Windows XP SP3 to arrive before Longhorn

A BLOG filing hidden away in the cobwebbed corners of the web suggests that Windows XP SP3 will hit before Longhorn does.

The blog is written by the guys at F-Secure. The information was handed out by Steve Ballmer, and the event was Surfa Lugnt, also known as Swedish National Data Security Day.

Ballmer allegedly also said that IE7 would have anti-phishing technology built in.

No-one really knows what SP3 will contain. It probably can't contain anything huge, since the next wave of upgrades due to be ported back to XP - the Aero UI, the file system and the like - won't be done until Longhorn is done. It seems likely that it will just be IE7 and some security features.

The comments come after Bill Gates mentioned at WinHEC that Longhorn would definitely be done by the end of 2006. We'd estimate that they clearly don't anticipate it getting done much before that. µ