As promised earlier this month, Microsoft has put the Windows XP SP3 package in RTM status today. This means that software giant has put the final touches (as final as it can be with Microsoft) on the update and are now preparing to make it available around the world. The company is still committed to the April 29th release date they announced last week.

Given the official RTM status of the service pack, Technet subscribers and MSDN members should be able to retrieve XP SP3 earlier than the rest, perhaps as soon as this week. If that's the case, likely we'll see a rainfall of reports throughout the coming weeks as people begin to install and use the update, which should give most an idea of what to expect, that is, if you haven't moved to Vista or somewhere else already.