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.

Me'thinks

[MightyMartian]

It's pretty clear now that Vista should not have even been released until Q1 of 2008.

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.

Re:Me'thinks

[Frosty Piss]

...because now Microsoft KNOWS this fact and also has learned...

Historical data suggests this is probably not so.

Re:Me'thinks

[MayorDefacto]

I'm actually glad it was released early...

Vista was released early? Now that's rich!

Re:

[Martin Blank]

Only WinME sales seemed worse, on a basis of percentage of short term uptake, than Vista. Windows 2000 did will in its intended segment, and XP and the first three Win9x versions also did extremely well. Microsoft may well take some education from this, learning that WinME was not just a freak occurrence of poor sales or timing, but instead that Microsoft is capable of shipping products that even the drones will not flock to en masse.

Re:Me'thinks

[bbernard]

Now how am I going to hold people off? My excuse has always been "not until SP1 comes out." I'm screwed.

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:Rule of three

[baldass_newbie]

With XP, it wasn't really until SP2 that it seemed secure and stable enough.

Oh, really? I wish you could have put a 'YMMV' after that.

Re:Me'thinks

[geobeck]

Now how am I going to hold people off? My excuse has always been "not until SP1 comes out."

Go with "Not until it's secure" or "Not until it runs on your legacy hardware."

Or just mention something about snowballs in that hot place where Billy G gets his ideas.

Re:

[everphilski]

Unless they pull an NT4 on us ... :)

Re:

[everphilski]

Dude, you missed the sign,

DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!

Re:

[kestasjk]

And Linux shouldn't have been released until 2.4, and Mozilla shouldn't have been released until Firefox, and OS X shouldn't have been released until Panther, etc.. It would be great if software was perfect before it got released, but that's just a dream, especially for software that's so widely used.

Re:Me'thinks

[CastrTroy]

That's the problem with Vista though. It was released, it was buggy, and it was still pushed down our throats. It's hard to walk into most retailers and buy a computer isn't Vista. The only way I'm aware to get a windows machine without vista is to shop at Dell, and choose the Business category. It isn't so much the problem that they released it before it was ready, but the fact that the old version isn't on most store shelves anymore.

Re:

[ioErr]

Transitions between versions of OS X aren't as drastic, or as prone to breaking things as going from XP to Vista*. On the other hand, during the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X you could still get OS 9 for more than a year after OS X left beta.

*Though that is not saying much

Re:

[SCHecklerX]

Last I checked, I wasn't paying money for any of those things. If M$ wants us to test something, then release it for free, or maybe even pay us for bug reports that they use to make the product better.

Re:Me'thinks

[Ajehals]

It's pretty clear now that Vista should not have even been released until Q1 of 2008.

Or Microsoft feels that by releasing a service Pack they will boost confidence in an OS that currently (rightly or wrongly) doesn't inspire confidence. There are quite a few people out there who are claiming that they are waiting until SP1/SP2 before jumping, not to mention that XP gained a huge amount of stability with SP1 and even more with SP2(after the initial release issues...).

Personally - I'll stick with Debian.

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Well, the organization I work for has pretty much decided that Vista and Office 2007 will not be touched until about 2009. They don't want to spend the money on hardware upgrades, on the potential for software problems, or in retraining the staff. We're not alone in this. Maybe the gamers and home users can be bribed by the "latest and the greatest" line, but for business, an upgrade that involves as much change as Vista does is not something that is going to be jumped into lightly.

Re:

[SatanicPuppy]

Maybe the gamers and home users can be bribed by the "latest and the greatest" line...

Valve has been complaining about MS's decision to make Direct X 10 Vista only, because the low adoption of Vista among gamers (numbers from the users of their Steam service) has made it extremely difficult to justify working in DX10 at all, and of course, DX9 is pretty obsolescent at this point.

Even among gamers it's considered a dog. Hardcore gamers are all about FPS, and Vista is a lot bulkier than XP...Nobody buys a har

Re:

[Captain Splendid]

Screw that. Its pretty clear XP needs SP3. I understand Microsoft's priorities on this, but damn, talk about another shovelful of dirt out of that big hole they're digging.

