TechNet Users Revolt Over Vista SP1 Unavailability

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "There's a growing revolt among Microsoft TechNet & MSDN subscribers who are frustrated that they can't yet get Vista SP1 and test their software on it. This can't be good news for anyone hoping that SP1 will have better compatibility. While SP1 has been released to manufacturing, and pirate copies are easy to find, Microsoft is withholding it from subscribers until early March. According to the article, some frustrated users are upset enough that they plan to abandon TechNet entirely and turn to piracy." Update: 02/12 17:37 GMT by KD : Sean0michael writes, "Aaccording to the Technet blog, they have pushed up the date to before the end of February, though no exact date is mentioned."

The Tabloid News For Nerds Which Is Slashdot

[westlake]

There is no story too trivial or misleading about Microsoft and Vista that won't make it to the front page of Slashdot.

Last Friday, the company released Vista SP1 for download by both individuals and companies who previously beta tested the service pack. This week, the company went further. "At the end of this week we will be making the English version of Windows Vista SP1 available to volume licensing customers ... Other languages will follow soon ... [and] later this month, SP1 will be available to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers," Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows product management, said in a posting on the Windows Vista Team Blog today. The primary hold up for broadly releasing SP1 has been minor glitches involving device driver installation, basically requiring that some device drivers will need to be reinstalled after installing SP1. Volume Buyers to Get Vista SP1 Early [internetnews.com] [February 11]

Re:The Tabloid News For Nerds Which Is Slashdot

[Yaur]

The point of developers getting it first (through MSDN) is to make sure that any compatibility problems get resolved before your customers, who could very well be volume buyers, upgrade their systems. The article you cite seems to confirm that what developers are complaining about is in fact happening.

I can see why software makers are anxious

[Billly Gates]

SP1 caused numerous stability problems on my laptop and I prefer to skip this service pack. The drivers do not like the changes and yes they are compatibility problems. sp1 is not a magic bullet to fix Vista's i/o problems either unfortunately.

Re:PROTIP

[auzy]

Microsoft has not confirmed I think. Mary Jo Foley Confirmed, and shes barely creditable..

If you don't believe me, check her write up on WWDC. http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=505 [zdnet.com] , in which case, she obviously never researched the features properly, and obviously didn't bother to research them, even while doing a follow-up on it, because the forums were full..

I think she just spoke to some guy at Microsoft, they said "yeah, its pretty much the same", and she goes "yeah, they are the same, they just changed the version".

What you will notice, is that nowhere, has she actually done anything to research that (ie, no comparison shots of changed files). Don't trust any info on SP1 at the moment. All the leaks I've seen have been proven fake thus far (ie, modified refresh 2's where it was hexed, but they forgot to change all the versions, or just refresh 2). I've even heard some idiots who base whats real or not on the filename.

Either way, until someone official from microsoft on MSDN says it, I'm not going to bother even trying SP1, otherwise, you may be stuck with a beta which wont upgrade to SP2, and I suggest everyone else do the same. Its only 2 or 3 weeks now until we know for sure

Re:PROTIP

[TheNetAvenger]

Connect(.microsoft.com) and download the enabler for Service Pack 1 Refresh 2 and

Actually connect has the RTM downloads for SP1, the WU enabler and even the ISOs and distribution packages.

So whether anything changed from Refresh 2 doesn't matter, as the RTM is available.

Actually NO...

[TheNetAvenger]

Where does this crap come from?

RTM has been available to beta testers, the ISO, the installation EXE, and even the WU enabler since the 6th.

MSDN and Technet should also have access to it now as well today. (Besides the fact that a majority of MSDN and Technet people have had beta access as well.)

This story is pure trash, and is just mis-informing more people, but hey it is MS so I guess that is ok to give people bad information...

Kung Fu Master says...

[link5280]

Patience grasshopper!

Re:The Tabloid News For Nerds Which Is Slashdot

[rijrunner]

If you look at the timing of the original article, you'll find that it was posted on Friday. Basically, Microsoft caved in to pressure from that base. It was not something that was planned and the article is correct about the details when it was written. The link you provided is pointing to a timeframe after the first article was written.

