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XPS Essentials Pack on Windows XP SP3

The XPS Essentials Pack installer (available via www.microsoft.com/xps) does not currently support Service Pack 3 (SP3) of Windows XP.

To enable XPS support on Windows XP SP3, you can install the .Net Framework (link). An alternative workaround is to install the XPS Essentials Pack prior to upgrading to SP3.

We'll provide an update when a fix is available.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 20, 2008
    any hope for EP (stand-alone viewer) on Windows Server 2008 (x64)?

  • Anonymous
    August 20, 2008
    I have the XP SP3 with the Framework 3.5 SP1 and still can't install the XPS Essential Pack.

  • Anonymous
    August 21, 2008
    @casimir: XPS EP isn't supported on XP SP3. You have two options. 1. install XPS EP prior to upgrading to SP3 or 2. install .Net 3x which will give you XPS viewing and creation (there is no need to install XPS EP and .Net)

  • Anonymous
    August 23, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 02, 2008
    Just a comment to note that on a 32-bit XP SP3 machine with all the various .NETs installed and up to date (with the exception of 3.5 SP1) I am unable to view/print xps documents.  I can see that the viewer is installed in C:windowssystem32XPSviewer I believe the issue is that IE is not the default browser on the system. When I attempt to open an XPS document, Opera is activated and asks if I want to download or view.  Obviously the xpsviewer plugin from .NET is only compatible with IE.  I have also tried right-clicking and doing an Open with... (choosing either the iexplore.exe or xpsviewer.exe) and neither will open the XPS file.  Looks like I will be re-installing SP3... I don't deal much with XPS documents and was previously unaware and now shocked to find out that the XPS viewer is a browser plugin unless the EP pack is installed.  Like the visio viewer, this is a needless and annoying dependency (Yay let me fire up a gigantic ram hogging browser and wonder about security issues just to view/print a non-web related document).  Please focus development on stand-alone viewers. :)

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 09, 2008
    There are compatibility between Windows Server 2008 and XPS EP?

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2008
    XP Pro SP3 installed, FireFox 3 user. Are there any registry entries which I can edit so that XPSViewer uses Firefox instead of IE?

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2008
    Here is a reg export showing the change I made to be able to view xps files. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1 @="XPS document" "BrowserFlags"=hex:00,10,00,00 "EditFlags"=hex:00,00,01,00 "FriendlyTypeName"="@C:\WINDOWS\system32\XPSViewer\XPSViewer.exe,-3300" "InfoTip"="@C:\WINDOWS\system32\XPSViewer\XPSViewer.exe,-3301" "DocObject"="0" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1CLSID @="{7DDA204B-2097-47C9-8323-C40BB840AE44}" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1DefaultIcon @="C:\WINDOWS\system32\XPSViewer\XPSViewer.exe,1" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1DocObject @="0" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1shell HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1shellopen HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1shellopencommand @=""c:\Program files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" "%1"" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1shellex HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1shellexPropertyHandler @="{45670FA8-ED97-4F44-BC93-305082590BFB}" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTXPSViewer.Document.1shellex{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1} @="{44121072-A222-48F2-A58A-6D9AD51EBBE9}" Notice the change is only in "document.1" . I had no corresponding entry in "Document" which incidentally points to xpsviewer.document.1 In reality, the only change is to the default value for HKCRXPSViewer.Document.1shellopencommand If you perform a standard brute-force edit of the registry using RegEdit, then just change the value data for HKCR  XPSViewer.Document.1    shell      open        command to: "c:Program filesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe" "%1" Karl

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2008
    Installing .Net Framework 3.5 Sp1 does not work. The included XPS seems to be the same version. The setup failes and leaves the temporary folder. The WIC.log shows some version mismatches. WORKAROUND: rename following files:  C:Windowssystem32WindowsCodecs.dll C:Windowssystem32WindowsCodecsExt.dll C:Windowssystem32WMPhoto.dll C:Windowssystem32PhotoMetadataHandler.dll. Run Setup (from .Net Framework or the standalone XPS EP it doesn't matter) - Setup will succeed. You will get old versions of the files mentioned above. Delete them and restore the previously renamed. XPSViewer will work with the newer files.

  • Anonymous
    September 15, 2008
    Consumers can read the following blog post to understand the trivial issue at hand and how to fix it. http://www.withinwindows.com/2008/09/15/microsoft-i-fixed-the-xps-essentials-pack-for-you-it-took-10-minutes/

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2008
    When will the version for SP3 be available?

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2008
    A big thank you to Syltro for the workaround (it worked perfectly). Actually, without the separate XPS EP, if you're not using IE as default browser you can't see the content of .XPS files at all. After reading Rafael Rivera post, it seems ridicules for MS not to fix it or at least officially provide a workaround as Syltro's. Come on guys, it's MS and they can't match one person doing some digging into MS products?

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2008
    This worked for me to view xps files. Right click an xps file: Select 'Open With' Select 'Choose Program' Select 'Internet Explorer' Tick the 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file' Select 'OK' The xps file should open in IE.

  • Anonymous
    September 26, 2008
    Download the XPS Essentials Pack installer which installs correctly on Windows XP SP3 here: (www.rapidshare.com/files/148550523/XPS_SP1_EP_XPSP3.zip.html) Until MS posts an official workaround. Then this can be uninstalled. Extract and run Update.exe.

  • Anonymous
    September 28, 2008
    As a regular computer user, why would I even need an XPS reader?  Is this supposed to be a competitor to Adobe Reader? thanks.

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2008
    XPS is nice for printing webpages to file for future reference (we all know not all websites today will be around tomorrow)

  • Anonymous
    October 06, 2008
    I won't revert my Windows XP SP3 to a Windows XP SP2 just to install XPS EP Pack, and I will definitely not install .Net Framework 3+ just to have the capability to print and view XPS files. I'll wait for the update so the EP Pack will install on XP SP3. In the meanwhile I'll still print and view PDF files instead. Same functionality, smaller file size.

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2008
    The installer at www.rapidshare.com/files/148550523/XPS_SP1_EP_XPSP3.zip.html installs the XPS Viewer but not the XPS Printer driver. For that, you'll have to update for the lazy XPS team to update their package.

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2008
    Forget everything..just download a transform from www.withinwindows.com/2008/09/15/microsoft-i-fixed-the-xps-essentials-pack-for-you-it-took-10-minutes/ to make the original installer work on XP SP3.

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2008
    In addition to the installer issue (noted in post linked to by <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/xps/archive/2008/08/20/xps-essentials-pack-on-windows-xp-sp3.aspx#8953393">Rafael</a>) there are servicing issues [] with the print pipeline if the current payload in the XPS Essentials Pack is deployed on Windows XP SP3. We appreciate everyone’s patience while we publish an update to the Essentials Pack that fully supports XP SP3, in the meantime we strongly encourage installing XPS support via the workarounds mentioned in the initial post. /aiddy [] for example, any future updates may not install and you may have problems with print drivers  that have dependencies on the print path.