Windows XP SP3

[GenP]

Dammit, screw Vista, where's my SP3 for Windows XP?

Re:Windows XP SP3

[Jugalator]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/service packs.mspx [microsoft.com]

It's planned for 1JHCKY 2008...

SP3 for Windows XP Professional is currently planned for 1H CY2008

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

Re:

[MojoStan]

IOW: Don't hold your breath for XP SP3

Actually, along with yesterday's Vista Service Pack announcement, Microsoft also announced that Windows XP Service Pack 3 was being released "in preliminary form in the next few weeks and in final form in the first half of next year." (Source: seattlepi.com - Vista service pack coming [nwsource.com])

Notice no mention of Vista SP1 on that page Therefore, this page is probably being ignored by MS.

Also, that page [microsoft.com] says "Last Updated: March 28, 2007." It obviously hasn't been updated with the latest news from the last few days.

Re:

[RealGrouchy]

To save other people the hassle of looking it up, "1H CY2008" parses approximately to "1st Half of Calendar Year 2008".

- RG>

Re:

[EnsilZah]

Thanks for the clarification, I thought it was the first part of the new cdkey I was going to have to use.

Re:

[WindowsIsForArseWipe]

Dammit, screw Vista, where's my SP3 for Windows XP?

Hven't you heard

Its called Vista!

I wish...

[Jugalator]

The service pack is said to improve performance and stability, not to add features.

I hope it'll add a few bugs too. I don't want using this OS start feeling completely alien. :-/

Re:

[Tribbin]

Yeah, that's the part that is witholding people to switch to linux too.

yea.. thanks microsoft..

[joeldg]

got a new vaio laptop with vista installed..

vista really chews the memory up, I hope they fix that first off..

with all the problems people are having with upgrades, installs and everything else perhaps they should have waited a little longer.
as with most things microsoft though, the computer comes pre-installed and nobody ever bothers changing anything (take IE for example and the fact that web developers in 2010 will STILL be writing sites to work-around two different browsers..

Memory

[El Lobo]

Hmm... Here we go again.....Vista doesn't chew memory upp, for crying out loud! . Vista is USING the memory that is unused. What do you pay for your memory for? To have it unused? If nobody is using it, Vista will just use it damn it!. Don't worry, if some application will need it, Vista's memory manager will give it back.

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.

Window Handles my friend.

[oliverthered]

That's because of window handles, I get the problem all the time in XP. As soon as all the window handles are used up you can no longer create any new windows, the problem is that closing windows doesn't seem to free them up and the only thing to do is reboot.

I would have thought they would have fixed this obvious problem that causes no end of grief to people where I work ages ago. Looks like I'll have to stick the X Windows.

Now, if only someone in Microsoft would realise that forms in Word have been broken since the year . and actually fix them.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[PhilipMckrack]

I think he means that in some circumstances handles aren't reclaimed. I have the same issue on a laptop that I rarely reboot. After about a month or so of using visual studio and only going to hibernate and not rebooting I start getting the above problems. Context menus not opening, windows not being created, programs not running. No error messages, just things don't open. Closing some windows usually works but after about a month or so it gets really bad. I think in most circumstances the handles are recla

Re:

[tknd]

It might be a visual studio bug. I remember VC++ 6 was known to cause some big issues with your OS. Not sure about .net.

I no longer use visual studio but I occasionally run into the same problem. But I do find that closing windows does let me create new ones.

Re:

[oliverthered]

Well after a while Windows can no longer create new windows so I assume there's a limited number of windows handles.
And closing lots of windows only fixes the problem for a little while (for far less than the number of windows I've closed) so I assume that there not all getting reclaimed.

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[i.r.id10t]

Of course. Used to be you could only have 3 windows open, maybe 3.1 if it was using a child process (MDI type interface). Then the limit was upped to 95, then 98, then 2000 of 'em and then ....

Re:

[MeBot]

There's a configurable limit to the number of GDI handles that can be created at one time... I believe the default is 10,000 but my memory might be off. They're not automatically reclaimed (there's no garbage collector), but proper use of these handles is to release them when you're done with them, and you shouldn't be holding on to them for long periods.

