BillW50 wrote:
> In news:h2950g$jim$1@news.eternal-september.org,
> ~misfit~ typed on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:19:37 +1200:
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
>>> In news:h27pun$ho4$1@news.eternal-september.org,
>>> BillW50 typed on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:02:52 -0500:
>>>> In news:Xns9C37EF8E0EF58noonehomecom@74.209.131.13,
>>>> Larry typed on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:32:58 +0000:
>>>>> I'm using WinXPSP3 typing this message because it's convenient and
>>>>> familiar with Xnews, a very old usenet client.
>>>> I have one machine running XPSP3 and the rest running XPSP2. And I
>>>> haven't seen any difference in stability or usability between SP2
>>>> and SP3.
>>> Oh wait! There is one small difference. SP3 breaks OE6 auto-compacing
>>> mode. As it usually hangs on folder.dbx. And Microsoft doesn't
>>> support OE at all anymore, so there will never be a Microsoft fix
>>> for it. Which might be one reason to stick with SP2. <grin>
>> Thanks Bill, I was going to ask why, if there was no difference with
>> stability or usability, only one of your machines was sp3.
>>
>> Oh, I find my XP Pro sp3 machines still auto-compact OE files just
>> fine.
>
> Hi Shaun. Well I don't see the big deal of having SP3 installed anyway.
> And the big plus of only staying with SP2 is that it is much smaller.
> Which is nice on small SSD drives. And I can't even install SP3 on my 4G
> SSD machines because there isn't even enough room. Even if I use the
> recovery disc to start over, that only leaves 400MB worth of room. SP3
> claims it needs at least 450MB. Although I believe it actually needs at
> least double this amount when I installed it on one of my 8G machines.
>
> I don't know what to say about why yours works. As I have no personal
> experience with the problem, just what I have read on the OE newsgroup.
>
> Want to see something odd? My machines report:
>
> SP2 v5.1.2600
> SP3 v5.1.2600
>
> SP2 and SP3 report the same version number. Doesn't that seem strange to
> you?
>
your original Windows build is the same as it ever was = v5.1.2600

SP3 is just a benchmark position that identifies it has the been applied
as far a security patches as concerned.