The folks in MatrikonOPC support have completed their testing on Windows XP Service Pack 3.   As mentioned in an earlier post Windows XP SP3 was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2008.  It went to the public via both the Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update on May 6, 2008.

Based on their testing, the MatrikonOPC software performs as expected, and no known gotchas.   From an OPC point of view, security would be configured as per XP SP2 settings.  In addition to functionality and performance testing, they looked at installation, licensing, remote DCOM and Tunnelling connections, and mixed network interoperability.  From what they see, it’s gets a clean bill of health.

With a total of 1,174 fixes have been included in SP3, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see something within DCOM get bent of shape.  Fortunately it looks like things are OK as far as OPC operations are concerned.

You should still check with your OPC vendor to ensure their products have been verified against XP SP3.   It’s possible some of the new features affect other parts of an application outside of the OPC or DCOM interfaces.  Some of the new features include:

• Turns Black hole router detection on by default
• Network Access Protection client
• Windows Imaging Component
• Credentials Security Service Provider
• Descriptive Security options in Group Policy/Local Security Policy user interface
•  An updated version of the Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module that is FIPS 140-2 certified
• Installing without requiring a product key during setup for retail and OEM versions

Overall it looks like SP3 is nowhere near the painful experience that SP2 was for many users.  (Unless of course you installed some of the early RC builds or are running an HP AMD machine.).   If anyone out there is having OPC pain with their XP SP3, then drop me an update.