Generally when you run out of handles it's because some program has a bug and is forgetting to release them, not because of the OS.

Re:

[justthinkit]

I've run into Window handle limitations in XP, but I don't think there is a global hard limit. I find if I close one or two resource hogs (in my case, Eudora and Media Player) at key times (when I used to run into the limit) then I postpone this problem pretty much forever (i.e. until the next forced reboot from patch installs). Note that after I close using the ap. that would run into/created the Window handle issue, I can reload Eudora & MP and all kinds of other stuff and never hit the limit.

Thi

Re:

[courtarro]

Is it possible to determine how many window handles have been allocated to a program? I've run across this error many times, often when running Windows Update, where new programs won't open until I kill an existing one or manage to get Windows Update to stop. Thanks for the enlightenment.

Re:

[nuzak]

> Is it possible to determine how many window handles have been allocated to a program?

Process Explorer [microsoft.com]. You can even break handles with it if you're sure they're not going to be used anymore (I used do this all the time with TortoiseCVS, but more recent versions seem to clean up better).

There's also a command-line tool from the same place (sysinternals) that lists handles, called strangely enough, "handle.exe". I find I have to run that one as the system user (which you can do with psexec -s from the

Re:Window Handles my friend.

[weicco]

closing windows doesn't seem to free them up

You are right. Closing window doesn't free handle. Program must explicitly call CloseHandle. And take notice that closing window doesn't necessarily end the program. So poorly written program could end up chewing handles and resources. But at the moment process has ended all it's handles are released automatically.

But I wasn't aware of any global handle limit in Windows, only that it's limited to system resources mainly memory. There's a per process GDI handle limit (something between 256 and 65536, W2K defaults to 16384) which is a good thing or otherwise one thread could end up eating every resource from system. I tried to google around on this one but found nothing. Could you provide a link to a site that talks about global handle limit in Windows XP?

Re:

[SpryGuy]

The SP was installed, and I've gotten the same issue just as often as before.

Re:

[Stooshie]

... Vista is USING the memory that is unused. ...

Memory use shouldn't be at 100%. Nowhere near it, in fact. Generally you buy extra memory to stop it being used up. Memory running at 100%, or close to it, all the time is hopeless as the computer will run like a dog.

Re:

[El Lobo]

So you are telling me that if I have 4Gb and no program is running the system should be using only 500 mb? No way... if the computer is idle, the OS better use the rest for, I don't know, indexing, caching, compacting, optimizing, or whatever. Only USE IT and give it back when needed.

This new memory management was introduced for Vista and it was about freaking time somebody though about this.... It's like downloading a file in a 10 mbs cable and using only 5 mbs "just in case" you need to download someth

Re: Usage

[TaoPhoenix]

I rather like my machines staying out of harm's way unless I want to run my own process. I have a classical Dell NetBurst P4 running XP at work. When it's under 20% usage, it stays quiet. When some silly process jumps in, the fan kicks in, and it sounds like an airplane taking off. Then it won't notice the process went away, so the fan keeps going. It's my "Uh Oh" indicator.

I'd have a hard time with Vista randomly running processes... because I don't trust MS's judgement on what needs to be run. It's also h

Re:Memory

[Smidge204]

I understand what you're trying to say, but from a purely performance-oriented view this seems a piss-poor way to do things. I installed extra RAM in my computer so I could run more applications and work with larger data sets more efficiently, not so the OS can sit on it "until I need it" - which takes time that could have been used by the application I actually want to be using. That, and given Window's historically bad memory management, means I don't want Windows occupying all my PC's resources.

So are you also upset if your CPU usage isn't near 100%? After all, what's the point of paying for that fast processor if you aren't going to use it's full potential?
=Smidge=

Re:

[Atzanteol]

Oh? Why not? What are *you* doing with that free memory? Nothing, that's what. Why shouldn't Windows use it to cache things that may be used again, like recently opened files and such?

Re:

[nuzak]

Buffer cache does not show up in usage. What is showing up is prefetch, which apparently some drooling morons are incapable of turning off. Vista does in fact use too much memory -- Microsoft recently released a patch that dramatically reduces memory usage for many apps, and almost brings it down to XP's usage -- but this isn't anything I expect intelligent discussion about on slashdot. You have to go elsewhere [anandtech.com] for journalism.

