So What Else Is New?
Besides the loss of the Address Bar and the new deions in Security Options, here\'s what\'s new in SP3. First, as with Vista, you no longer need to provide the product key during installation. If you don\'t, however, you\'ll be prompted for the product key later as part of the Genuine Advantage check that Windows initiates. Second, SP3 adds support for FIPS 140-1 Level 1 cryptography as a DLL at the kernel level. Developers can access this Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module, making use of the cryptographic algorithms to improve the security of their own drivers. In addition, SP3 improves black hole router detection (sensing of routers dropping certain kinds of packets), allowing XP to reconfigure the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to keep connections alive without the performance compromise the detection formerly caused. SP3 turns on detection by default; in earlier versions of XP, the facility was both less capable and, to minimize processor load, turned off by default.
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Also included is a Network Access Protection module, which allows network administrators to establish policies that ensure each attached XP machine has a high enough health level—in other words, is secure enough—to access the network. Health levels can be based on any combination of antivirus signatures, firewall and port settings, and the current update status of the PC according to Windows Update. When an XP machine attempts to contact the network, it must pass a health test. If the system fails, the network can prevent or restrict access.
Again, though, there\'s nothing actually new here as far as the Windows world goes. Vista has already eliminated the need for the product key during installation, and it has already included the Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module, the Network Access Protection module, and improved black hole router detection. In other words, the new features in Windows XP Service Pack 3 are actually taken from Vista (and associated OSs such as Windows Server 2008). It\'s entirely possible that Microsoft will continue to backport specific features from Vista, especially since XP threatens to hang around for a while, but don\'t expect to see anything approaching a full Vista implementation in the aging OS. Still, the major security issues will almost certainly find their way into XP as long as organizations continue to use it. And, given that major vendors continue to offer business systems with XP installed, this could be the case for quite a while.
As mentioned, numerous additions to SP3 have already been available as downloads. These include support for Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2 (WPA2), the most recent wireless-networking security upgrade, as well as version 3.0 of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), version 3.1 of Windows Installer, and the Digital Identity Management Service (DIMS), which validates security certificates and private keys when a user logs on to a server running Windows 2003 SP1 or later. These inclusions are in addition to the huge array of hotfixes that Microsoft has made available via Windows Update over the years.—Next: Proceed with Caution
