In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a

software program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a given program reaches a certain (arbitrary) limit, or the software release has shown to be stabilized with a limited number of remaining issues based on users' feedback and bug reports. In large software applications such as office suites, operating systems, database software, or network management, it is not uncommon to have a service pack issued within the first year or two of a product's release. Installing a service pack is easier and less error-prone than installing many individual patches, even more so when updating multiple computers over a network, where service packs are common. Service packs are usually numbered, and thus shortly referred to as SP1, SP2, SP3 etc. They may also bring, besides bug fixes, entirely new features, as is the case of SP2 of

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

(e.g.

Windows Security Center Security and Maintenance (formerly known as Action Center, and Security Center in earlier versions) is a component of the Windows NT family of operating systems that monitors the security and maintenance status of the computer. Its monitoring ...

), or SP3 and SP4 of the heavily database dependent Trainz 2009: World Builder Edition.

Incremental and cumulative SPs

Service Packs for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

were cumulative through

. This means that the problems that are fixed in a service pack are also fixed in later service packs. For example, Windows XP SP3 contains all the fixes that are included in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Windows Vista SP2 was not cumulative, however, but incremental, requiring that SP1 be installed first.

Office XP Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to ret ...

Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, ...

Office 2007 Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...

Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with General availability release, general availability on ...

and

Office 2013 Microsoft Office 2013 (codenamed Office 15) is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2010 and the predecessor to Microsoft Office 2016. Unlike with Office 2010, no OS X ...

service packs have been cumulative.

Impact on installation of additional software components

Application service packs replace existing files with updated versions that typically fix bugs or close security holes. If, at a later time, additional components are added to the software using the original media, there is a risk of accidentally mixing older and updated components. Depending on the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

and

deployment Deployment may refer to: Engineering and software Concepts * Blue-green deployment, a method of installing changes to a web, app, or database server by swapping alternating production and staging servers * Continuous deployment, a software e ...

methods, it may then be necessary to manually reinstall the service pack after each such change to the software. This was, for example, necessary for

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...

service packs; however, from

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was offici ...

onwards, Microsoft redirected setup programs to use updated service pack files instead of files from original installation media in order to prevent manual reinstalls.Not Necessary to Reinstall Windows 2000 Service Packs After System State Changes
/ref>

References

External links

Microsoft Support Lifecycle
(includes Microsoft's service pack policy)
Windows Service Packs

List of fixes that are included in Windows XP Service Pack 3
Windows administration System administration Patch utilities Software release

Incremental and cumulative SPs

Impact on installation of additional software components

See also

References

External links