Vista SP1

As you may have been aware having certain drivers installed on Vista will prevent Windows Vista SP1 from installing.  Microsoft had not exactly been forthcoming on which drivers but has now made the list available to the public. The company listed the affected drivers in a support article.  It consists of mostly audio and display drivers but there are warnings for fingerprint readers as well.

                               Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released yesterday. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is an update to Windows Vista that addresses feedback from our customers. In addition to previously released updates, SP1 will contain changes focused on addressing specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues; supporting new types of hardware; and adding support for several emerging standards. SP1 also will continue to make it easier for IT administrators to deploy and manage Windows Vista. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone version can be installed on systems with any of the following language versions: English (US), French, German, Japanese, or Spanish (Traditional).

Microsoft will release Windows Vista Service Pack 1 next week to a wider audience, according to information posted on Amazon.com and reports from a Web site that correctly called SP1's ship date last month. Amazon currently listsVista SP1 retail copies as available next Wednesday, March 19, while TechARP.com, the Malaysian Web site that nailed the update's release to manufacturing (RTM) date several days early, said users would be able to download SP1 starting Tuesday, March 18.

Microsoft is poised to release Windows Vista  Service Pack (SP1) to the retail channel this week. And the final release-to-manufacturing (RTM) of Windows XP SP3 is not far behind, according to testing sources.Amazon.com has published to its site Vista SP1 availability dates of Wednesday March 19. (Thanks to Computerworld for spotting Amazon’s SP1 availability notice.)

Is Vista SP1 really the shot in the arm your Vista system needs?

We've spent many hours strapped to our benchmarking system in a caffeine and pizza fuelled haze to uncover these very interesting results.

We tested Windows Vista:

We have some information we'd like to share in regards to Windows Vista SP1 and folks running Language Packs. Some of you may have noticed that after installing Windows Vista SP1 on Windows Vista Ultimate - the Language Packs fail to appear on Windows Update (KB947875). We will be releasing Windows Vista SP1 in two "waves". The first wave will only provide Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista Ultimate PCs running the following 5 Languages: English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. The second wave will follow shortly after - supporting all 36 languages.

When Windows Vista was originally released just over a year ago Microsoft commissioned Principled Technologies to compare the overall responsiveness of Windows Vista to Windows XP SP 2 for some common business and home tasks.

With the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Principled has updated their results. Principled Technologies concluded the following when comparing business scenarios: