Ever wondered about Windows XP SP3's fate? After it became officially available, it quickly disappeared in the shadows, and - if you ask me - I wasn't even curious about it. After all, my Windows XP SP2 runs perfectly, so why bother with SP3? Looking back, here's what we were saying about the topic in late April: "Microsoft announced that Windows XP SP3 has been released to manufacturing, and will arrive on the 29th of April, as a standalone installer. After that, SP3 will also become available as an automatic update, but that is expected to happen in June." So much for Microsoft's delays!


As far as I remember, June has ended over a month ago, and I didn't see any Automatic Update message popping up announcing me about Windows XP SP3. I am sure you didn't see anything, either. Finally, the wait is over - once again - and Windows XP SP3 is available as a "Recommended" update. If you didn't get it manually until now, and Windows Update is set to "automatically download recommended updates for my computer and install them," SP3 will crawl into your computer one of these days.<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->

If you want to avoid SP3, as I will(don't ask me why, it should be obvious I don't trust it yet), and keep your current Windows Update settings, just grab the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit, and all should be fine.

The summary of this last Windows XP service pack is this - the final build, labeled 5512, is known to include 1,073 fixes, including every security update, out-of-band release, and hotfix released since Windows XP SP2 became available on Microsoft's servers, in August 2004.

If you're running SP3 already, please drop your feedback below, I am really curious!

If you think about the Windows XP Welcome Screen, the first thing that comes in your mind is customizing it. After all, there are plenty of applications allowing you to change the Boot Screen, so why not change what comes after it, too? Anyway, if you're looking for some Windows themes tips and tricks, this is not the right time and place. If you are really going to insist, I may tell you a few things about that in the future, but now we have to talk about a very interesting, and often ignored, topic: ClearType fonts in the Welcome Screen. Are you surprised?


Well, you should be surprised, because I considered this topic irrelevant for a long time, especially because, being the only user of my computer, I changed the settings so my Windows XP would always jump over the Welcome Screen and login automatically to the one&only user account I had. Now, let's talk a little about ClearType, then we can move on and see today's trick about it. Ready or not, here we go...<-125x125 Button - right->

While everyone says ClearType is very good for having smooth and better readable fonts on LCD screens, I have to say this is not the truth. I have been always using ClearType on CRT screens(no more CRTs for me anymore, but I was just saying), and the difference is just as big as with LCD ones, so be sure to enable ClearType on older CRT screens, too. In Windows XP, the feature is enabled after you login into a certain account, so the Welcome Screen will display jaggy fonts.

As usual, I have to warn you about the risks involved when editing the registry, so be very careful - as long as you make things right, nothing bad can happen. OK, now you have been warned. Move along, move along...

1. Open up the Registry Editor(Start>Run>type Regedit>press Enter)

2. Locate the two following keys:
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothing (String Value)
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ FontSmoothingType (Hexadecimal DWORD Value)

3. Set both these values to 2, and ClearType will be enabled inside the Welcome Screen, as well as being the default setting for every new user you'll create from now on.

Eh...much better now, don't you think? :)