Windows XP's third Service Pack has just reached RC2 status, having been handed out to testers last week.

If you're keen on trying it out yourself in this very near to completion stage, the good news is you rightfully can as Microsoft have made it available for download by the general public using Windows Update in conjunction with a small registry file.

Thanks to the folks at Dailytech for the heads up.

Microsoft released SP3 to testers last week, but the general public can now download the service pack via Windows Update. Users have to first download a small registry file from Microsoft which gives them special access to Windows Update to download SP3.

"The script sets a registry key on your system. The registry key is required for Windows Update to recognize your machine as a valid target for Windows XP Service Pack 3 RC2," states Microsoft. "It is recommended that you apply the resulting update package to an activated, genuine copy of Windows XP, in a test environment."