Vista SP1 Beta

30th August 2007
James Bannan
apcmag.com

This week, the Microsoft Windows Vista Team announced details about the official beta of Vista Service Pack 1.

With the private beta having been leaked and done the rounds for the last few weeks (read our in-depth analysis here), Microsoft’s announcement doesn’t carry very many surprises. Still, it’s always informative to get the update straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

As expected, SP1 will contain all the updates currently available for Windows Vista. However, Microsoft aren’t holding off on deploying updates while waiting for the service pack’s release. Various non-critical but customer-driven updates have been released via Windows Update and Microsoft Download Center (namely the performance and reliability updates), and with Vista so closely tied to online Microsoft services, it’s good to see that being made use of.

However, SP1 contains more than just patches and hotfixes. It will extend Vista’s functionality in various areas, namely reliability and performance (as we’ve already seen), administration experience and support for emerging hardware and standards. All the available technical detail is in the SP1 Beta Whitepaper.