Microsoft is set to release not only Windows Server 2008, but also Windows XP Service Pack 3 later this year, according to a recent press release on Microsoft PressPass. It has been suspected in the past that Windows XP SP2 would end up as the final service pack released for the operating system, but apparently these suspicions can now be laid to rest. This information came in conjunction with the announcement that Windows XP SP3 as well as Windows Vista will gain support for interoperability between Microsoft's Network Address Protection (NAP) and Juniper Network's Unified Access Control (UAC) standards for network access control (NAC) deployments.

Good it was about time, we have already more than 80 updates to get when we setup a fresh Windows XP SP2 install :-)

Update: Microsoft spokeswoman provided the following update:

I just received additional information from the product manager responsible for SP3. While we're still not talking specifics, he did point to the following link as an accurate timeline for our preliminary plans for SP3: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx. Again, these are just preliminary and we will share more at a later date. Please do reference this link for current timing and disregard the release from InterOp, which is inaccurate.