Service Pack 3 for Windows 2000 has suffered a last minute glitch, according to a Microsoft internal email seen by Paul Thurrott of WinInfo. SP3 was ready to roll next Thursday, but the discovery of bugs in Microsoft Installer (MSI) 2.0 have knocked it back to "this summer".

According to Thurrott, the company planned earlier this week to roll back to MSI 1.1 instead, but said it would stick with 2.0 if testers and partners said they wanted it, as its removal at this stage could well break applications. This seems to have been the case, as Activewin.com reports a posting by a Microsoft official in the SP3 newsgroup as saying: "MSI 2.0 is a benefit to our customers and it will be included in Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 when it releases this summer."

It's not clear whether going back to 1.1 or fixing 2.0 would delay SP3 worst, but clearly it is now delayed. The anticipated closeness of SP3 can be gauged by the references to it that are appearing in Microsoft documentation. If you try to download the SUS client for Win2k, you're told that it's already built into SP3, while Microsoft hotfixes are starting to sprout references to "Pre-SP4." Microsoft habitually files new hotfixes under the tag of the next service pack, the idea being that earlier ones are rolled up in the current SP. Thanks to Malcolm, Robert and Jeff for these. ®

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