Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Posted by Alexander Solis 02/21/08

Microsoft has recently finalized Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and the update has been released to manufacturing corporations to be preinstalled on new PC's.  The New PCs with Vista SP1 will appear on store shelves in the coming months and the manufacturers have reportedly received Vista SP1 on February 4th.  For those wishing to upgrade an existing Windows Vista PC to service pack 1 users will be able to do so in mid-March or mid-April of 2008.

Note: There is a known hardware configuration that gives a small number of device driver errors that came up late in SP1's development.  These systems will be receiving the service pack in mid-April.

Features Included in Vista SP1

Device and Application Compatibility
The number of devices that are certified by Microsoft to work properly with Vista has been increased dramatically.  From an estimated certified 2000 at Vista's initial launch to over 17,000 known devices today.  It is also estimated that there are just under 80,000 compatible devices not certified by Microsoft that will work with Vista SP1.  There are also a number of consumer oriented applications that are now compatible with Vista but the major step that SP1 takes is that it has fixed a number of incompatible enterprise applications.  In the past year, Microsoft has remediated over 150 enterprise application blockers.

Reliability
When Microsoft tested and analyzed its system they found that there were fewer non-responding applications, application freezes and crashes, and fewer system crashes when comparing SP1 to the initial release of Vista.  It was reported that the Initial release of Vista averaged 17 hours before any system disruptions and that SP1 averages about 34 hours before any errors occur.

Security
Security is one of the most discussed aspects of Vista, from users complaining about how nagging the User Account Control (UAC) is to how much Vista has improved its firewall when compared to its predecessor XP.  Microsoft Director Chris Flores had this to say about Windows Vista Security.   "Users are far less likely to be infected with malware or spyware on Vista," and "We're really happy how Vista stacks up, security-wise."

File Copy Improvements
Probably the biggest complaint users had about Windows Vista was the atrocious amount of time it took to copy files either locally on a single PC or across networks.  Microsoft has located and fixed the problems and has provided the fixes to these issues in Service Pack 1.  Microsoft has also resolved issues in speed at which Vista resumes from Sleep Mode and Hibernation Mode that will be fixed in the release of SP1.

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For more information on Vista Service Pack 1 and Nation Wide Service

Source: WinSuperSite

Alexander Solis is a Technical Writer for Xponex Web and Media Services.