Re:

[geekmux]

Yes, you must be right about USING the memory. After all, there's no other explanation why every Vista machine NOW ships standard with 2GB of memory. After all, memory is free, right? Give me a break man. There's a fine line between USE and ABUSE, and Microsoft has managed to crush it.

Re:Memory

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

BULLSHIT!

I'm running 8 gigs of ram and vista 64. I've rendered things in softimage XSI that required more than 4gigs of ram. The problem is.. VISTA has already decided to cache 4 gigs of ram (FOR GOD KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK)... and then XSI's renderer (mentalray) says "I need more ram" Then the whole system starts to swap like mad because i dont have any available ram.

THANKS TO VISTA 64 !!! and its fucking ridiculous memory management. Why does it need to cache 4 gigs of ram? What the fuck is the point of having 8 gigs, if Vista is going to cache 4 fucking gigs of it!? Might as well run XP32bit.

I dont think MS really has their memory management figured out at all. It may cache for intelligent reasons, but it doesnt work. It causes the system to use the swap file and come to a crawl because it gobbles up all of your memory.

I've litterally been in photoshop, and have seen windows say 0 free for ram because Vista has cached 4gigs out of my total 8. I NEED those gigs... and Vista doesnt release them. It eats up ram like a mother fucker.

I was just thinking of going to XP64.. but the driver support is non existant on that platform.

Re:

[justthinkit]

XP used something like 96MB to do nothing.

Please, please, please state your total real RAM figure when you state the idle RAM used figure. I've installed XP on a 64MB machine (once -- and they later upgraded to 256MB) and I assure you it used less than 96MB when doing nothing.

We need apples-to-apples comparisons. Base RAM: w, W2k sipped x when idle, XP used y when idle, Vista sucked z when idle. Base RAM: 2w, etc. Base RAM: 4w, etc.

Think it is SuperFetch you're describing?

[Blahbooboo3]

Unless you are saying you need more ram (which may be true), this is why Vista always has all of the memory utilized

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/features/details/superfetch.mspx [microsoft.com]

SuperFetch

Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP-based PCs.

When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks--including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans--run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP-based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

SuperFetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they'll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.

Re:

[joeldg]

the new laptop has 2GB of ram..
just sitting there with firefox open and sidebar running it hovers between 30% and 50%
I suppose that is background tasks..
I checked the site systemrequirementlab.com and there is not a game I can't run but I just wonder about this memory thing..
Usually spend all my time in Gentoo, but got an itch to play some of these new games coming out (Bioshock and world in conflict) so.. gotta do vista for those and in linux if you have 50% of your memory chewed with nothing running.. the

Re:

[jd142]

I've got Firefox, ultramon, two remote desktop sessions, outlook 207, mmc, a few explorer folders, and 4 windows gadgets running and my physical memory is at 57%, 1.14 gb out of 2.

Re:

[Tony Hoyle]

Superfetch is the first thing to disable on Vista if you want your machine back.

Firstly it runs the hard drive 100% of the time, so if you're on a laptop your battery dies really quickly and if your on a desktop it's as noisy as hell. Secondly it fills up *virtual* memory not physical memory - so your machine ends up mostly in swap and runs like a complete dog.

There's another app I forget the name of that does the same too that you need to disable.

Re:

[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:yea.. thanks microsoft..

[Jugalator]

vista really chews the memory up, I hope they fix that first off..

