to force them to upgrade to the latest versions of Windows that are coming down the pike. Why stick with an operating system that hasn’t gotten a full-fledged set of bug fixes and updates for two-plus years? Why not just make the move to Vista and Longhorn Server?
I think this is a sign that Microsoft’s development resources are stretched awfully thin.
Ed Bott 
At this point with that timeline I wonder if XP SP3 will go down in infamy just like NT4 SP7 and W2K SP5. Both were in late beta and almost done when they mysteriously disappeared forever. Other than showing up in various KB articles. 2008 is 6 years after the ship date for XP, seems like a long time to wait.
“I think this is a sign that Microsoft’s development resources are stretched awfully thin.”
I’m betting on that one. Old geek Hamilton’s almanac says it’s going to be a hard Winter.
I am guessing this is where they will force .NET 3.0 support onto XP users.
.NET 3.0? I’am still using 1.1 and i refuse every app that needs 2.0. What a crap.
By mid-07, the number of updates should be around 150+. I can probably learn how to use linux in less time than it would take to do a clean install of XPsp2.