Vista SP1 and Server 2008 Finalized

[Ian]

Yay.. Vista SP1 and Server 2008 are off to manufacturing!

http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9863959-56.html

Microsoft has wrapped up development of two major products, Windows Server 2008 and the Service Pack 1 update to Windows Vista, CEO Steve Ballmer told financial analysts Monday.

"Both products have released to manufacturing today, which is good news," Ballmer said.

[Ian]

The Vista Team blog has some info on the release of SP1:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windo ... a-sp1.aspx

With today's RTM of SP1, a number of processes kick off as we deliver the update to customers. Our OEM partners will get SP1 and start producing new PCs running Windows Vista with SP1 pre-installed. We will also start the manufacturing process for retail product of Windows Vista with SP1. Both will be available in stores for new Windows Vista customers in the coming months. Today we also start the process to manufacture DVDs for our enterprise customers who get our software via our Volume Licensing program.

More specifically..

* In mid-March, we will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com. Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1. If Windows Update determines that the system has one of the drivers we know to be problematic, then Windows Update will not offer SP1. Since we know that some customers may want to update to SP1 anyhow, the download center will allow anyone who wants to install SP1 to do so.

* In mid-April, we will begin delivering Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista customers who have chosen to have updates downloaded automatically. That said, any system that Windows Update determines has a driver known to not update successfully will not get SP1 automatically. As updates for these drivers become available, they will be installed automatically by Windows Update, which will unblock these systems from getting Service Pack 1. The result is that more and more systems will automatically get SP1, but only when we are confident they will have a good experience.

* The remaining languages will RTM in April.

I hope its leaked or made available to MSDN subscribers. I really don't want to wait until March.

[Bhairav]

The Vista Team blog has some info on the release of SP1:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windo ... a-sp1.aspx

With today's RTM of SP1, a number of processes kick off as we deliver the update to customers. Our OEM partners will get SP1 and start producing new PCs running Windows Vista with SP1 pre-installed. We will also start the manufacturing process for retail product of Windows Vista with SP1. Both will be available in stores for new Windows Vista customers in the coming months. Today we also start the process to manufacture DVDs for our enterprise customers who get our software via our Volume Licensing program.

More specifically..

* In mid-March, we will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com. Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1. If Windows Update determines that the system has one of the drivers we know to be problematic, then Windows Update will not offer SP1. Since we know that some customers may want to update to SP1 anyhow, the download center will allow anyone who wants to install SP1 to do so.

* In mid-April, we will begin delivering Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista customers who have chosen to have updates downloaded automatically. That said, any system that Windows Update determines has a driver known to not update successfully will not get SP1 automatically. As updates for these drivers become available, they will be installed automatically by Windows Update, which will unblock these systems from getting Service Pack 1. The result is that more and more systems will automatically get SP1, but only when we are confident they will have a good experience.

* The remaining languages will RTM in April.

I hope its leaked or made available to MSDN subscribers. I really don't want to wait until March.

Wait for 3-4 days max.. SP1 will be all over the torrent sites.

[Ian]

Server 2008 was made available to MSDN subscribers today (downloading now ). No SP1 yet.

[Wesociety]

I'll be attending the Microsoft Server 2008 launch event in LA later this month.

http://heroeshappenhere.com

[Ian]

I'll be attending the Microsoft Server 2008 launch event in LA later this month.

http://heroeshappenhere.com

Yeah, I'm signed up too. Ours isn't until April though.

[hoxlund]

all i ask is that i get to slipstream sp1 into my vista install so i can have 4gb+ support right away, anyone have this problem?

you have to install the hotfix while running 2gb, then pop the rest of your ram in after the hotfix

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777

ohh and so computer manufacturer's start shipping machines with more then 3gb of ram installed

[LoneWolf]

all i ask is that i get to slipstream sp1 into my vista install so i can have 4gb+ support right away, anyone have this problem?

you have to install the hotfix while running 2gb, then pop the rest of your ram in after the hotfix

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777

ohh and so computer manufacturer's start shipping machines with more then 3gb of ram installed

I'm assuming that's for 64-bit Hox, so I'm going to ask...what kind of results are you having, driver-wise?

I'd consider running the 64-bit version when SP1 is out (provided reports are good), but it'll have to support all my hardware --including my X-Fi XtremeGamer and my PowerColor ATI Theater 550 Pro tuner. Even then, I'll probably have to keep an OS image with VirtualPC for compatibility with a few older apps, but at least I can use all 4GB of my RAM. Of course, whether I switch or not will also center on whether performance is further improved, and possibly how XP SP3 turns out.

I too hope it can be slipstreamed. It'd make a big difference. I also hear SP1 actually has a new kernel.

[Ian]

I usually don't post links to stuff like this, but you can get SP1 for the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista here:

http://winvistaforums.com/blogs/bios/9- ... grade.html

I haven't installed it yet but I plan to later today.

[dolphinius_rex]

I hear that the new Service Pack is a total fix for Vista... the first thing it does is downloads the latest version of WinXP and installs it overtop of the current OS

[Ian]

Bah, half the people that tell me that XP is better than Vista have never even used the OS. There are things that take some getting used to, but as a whole, I like it better than XP.