Here's my unofficial mini-service pack for Vista. :-p

1. Type services.msc in the start menu search box and go there.
2. Open and set "Windows Search" to "Inactive" as its start mode and stop the service, unless you use Vista's search facilities and not a third party tool like Total Commander or Directory Opus, etc.
3. Open and disable "Superfetch" in the same way, unless you trust it to actually make things run faster and predict your usage behavior. Keep in mind that it'll keep caching data to RAM in its "prediction" process. Even data files, not just executables and DLL's. This can be especially nasty when it starts caching 100 MB-sized files you have downloaded with P2P apps because it think you'll run them soon, or something.
4. Try putting in a ReadyBoost-compatible (you probably won't know if it is until you've tried :-p) USB memory stick and have Vista manage it as extra RAM. It's not really RAM-fast or anything (but it doesn't seem to make things worse at least), but especially seeemed to cut a bit on hard drive access. I'm not sure, but it's possible it relocates some of its swap file to it as ReadyBoost kicks in.
5. If you haven't got these installed (you'll notice if it tells you they can't be installed on your OS), download and install these Vista hotfixes performance and reliability [microsoft.com] and compatibility and reliability [microsoft.com]. Among other things included is fixes to the Vista memory manager and many users have reported both cut memory usage directly after boot up, and better 3D benchmark scores. It also fixes the infamous "slow file copy" bug of Vista.

Now try use it for a day or so, and hopefully your hard drive access has been cut. As long as you don't use the Vista desktop search, no disabled services above really impact the ability of Vista to function as normal, and you can always enable them again if you notice no improvement. Something else that access your drive a lot at a few times is the System Restore feature that also runs as a service, but I don't recommend disabling that one since it'll also disable your ability to restore your OS state to an earlier date if, say, an application or driver install would go horribly wrong.

Oh quityerbitchin

[Sycraft-fu]

Seriously, Vista likes lots of RAM. That's just how it is. If that's not acceptable, don't use it. However I don't see it as a big deal because RAM is CHEAP. For a new laptop, using DDR2, you are talking $80 for 2GB which will make Vista plenty happy. If you can afford a brand new laptop, you can't pretend like that's an expense you can't handle.

This happens with basically every version of Windows, the memory requirements double. For Windows XP my memory recommendations were 256/512/1GB meaning if you didn'

Re:

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

empty ram is not wasted ram. EMPTY ram is FREE ram... and When you're processing large files, in photoshop, editing video or rendering in a professional 3d animation package... you want free ram.

Vista decides to eat up all of your ram for you and it doesnt give it back. I dont care what people say. I've seen my system go into a swap crawl with 8gigs of ram cause vista ate 4gigs of the shit for no fucking reason.

Re:

[Sycraft-fu]

No, wrong. If your theory was correct, I wouldn't be able to run any apps, as my system has no "free" RAM. However Vista will happily give up its cache as apps need it. Now I'm running two apps that use a lot of memory, about 600MB each. So now if I look at my memory usage I still have about the same amount free, slightly more actually, but only 1761MB used as cache. It allocated the memory to the apps as they needed it. When those apps unload, Vista will use that RAM up as cache again.

Many OSes do this to

The real beginning of Vista

[CellBlock]

I'd bet the release of SP1 ends up being good for everyone. People that already have Vista will have (at least some of) their performance issues sorted out. Then, since Vista won't be as broken as it has been, more copies should sell, leading to better development for it. As much as people say they'll never move off of XP, people said that about 98. It's not that nobody upgrades to the new versions of Windows anymore; they're just (rightfully) a bit more cautious about it now.

Re:

[lupis42]

Maybe if it fixes some of the damnable DRM issues. The big difference that most of see between the "I'll never load XP" people and the "I'll never load Vista" people is that more of the Vista people are switching to linux, rather than staying put.

Re:The real beginning of Vista

[Lumpy]

As much as people say they'll never move off of XP, people said that about 98.

and those people were 100% correct in their decision and did not move off 98 until there was an acceptable replacement. Windows ME was a giant pile of steaming Bovine Feces. I have never meat ONE person that though ME was useful for ANYTHING. Everyone waited for XP to come along to fix it. windows 2000 was for corporations and not for home use so you never really saw it at home. XP was the first time they merged the home and corperate OS lines.

Vista is looking very much like the steaming turd that ME was to many people.

Re:The real beginning of Vista

[MyLongNickName]

Bovine Feces
steaming turd

Descriptions from a man named 'Lumpy'.

Re:

[UncleTogie]

Well, if the foo shits... ;)

Re:

[frdmfghtr]

I have never meat ONE person that though ME was useful for ANYTHING.

Tie a string in a loop through the hole and hang it on the lifelines around a boat...it helps keep the birds from
perching on the lifelines and leaving droppings on the deck.

