"54 years ago my father revolutionized personal listening with the first Koss SP3 stereophone, " Michael J.

ENGADGET: Koss intros Striva headphone systems, lets you stream music over WiFi straight to your ears

The company has no plans to release the hot fixes necessary to bring SP3 into full compliance, Light said.

CNN: Y2K nips NT users

But it does intend to maintain SP3 at "compliant with minor issues" status, a rung down from the "compliant" status of SP4.

CNN: Y2K nips NT users

It will release a document about SP3 and its issues this month.

CNN: Y2K nips NT users

Still, some may want to stay with SP3, Microsoft officials said.

CNN: Y2K nips NT users

Those with truly ancient PCs (we're looking at you, corporate customers) can even bring over personal files from an OS as dated as Windows XP SP3.

ENGADGET: Microsoft reportedly plans Windows 8 upgrades all the way from XP, wants us to just let go of the past

According to the Microsoft Web site, the operating systems affected include Windows XP, Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows 2000 SP2, Windows 2000 SP3 and Windows 2000 SP4.

CNN: Sasser worm rips through Internet

Mark Light, Microsoft year-2000 product manager, said that SP3 -- even with all of the hot fixes issued in the meantime -- would not offer users the year-2000 compliance available via SP4.

CNN: Y2K nips NT users

One corporate user told Microsoft officials that his shop did not intend to deploy SP4 because "we have assessed the risk to be too high, " and had created a Systems Management Server package of year-2000 fixes that were issued after SP3.

CNN: Y2K nips NT users