One year from today Microsoft will retire support for Windows XP Service Pack 2. Windows XP is not being retired, but support for Service Pack 2 is. It may be the case, and in fact I would guess it would be the case, that from them on you will have to have Service Pack 3 in order get support, including patches to subsequently disclosed vulnerabilities.
It has been policy in the past for Microsoft to retire support for service packs. You can no longer get updates for XP with no service packs (what they call SP0) or with SP1. You must have SP2 in order to get updates. After Patch Tuesday, July 13, 2010 you will have to have SP3 installed in order to get updates for Windows XP. And in fact, if a vulnerability is found in SP2 that is not in SP3, it will not be patched.
And we have reached the end of the line for Windows XP service packs: After SP3 no new service packs are planned. Microsoft will not end support for Windows XP itself for almost 4 years more. That is scheduled for Patch Tuesday, April 8, 2014.
Given that SP3 was released in May 2008, this would mean 6 years of updates since the last service pack, which adds up to quite a mess. Deploying a new system under such circumstances requires a large update process. By then we should be on to Windows 8 or 9, but the determination among many of you to keep your XP systems forever seems strong. (story Link)
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