Even if the birds keep shitting on your boat, at least it keeps the CD from shitting on your hard drive.

NOTE: This applies to AOL CDs.

Re:

[Cro Magnon]

Win ME wasn't totally useless. I heard it got a few people to switch to Linux.

Re: Moving Off XP vs Moving *to* Vista...

[TaoPhoenix]

I will *one day* move off XP. However, I am designing a Last-Of-Breed machine to milk XP until it complely caves.

I will not be moving to Vista. My plan has always been to try skip every couple of OS versions if possible. Thus my machine should last into the Windows 7 discussion.

Meanwhile in parallel, it's an open discussion between Linux & Apple. Bazaar vs. Integration. But SP1 "to fix issues" is classic Microsoft "Let's Sell BetaWare".

Excellent news

[MillionthMonkey]

Maybe SP1 will include support for component video!

Re:

[SlowMovingTarget]

Not likely, component video doesn't support Vista's DRM techniques (can't send HDMI), so Vista excludes it because your PC might "leak" "premium content" that is "protected."

it seems that the standalone image is going to be

[LordSnooty]

... 1GB

*agog*

And you need 7GB of disk space? Are you sure this is just a service pack? Bloat!!

Re:it seems that the standalone image is going to

[eln]

If the intention is to fix everything that's wrong with Vista, I'm impressed they got it all into only 1 GB.

Re:

[cbhacking]

Remember that Vista installs every feature, including the ones you can't even access with the version of the OS you're running, onto the hard drive (this is why you can do an in-place upgrade from, say, home basic to home premium with nothing but a new license key... the features are already installed, and just need to be unlocked). So, everything from the full capabilities of ISS to Media Center to all the tablet, accessibility, and voice command software is already installed. I'm not quite saying this is

performance and reliability fixes are already out

[Arathon]

If you look around the web, you'll find that the main two fixes to be included in SP1 are already out, and have been since the beginning of August.

Ars Technica article about the packs [arstechnica.com]

Finally!

[eln]

I look forward to this much-needed update being released in November 2011.

15,000 people will get the beta???

[dada21]

Isn't that more than are running Vista right now?

Re:

[WillAffleckUW]

Isn't that more than are running Vista right now?

No, they count all of us who bought WinVista boxen and then installed WinXP or Win2K in a dual boot with Linux as being WinVista.

Oh ... you meant actually running WinVista ...

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.

Re:ehhh

[Opportunist]

...if a Windows box has to be insecure in order to be useful, then so be it.

I have no modpoints (and I already posted in this thread), or you'd get your wish granted.

If any computer system, no matter what manufacturer, needs to be made insecure and/or instable to be useable, the system is broken and should get a serious redesign before being released onto the public. Simple as that.

It's not so much that Vista was insecure. More often than not, the user is the attack vector, not a security hole of the system. That won't change, no matter how tightly or troublesome you make the access controls. As long as there are users who can be tricked into clicking and installing, there is a security problem. As long as users don't understand why some "normal" software should NOT require administrator privileges to install (and if the system requires administrator privileges to install normal office software, see the paragraph above), and they simply click "allow" on even the most fundamentally obvious fishy request, there is no security.

As long as users are dumber than the computers they use, UAC is only a nuisance. Not a security feature.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Exactly why I don't use Windows.

Except at work. Working in the security biz pretty much means that Redmond gives me total job security.

Re:

[plague3106]

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.

People tend to bitch when things aren't working; those that are happy tend not to say much at all... they're doing their work.

This SP full of patches still probably won't prevent people from deleting their Recycle Bin

It doesn't remove the RB, it remo

A missed opportunity

[SpryGuy]

I was looking forward to SP1 as a way of 'finishing' the obviously unfinished Vista... fixing issues of "old" dialogs mixed with new dialogs, inconsistent graphics, icons, and fonts, updating additional parts of the UI to the new look and feel, incorporation of all the new-look Vista controls into common dialogs and common controls, consistency improvements across the UI, etc.

Instead we get what is basically a "roll-up" of existing patches, along with a few "under the cover" performance and stability improv

Performance and stability are not features?

