http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6142_102...servic-pack-1/
read this thread above
you can get sp3 and the Microsoft download center, ignore the warning that it is for IT developers:
You, AND the people commenting there, are woefully mistaken. The idiot CD image that M$ has released with SP3 quits and whines if you do not have AT LEAST sp1 installed. It does NOT update from any prior SP level. Yes, it SAYS it's a "full roll-up". It lies.
The trick is obtaining SP1, since M$ appears to have shut down the server that handles "express" installs, and that also appears to be the ONLY SP1 installation link still there at M$.com. There is no single-file sp1 update anywhere to be found on M$'s website, that I have been able to locate.
Note that the difficulty also exists of even getting to THAT point, since the version of IE which is on the SP "base" install is too old to access 95% of M$ various pages you encounter trying to find out what you need to have to update to sp1 have major page errors. Someone needs to point out to Microsoft that, while most of M$.com can be done with the latest tools, anything legacy oriented which is designed to be accessed in order to bring you UP to current levels needs to be maintained to reflect the lowest reasonable levels of access, not upper ones. The pages that get you to XP SP3 level of access need to handle the IE that was released with XP "sp0" itself.
(Hint: You can get older versions of firefox from mozilla.org which are still compatible with "XPbase". There are still page errors but not as many and not all of them so bad such that proceeding further is impossible.)
The
Fileplanet link at the bottom of that CNet discussion apparently works at the moment, but someplace like this forum should probably obtain it and make a link available for it, since something at the top of file planet says it's a dead site and in the process of being archived:
Note: FilePlanet is no longer being updated and is in the process of being archived.
Which suggests even THAT link will not be in service too much longer.
Note: Post #6. The only reason for posts #3,4,5 is because of this silly requirement.