Vista Service Pack 1 Is Out

superglaze writes "What's to say? After much prevaricating and slipping out then pulling back, the first service pack for Windows Vista has actually been released. It's available for download now via Microsoft's sites, with an auto-update rollout scheduled for next month, and it should hit Amazon's virtual shelves on Wednesday."

"Clippy" is back . . .

. . . and now he's mad.

Um. Seriously. I'm glad there's a service pack out. But I'm going to wait a few weeks and see if it causes USB drives to melt, or sends your life history to the Ministry of Total Information Awareness.

Re:"Clippy" is back . . .

Ok that's funny.... somehow I just pictured the clippy busting down the door holding a rocket launcher as the move voice over guy says something about 'Back for revenge'

hmm...

I have a very bad feeling about this.

OR

I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. ...its a toss up.

Poor Vista.

"After much prevaricating and slipping out then pulling back, the first service pack for Windows Vista....."

sounds like an awful lover.

Re:Poor Vista.

sounds like an awful lover.

Awful or no, somebody will most certainly be getting screwed.

adoption rate

I'm more interested to see how this affects the adoption rate ... or doesn't. It's been said businesses have been waiting for SP1 to make the move. The question is: was that all just talk or is it going to actually happen?

List of issues with Vista SP1

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=948343#method5 [microsoft.com]

Service Pack 1... Not impressed so far.

I use Vista at work because I'm going to need to know it eventually. Microsoft probably won't offer XP forever. Among many other problems that I eventually fixed before the service pack, I had a problem with my sound not working so I installed Service Pack 1. It fixed the sound problem, then broke my network adapter. After removing the service pack, the network came back but the sound broke again. And it's over an hour to install and another hour to uninstall.

Re:Service Pack 1... Not impressed so far.

"Microsoft probably won't offer XP forever."

Windows XP Professional 'Direct OEM and Retail License Availability' ends June 30, 2008. And 'System Builder License Availability' ends January 31, 2009.

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

So, Microsoft isn't going to offer Windows XP in a few months. As far as an OEM license goes.

I've been using it for a few weeks

I grabbed the X64 update from Microsoft's OEM website a few weeks ago.

First off, SP1 is a massive improvement. It installs a lot of bugfixes (including ones not released publicly before)... and it improves other stuff quite a bit. Disk performance is much better- you could argue that copy and paste tasks should not be slowed down by the speed of the OS, but it's improvement.

Overall, my Vista install rarely runs into errors- maybe one or two non-system apps are hanging a week. UAC got less annoying (it wasn't that bad to begin with).

It took an hour to install on my PC, and I didn't run into any issues. I think it helps Vista a lot. Honestly, I prefer Vista on newer machines; it's RAM heavy requiring 2GB+ to run well but RAM is very cheap nowadays and the x64 version works quite well; I had no driver issues personally.

(I still recommend backing up though. I always back up before a major update, whether it's XP, Vista, OS X or Ubuntu).

Re:I've been using it for a few weeks

requiring 2GB+ to run well

No matter how many times I see this it blows me away. This isn't an anti Microsoft bash - this is a serious efficiency issue - we have gone from a suggested 8Mb for WFWG 3.11 (1992/93 UK) to 2Gb in a generation. That's a massive jump considering that most users are still muddling about with a web browser and a word processor. I know that processor speeds etc have also increased exponentially but I can't help this nagging feeling that it's down to lazy coding.

Slow install

Do not start the update procedure unless you do not need your machine for a while. On stage 2 of 3 on a fairly beefy box(5.1 vista experience) and it has been chugging for about 15 min and shows 2% done.

At least my mac is up.

With apologies to Slayer...

God Hates Us All.

Bugs by Category

Vista Service Pack 1 rolls up 551 bug fixes [zdnet.com] which are broken down by category in that link. Many of these fixes were not available before even through more advanced sites such as MSDN or TechNet. So, now that SP1 is out the trend to watch for is if it actually spures adoption or just passes by unnoticed. I for one welcome..., err, did buy Vista because SP1 was imminent for it as my primary purchasing reason. SP1 incrementally improves Vista and through the simple realities of OEM distribution like it or not within a few years Vista will probably be at least 40%+ market share.

Shock Horror

I've been running it for a couple of weeks now, and yes, shock horror it does work just fine.

The system feels more responsive, and stuff happens as it should. This is the Vista that should've shipped, but where Vista has suffered Windows Server 2008 has gained; all the initial frustrations have been fixed in SP1 for Vista and Windows Server 2008, so consider Vista RTM a beta kernel for Win2k8. It is after all, the server market Windows isn't 95% prevalent in after all.

Re:So how long do I wait?

I would wait at least a month to make sure any major holes weren't opened up or major compatibility issues introduced. That should probably be enough.

Re:So how long do I wait?

Wait until DNF is released.

Re:So how long do I wait?

Wait until it shows up in auto-update in a month would be my advice. That should give plenty of time for the tech rags to post glowing reviews of how it revolutionizes computing, solves world hunger, and cures male pattern baldness. Likewise, it will give Slashdot plenty of time to report that it makes computers crash, steals peoples' wallets, has sex with their dogs, and sets their house on fire.

You know, the usual Microsoft software update cycle.

Re:So how long do I wait?

If your reason for installing is only for performance, Vista SP1 will probably disappoint you. On the other hand I have installed it on 2 laptops and one desktop and the only problem I had was with an HP Printer driver that stopped working. All I had to do was to go to Control Panel, remove the printer, then add the printer back again and that fixed the problem.

Honestly, I did not find any major improvement performance-wise nor stability-wise as my machines were already running relatively smoothly pre-SP1. There appears to be minor improvements in boot times, shutdown times (though I do this maybe once a week per PC/laptop on average); plus getting in and out of sleep, especially for the laptops, appears to go smoother.

Re:Possible Tags

Don't forget the slew of jokes that Vista SP1 will just reinstall XP...

Re:Auto upbreak.

I work in the IT field, use Vista 100% on my laptop and have several clients.

I snagged SP1, the latest pre release build and it has been fine.

Things seem 'faster', copying files, something that use to take weeks now takes as long as it should.

I still get the random spoolsv crashing for no reason but that was there before SP1.

None of my applications break although I don't use anything custom or home grown or vertical.

The install took a while - three stages with I believe a few stages each. I made a backup of my data prior just in case it went blue. No problems with the install/patch.

captch: robbed

Re:Auto upbreak.

"Things seem 'faster', copying files, something that use to take weeks now takes as long as it should."

Does Internet Explorer feel 'snappier'?

Re:Auto upbreak.

Things seem 'faster', copying files,

To hell with 'seem' - post benchmarks.

Re:Auto upbreak.

SP1 RTM has been available for quite some time from the technet site. We've been using it for quite awhile now. BTW, the spoolsv issue is with an HP Print driver, generally from a print server. You need to get an updated hpbmini.dll - minor rev 16 and greater will work. Older versions don't understand an OS that starts with version "6" and just crash the spooler. You can delete the driver using printmanagement.msc.

Re:Auto upbreak.

Where does the GP say "stellar performance" and who is "everyone else"?

SP1 installed very easily for me. Everything the GP says agrees with my own experience, except for the spoolsv crashing. The only issue I had at all was having to change the screen resolution back. As an added bonus, Bioshock now runs without crashing every 5-10 minutes.