Microsoft did not plan on releasing SP1 early to technet. The debate is accurately described and attributed. Microsoft's stance as described in the article is also accurate as of the time the article was written and posted. That Microsoft later reversed its position is something to be noted, but it is not "trivial or misleading" to post an *accurate* rundown of the argument which led to Microsoft's reversal. (Which had not even happened at the time the article was written).

Unless you can show that Microsoft had planned on an early release for this base, I think you might want to rethink your position. It was articles like the Computerworld article which led to the release, not any policy decision by Microsoft before there was a lot of backlash.

Here is the official announcement on the board that started the whole thing:

http://blogs.technet.com/technetplussubscriptions/archive/2008/02/04/technet-plus-sp1-availability-plan-of-record.aspx [technet.com]

"Now that we've made Windows Server 2008 available to all TechNet Plus subscribers there is a firestorm of questions about when will SP1 also be available for subscribers.

The current plan is that it will be available in mid-March, if that changes I'll let you know. In the meantime, please check out Mike Nash's blog post to learn more about SP1 and the timing of the availability.

Have Feedback? Leave a comment - I looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Kathy Dixon

TechNet Plus subscriptions"

It was not until the 11th - today - that a new policy was mentioned. Your own counterargument is based on a post made this morning - several days after the article you say is misleading was posted. How was the Computerworld article misleading? It was 100% accurate when written and anyone can follow the link provided in the article and verify that. How could they know that Microsoft was going to change their policy? It was a stupid policy and led to a backlash and that was the story. The story is now that Microsoft needed to be pressured to do what they should have done in the first place.

Re:Actually NO...

[Anonymous Coward]

MSDN and Technet should also have access to it now as well today

"Should" being the operative word, which is what people are complaining about. It isn't there. I checked both MSDN and Technet today just in case. Apparently, you didn't.

Good job supporting the opinion you intended to criticize. I honestly couldn't have done better.

But it will be available this month!

[freitasm]

Interesting that this post showed up on /. after Microsoft news that Windows Vista SP1 is now avaialble to beta testers, volume license users and will be available mid-February to MSDN and Technet subscribers. More information here [geekzone.co.nz].

FUD.

Re:Windows users are revolting? Seems unlikely.

[Anonymous Coward]

That was funny. The Troll mod was unfair. Everybody was *thinking* it.

*ducks*

Vista SP1 available later this month

[llzackll]

Looks like microsoft changed their mind after all the feedback:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/02/11/windows-vista-sp1-availability-for-technical-customers.aspx [windowsvistablog.com]

Re:Really?

[Sycraft-fu]

Yes I've tried it. Well more accurately I had our Linux guru at work help me try to get things running and even after considerable effort, he couldn't. Apps wise the biggest problems are the pro audio/video apps. Cakewalk Sonar just doesn't run seem to work, and our Linux guy said that his searches lead him to believe that it just can't be done. Of course even if it is made to work, then the samplers have to work with it, or it isn't useful. These are plugins for it (and other audio apps). They are a real sticking point since the samples are in their own format and can't be loaded by other apps, so they have to be installed. On the work side, Sony Vegas doesn't seem to be able to be made to work.

The other big issue at home is games. I am a PC gamer, my favourite titles come out on PC and I play lots. All of them work in Windows. While some may be able to made to work in Linux, not all can, and I've found that they are often rather loose with their definition of "work". For me a working game would be one I could play all the way through with everything working and maybe some minor glitches. For them it often seems to be so long as it'll load and get in game that's working, regardless of playability.

Really what it comes down to is that everything I want runs in Windows. I can't think of a single app that I want to use that doesn't have a Windows version. That's not the case for Linux. So why would I want to move to something that causes me more trouble? What is the gain? I can appreciate evaluating tradeoffs, but for my home desktop especially, and even for work, it seems to be all negative almost no positive. I can't find anything I'd gain other than more Linux knowledge (by virtue of using it regularly) and there's a big list of what I'd have to give up or compromise on. As such it just isn't a good trade that I can tell.