Vista SP1 Coming In Q1 2008

Many readers sent in word of Microsoft's announcement of the schedule for Vista SP1. The Beskerming blog has a good summary. Up to 15,000 people will get access to a beta of SP1 by the end of September; general release is targeted (not promised in stone) for early 2008. The service pack is said to improve performance and stability, not to add features.

Re:Me'thinks

[rikitikitembo]

I'm actually glad it was released early, because now Microsoft KNOWS this fact and also has learned that they cannot force people to use their new software as readily as they deem necessary.

They should release SP2 quickly too

[skoval]

since many people said they won't upgrade to Vista till SP2.

I hate this forcing everyone to Vista. It's almost impossible to find a new notebook with preinstalled XP now in Moscow.

ehhh

[thatskinnyguy]

Service Pack 1 won't exactly make Vista more desirable as an OS; but it is a psychological landmark that says "we worked most of the bugs out and we're finally done with it". Businesses may bite; but I'm not 100% convinced that Vista is better than XP quite yet.

This SP full of patches still probably won't prevent people from deleting their Recycle Bin [computerpe...ance.co.uk], end the UAC nazi tyranny [microsoft.com] and let admins do admin things with computers [west-wind.com]. Once MS figures-out a way to make Vista useful without all those annoyances and brick walls, then I may give it another look.

I know I'm going to -1 Flamebait hell for this; but if a Windows box has to be insecure in order to be useful, then so be it.

Rule of three

[PIPBoy3000]

Version 3 is the traditional version to buy with Microsoft products. The first release is a mess, the second one is a guess at improvements (as they typically haven't received good feedback from customers by then), but the third one is typically solid and well-received.

That rule of thumb has worked well with Windows 3.0, Word 3.0, SQL 7 (which was actually the third version after Microsoft bought Sybase), and so on. Service packs are a little trickier. SP2 could be considered the third "release" of an OS. With XP, it wasn't really until SP2 that it seemed secure and stable enough.

I think your excuse was just fine, but off by a digit.

Re:Memory

[SpryGuy]

Vista has some pretty serious issues with low-memory though... I run a development environment that has SQL Server 2005 and several copies of Visual Studio open, among other things. When memory gets tight, Visual studio, and other applications, just start misbehaving. Right-Click context menus refuse to pop up, or pop up in "incomplete" states (only a few of the selections on them that should be there), and other strange behavior occurs (windows not closing!, dialogs not opening).

I never had this experience under XP. I'd either get out of memory errors, or some other clear notification that something was amiss. In Vista, if you didn't KNOW you were low on memory, you'd wonder what the hell was going on, as there is no indication that any errors are occuring.

I hope this is one of the things they're fixing in Vista SP1.

Yes Vista was Released too soon....

[Toreo asesino]

An interesting nugget of info for you all, seeing as no-one has mentioned this yet....

The update will bring the Vista kernel to version 6.1 [winsupersite.com]. Why is this significant? It's the same kernel version that Windows Server 2008 will be. That means folks, that Microsoft, in effect have used Vista pre-SP1 as a test-bed for their Windows server platform. Servers crashing cause more panic than workstations, and take a guess slashdotters....which market-share are Microsoft champing at the bit for most? I'll give you a clue.....they already own the desktop.

The Vista strategy was "release and fix while in production" and in fairness, 6 months down the line, a lot has been fixed and Vista is shaping up to be a solid platform, but build numbers don't lie.

There, I said it.

Re:Windows XP SP3: Maybe

[denis-The-menace]

Notice no mention of Vista SP1 on that page
Therefore, this page is probably being ignored by MS.
IOW: Don't hold your breath for XP SP3

Can't wait for performance patch

[Anonymous Coward]

I *just* got a Thinkpad X60 Tablet 1.5Ghz Code Duo, and I sprung for the 10k RPM HD, 2GB RAM, yadda-yadda, and Vista Business.

Woe is me. My graphics score for Aero is a paltry 2.0. SimCity 4.0 playability is pathetic, with the game halting and often freezing.

I have no reason to think there is anything other than Vista to blame.

I haven't even dared to do anything "serious" with the machine for fear of further disappointment.

Re:Think it is SuperFetch you're describing?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"when you're not using your computer" is complete bullshit. I have 8gigs.. and Vista caches 4 gigs ALL the time and unfortunately when i need it!

Vista does not release that 4gigs, it instead allows the app your running to run out of memory and then the system goes in to swap hell!

Vista's memory management blows. I dont know why ANY fucking os would need to cache 4gigs out of 8gigs of ram.

Re:Think it is SuperFetch you're describing?

[lordSaurontheGreat]

Superfetch? Sounds like a dumb way to say "We need C++0x to have a built-in garbage collector and memory manager because we can't build one to save our life." Is there a single competent engineer at Microsoft? All the MS engineers I know hate their job, hate microsoft, and refuse to program outside of work because they've had all the will to code leeched out of them.