Vista SP1 is Complete, Update Available in March
Windows Vista Service Pack One is ready to ship, Microsoft says. PC manufacturers and consumers can expect the update in March. Microsoft has said that SP1 includes Vista OS improvements including reliability, security and performance. For a first look at those improvements read PC World's review of beta SP1.
Unlike some of the reports and speculation from last week, Vista SP1 is not officially available today. Microsoft said that it will be available to new volume licensing customers beginning March 1. Existing Vista consumers will have to wait until mid-March, Microsoft says, when the download becomes available through Microsoft's Windows Update Web site. Windows Vista users who have their systems configured to receive automatic updates will get SP1 automatically delivered in mid-April, Microsoft says.
One small catch is that Microsoft will not offer the update to a small subset of Vista PCs that have been found to have "problematic" device drivers. Those drivers, Microsoft says, were not installed properly initially and when Vista SP1 is installed OS problems ensue. For those systems, "if Windows Update determines that the system has one of the drivers we know to be problematic, then Windows Update will not offer SP1," according to the Windows Vista Team Blog.
No word on how many systems are impacted by this driver flaw. Microsoft says the fix for those systems is to reinstall the driver in question, however does not indicate what software program(s) create the driver problem.
Also over at the team blog, Mike Nash of the Windows Product Management group gets further into everything SP1 is looking to fix, including software compatibility and security. Many of the updates were made as requested by the consumers with the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Online Crash Analysis, and Windows Error Reporting.
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WinUpdate needs to detail the offending driver, not simply not offer the SP1 update. SP1 is complete but we can't do a direct download now... that's lame... and SP1 Beta page says you have to uninstall that to install the final version.
I think Microsoft made a huge mistake doing the SP1 release in this manner....The tech's, Guru's and system administrators who have been beta testing Sp1 and giving Microsoft feedback and fixes for the release of SP1 are not going to be happy about this.
I can understand not releasing it the the general public, but to the users who know what they are doing, they should be able to download this patch and use it, even with the driver bug.
They are the users who gave Microsoft the fixes for the relase of SP1.
RTM, who cares, those PC's arent going to be available to the general public for months, the people who need it are the ones who are using it NOW, not 6 weeks from now.
As if Vista doesn't have enough problems, Microsoft now makes it somewhat of an inconvenience to the users to get the update. That's one thing that makes me glad I just haven't yet even bothered with Vista.
I know, I know, a lot of people are using it trouble-free and love it, but me, I just am not ready to deal with the potential hassle...especially at its price. The reviews and experiences have been too mixed for my comfort.
So a March general release means SP1 will actually be usable and stable for September...
Is in any wonder then that my little ASUS eeePC running its default Linux is getting a lot more use than I originally anticipated - while my 'fully-featured' Vista HP notebook languishes...?
First let me say that the views I express here are my own and not that of PC World or any of its employee's
That being said, they (Microsoft) should have stopped at Windows 98 SP2 and just continued to improve that, instead of bringing out a new OS every time someone has a brain fart that they figure they could profit from. I never liked XP until it came out with SP2 and I absolutely HATE Vista. Unfortunately, Since I had to buy a new computer and it came pre installed with Vista, I am stuck with it until I can get out and buy a floppy drive (I’m disabled so it's harder to do than it sounds), so that I can install the SATA drivers by floppy and revert back to XP SP2. My system didn't come with a floppy drive because the "geniuses‘" that built it, didn't see a reason to include one.
Don't buy a system that doesn't include a floppy drive (A:) until Microsoft can figure out how to make a CD rom drive as Drive A:\