Today the Windows Update Service at the office offered me XP SP3 (as a developer, I have the privilege to choose which update to install). I knew about no issue about the tool I use, and decided to install it.
When I rebooted, the quick launch bar and address bar were gone! Ok, let's re-enable them, I thought. The quick launch bar was simply disabled - but the "Address bar" item in the tool bars menu was gone!
A quick search on the Internet showed me it was a known issue, but it was never mentioned in the paper about SP3 that MS released. It looks it is due to "legal reasons", some sources say the anti-trust ones.
Among the IE-Windows integration issues, the address bar didn't look a big one. It open any URL typed in the default web browser - it doesn't opens IE anyay. It just works like the "Run..." dialog, but it's faster to use.
My opinion is MS is trying to force people - especially power users - to install their Windows Live Desktop Search to drive them to their search engine, because it offer a similar feature. Well, I am not going to install a software I do not need (sorry, I can find my files without an indexer, and I prefer Google and Yahoo as search engines) to get something alike the address bar. I won't install SP3. Or if I am force to do, I will use one of the utility already available, or use an older browseui.dll and switch to another web browser. I already have Firefox installed, although I use IE mainly. But I may switch anytime soon - if MS removes handy features without any real reason.