[argmanah]

Microsoft doesn't consider performance and stability to be features?

I guess they think that if the software behaves abnormally, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Therefore, when you introduce performance and stability, they aren't features.

That totally makes sense.

Skype goes into panic mode

[mbadolato]

Up to 15,000 people will get access to a beta of SP1 by the end of September

To which the developers at Skype are yelling "HOPEFULLY NOT ALL AT THE EXACT SAME TIME, ASSHATS!" :)

EULA

[truthsearch]

SP1 for Vista also comes with an update to the EULA. All you Vista users are going to read it, right?

Right?

It might require you to hand over your first born to Microsoft to get unlocked high-def video to work, so I suggest reading it.

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:

[Arathon]

It's at least worth noting that Paul Thurrott of WinSuperSite has stated in his new "SP1 Revealed" showcase that he is currently unsure whether SP1 will still include a kernel update [winsupersite.com].

I expect it still will, and they just left it off their press release, but it does seem a little weird that they wouldn't announce it.

Re:

[Toreo asesino]

I have seen from other screenshots and so on a different build-number (more significant one than normal), but the link provided was the quickest source I could find in the 5 minutes I had that the boss wasn't looking!

This is the real deal, and quite a clever move when you think it through - vista may not be perfect, but bad press from /. geeks stings far far less than bad press from enterprises (not that I don't expect there are some crossovers in audiences, but still).

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

but build numbers don't lie.

They do when I'm build wrangler. But then again, I'm actively trying to get someone else to snag that hat off my head.

Re:

[tknd]

Well, they could just take the service pack and give it some fancy name like, I don't know, "tiger" and sell it to their users.

Or they could name it after some wacky animal like a badger and claim they'll have another release in 6 months.

Better yet, they could just release it and call it "beta" for... well... forever.

There's another story on news.com

[8127972]

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Vista+service+pack+ c oming+in+08/2100-1016_3-6204980.html [com.com]

The thing to note from this article is this quote:

"Vista SP1 will be a large download: Roughly 1GB, based on current test versions. By way of comparison, Windows XP--the whole thing--shipped on a CD, which only holds about three quarters of a gigabyte. Installing the OS upgrade will require 7GB of free hard drive space, though much of that will be returned to the user once the megapatch is applied, Microsoft said."

That co

Re:

[Joe The Dragon]

Part of on 1gb big download is updates that have been put up form the time that vista came out.

But still 1gb is alot to down load and 7gb to install is a lot of space.

Will you need 10gb + free space to slipstream it? Will it + a vista install fit a on a DVD5?

Re:

[realmolo]

My guess is that it's 50MB for the *installer*, which then downloads the actual 1GB of service pack files from Microsoft's site.

They're lying, in other words.

Yay!

[DoofusOfDeath]

So that's when the Wow starts!

The sp should make things much better

[Joe the Lesser]

Because the Vista SP1 simply uninstalls Vista and installs XP.

Wooot!

[Opportunist]

Just one more SP 'til the system's ready for release status!

The positive side of Vista frustrations.

[bearfx]

I tried Windows Vista. My hardware, while not brand spanking new, is quite reasonable - Athlon X2 3800+ (socket 939) - 4 GB RAM - NVidia 6800 series And Asus says my motherboard is Vista Compatible, but my excursion into Vista failed... Miserably. First, a number of my applications did not work, or they started working and then closed. Next, I started experiencing "driver" related crashes (All my drivers are MS approved). Then, I stopped being able to manage files on my computer (copying between two har

Re:vista sp1

[jd142]

Yes, the monthly updates will get most of the service pack. That's one of the two reasons that the windows update version should only be around 50 megs for a fully patched computer vs. 1 gig for the standalone install: sp1 will rollup already released patches. The other big reason is that the 1 gig version has all of the language files included. You won't download the Japanese language versions of the files from windows update if all you need is English. The 1 gig file will let admins push out just one file to client computers, during a downtime period of course, and know that everything that's needed will be installed.

Keep going...

[Mr. Underbridge]

After six years of development, you would think Vista would at least work as well as XP

After 10 years of development, you'd think XP would work at least as well as 2K.