[LoneWolf]

I usually don't post links to stuff like this, but you can get SP1 for the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista here:

http://winvistaforums.com/blogs/bios/9- ... grade.html

I haven't installed it yet but I plan to later today.

32-bit is downloadable, 64-bit returns a 403 error on the page. Just an FYI.

I haven't played with Vista since the final RC, but I just found that it took more resources to do the same things I did with XP, and that UAC was really annoying (I know it can be disabled, but that kind of defeats the purpose). I have retail copies of Ultimate(upgrade) and Premium, I've just hesitated to install either of them, and have actually considered selling them off.

I'm hoping that SP1 will make Vista the OS it should have been at release. Still, I may wait for some reports on how well it works post-upgrade to see. Let me know what you think, Ian.

[Ian]

Wow.. its taking longer than I expected to install SP1. It runs a bunch of junk in Windows, then reboots and configures your updates. At this point, I thought it might be done. Nope.. now its finally getting around to installing SP1. Still on stage 1 of 3..

[Ian]

It's finally done. So far so good.

[LoneWolf]

Are you running 32-bit or 64, Ian?

[dolphinius_rex]

Bah, half the people that tell me that XP is better than Vista have never even used the OS. There are things that take some getting used to, but as a whole, I like it better than XP.

I've used it on other people's machines.... or rather, I've had to try to do tech support for it for other people's machines. Everyone I know who has it at work, or of my local friends, really is frustrated with all the bugs. As for the cosmetic effects, they are generally either liked, or ignored, but not dis-liked.

I personally feel that the added stuff in Vista is unimpressive so far. Admittedly, I'm trying to avoid touching it as much as possible at this point, as my previous experiences have been rather mentally painful.

[Ian]

Are you running 32-bit or 64, Ian?

I have Ultimate 32 bit on my laptop.

Given, there are issues with some software (which can usually be fixed by running in compatibility mode), but I haven't seen too many actual bugs. The only major one I have had is with my laptop's hybrid hard drive. When running on battery, it would get slower and slower and finally blue screen on me. I finally turned off the hybrid support. I may try it again now that I'm running sp1.

[Grain]

Admittedly, I'm trying to avoid touching it as much as possible at this point, as my previous experiences have been rather mentally painful.

I too am avoiding it, like the plague. I've "heard" that there's a lot of DRM involved, so that's my only excuse right now. Whether that's actually true, I don't know. I do however plan to use it on my eventual but not yet planned new system build. I'm liking the new Intel 8500 CPU...

[Ian]

Ed Bott did a great series of articles on the supposed DRM in Vista. Basically, its all a bunch of BS.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=304
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=309

[LoneWolf]

The DRM isn't really what bothers me...my biggest gripe is that Microsoft, (admittedly, IMO) borked the audio in DirectX 10 by favoring stability over quality when it comes to 3D positional audio. I think removing DirectSound3D was a mistake, although time will tell. Hopefully, OpenAL will solve all of that and vendors will move to hardware-accelerate OpenAL, but current EAX games are a wash, unless you have a Creative card supported by Alchemy (still a work in progress).

I also hated UAC while I was testing the RC's of Vista, enough that I laughed at the Apple "Cancel or Allow" commercial. When I disabled it, I got repeated annoying prompts that I wasn't safe, and I also had a program or two that Windows didn't trust at startup no matter what --I had to tell it to allow it every time (there was no "Allow this program to run from now on, since I trust it" check box).

On the plus side, I liked being able to easily redirect all the "My ..." folders, and Internet Explorer rendered pages extremely fast. Still, other performance aspects weren't good enough for me to switch. I have a faster system now, so I'm tempted to try it, but I'd be ticked at losing positional audio in a bunch of my games, so that kills it. Perhaps when I look at buying a new laptop, I'll go Vista that way, since I could go back to XP later.

[Jim]

I have Vista 64 Ultimate on my HTPC. I don't care for it cosmetically. It runs decent with 8 GB of Ram and with an AMD 3800x2. The drivers for the video card and the tuner card are stable. I finally turned off SuperFetch, indexing, and eliminated the swap file to get the freaking Raptor to stop thrashing.

I just don't feel as productive working with the Vista GUI versus XP. I think when I build my X48 QuadCore system to replace my aging Prescott desktop I will opt for XP64 instead of Vista.

[Ian]

Vista SP1 is available via Microsoft Update today.

[LoneWolf]

I had it several weeks ago, and tried it on Vista Business (32-bit) that came with my ThinkPad.

It only took me two weeks to go back to XP, and it wasn't because I truly hated Vista, at least not its UI, which I thought was pretty good, and UAC is far less annoying than it used to be, so that wasn't an issue. It just wasn't fast enough compared to XP even with SP1 installed, and there's an annoying issue that Microsoft has admitted, but has yet to resolve that causes processes determined to be CPU-intensive (i.e., network services, or the audio subsystem) to be throttled for the sake of foreground apps. Which in turn, can result in slow network performance, or audio glitches (great if you're streaming your audio over a network). I'm not sure it is possible to fix the issue as much as lessen it, since Vista was designed this way.

XP isn't perfect, but it's more responsive, and runs all my apps. SP1 for Vista certainly fixes a lot of things, but it only generates a slight performance increase. Guess I'lll try Vista again when SP2 comes out; that is, if Windows 7 or XP SP3 don't do a better job.