If you’re like me (Computer builder.) and install XP a lot, then a useful thing to have in your arsenal is your own XP SP3 CD, to save you all that time downloading it from the internet.

There is another option available, which is to slipstream SP3 with Windows XP SP2, but for the time being I’ll concentrate on making a separate disc.

To make things easier, Microsoft have released an official Windows XP SP3 ISO image. << Click the linked text to download it. It’s a free download. – This can be written to a CD as you would with any ISO image. The entire file is 549MB in size; so it might take a while to download.

The best no-brainer ISO burner software I’ve found is ImgBurn : It makes creating a CD from an ISO so easy it’s incredible. – So much so in fact that there’s no need to give any instructions other than those already given on the website.

Do you install XP regularly; perhaps on computers that you build? Do you install SP3 too, or do you leave it for the customer to do? Are you going to start installing Windows Seven as soon as you can in preference to XP?  Have you already started installing the Windows Seven RC build 7100 at the customer’s request? Do feel free to comment.