Even in the eleventh hour, Redmond is continuing to make changes to its Windows XP update code.

Late July — Microsoft's most recent delivery target for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) — is right around the corner. But that isn't stopping Microsoft from continuing to tweak the code.

Typically, Microsoft makes few or no feature changes to a product once it enters the near-final Release Candidate (RC) stage.

XP SP2 hit the RC1 beta milestone on March 17. Company officials have said publicly to expect the product to reach RC2 status some time in May. Microsoft officials have targeted "late July" as the release-to-manufacturing date for XP SP2, with a revitalized "Protect Your PC" marketing campaign, designed to focus on SP2, to launch in September.

"The final release is still expected this summer," a Microsoft spokesman confirmed on Friday. " As for whether there will be an RC3 — that is dependent on the customer feedback generated during the testing process."
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