Why? Microsoft isn't saying much, except that "administrators requested features in Group Policy that simplify policy management."
Vista, who cares? What's the deal with the next service pack for Windows XP? Glad you asked. Microsoft, which has been avoiding the topic of XP SP3 even more judiciously than Vista SP1, confirmed that it will dual release the last rollup of the I'm-not-dead-yet XP "in a few weeks" or "in September." And it hasn't changed the long-stated, long-in-the-tooth schedule of sometime during the first six months of 2008 for a final release.
Here's the QT, such as it is, on XP SP3. "It is a standard practice to release a service pack as a release nears end of ife for the convenience to our customers and partners," said Microsoft. "Windows XP SP3 is rollup of previously released updates for Windows XP including security updates, out-of-band releases and hot fixes. It will also contain a small number of new updates. This should not significantly change the Windows XP experience."
Smell like an obit to you? It's almost as if Microsoft's embarrassed by how well XP's hanging in there. In fact, we don't believe for a minute that Microsoft, which has previously set a drop-dead date of Jan. 30, 2008, for manufacturers to preinstall XP on new PCs -- and Jan. 30, 2009 as the similar deadline for smaller-scale system builders -- will actually follow through on those deadlines, what with SP3 coming down the pike sometime between the two. Microsoft will likely smell the XP coffee, and extend at least the manufacturer deadline.