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Windows Vista customers can now receive the first service pack for the operating system via the Microsoft Automatic Update service, Microsoft said Wednesday.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will download automatically to PCs that have the automatic update feature of the OS turned on, the company said. Previously, Vista was available to customers via Windows Update, but people had to specifically download it.

Not all customers will receive SP1 immediately via Automatic Update, however. The company is distributing it in phases to “ensure a seamless download experience,” Microsoft said. A timeline for when all customers would receive Vista SP1 via Automatic Update was not immediately available.

SP1 is a rollout of software updates that fix bugs and glitches in Vista and is seen as a milestone that will inspire many customers — especially those in the business market — to adopt the OS. In fact, in a recent report, “Building the Business Case for Windows Vista,” Forrester Research said more business customers plan to upgrade to Vista now that SP1 is available. This comes as no surprise, considering companies often wait for the first service pack after a major Windows release to update corporate desktops.

However, even SP1 will not guarantee that enterprises and business customers currently running XP or an earlier version of Windows will upgrade, as some have said they would skip the OS altogether. The same Forrester report said as much, although the research firm is recommending that companies don’t skip Vista because they would not be well-positioned for future versions of Windows if they do.

Microsoft has acknowledged problems with application compatibility and lack of driver support, among others, that customers have had with Vista.

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).

Notable Changes in Windows Vista Service Pack 1

Downloads:
Download Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
Download Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

Update has been pulled from Windows Update, but Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won’t boot or reboot constantly

Responding to reports of endlessly rebooting PCs that flooded support newsgroups last week, Microsoft said on Tuesday it had pulled an update designed to prep Windows Vista for Service Pack 1.

Although the update — actually a pair of prerequisite files that modify Vista’s install components — has been temporarily pulled from Windows Update, Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won’t boot or reboot constantly.

“Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes,” said Nick White, a Vista program manager, in a post to the company’s blog Tuesday afternoon.

White downplayed the problem. “So far, we’ve been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue.”

According to White, Update 937287 was the cause of the problem. In a support document, Microsoft describes that update as one for Vista’s installation software, “the component that handles the installation and the removal of software updates, language packs, optional Windows features and service packs.” Along with a companion update pushed to users starting Feb. 12 and another that was offered to machines running Vista Ultimate and Vista Business in January, the guilty update is required before Vista can be upgraded to Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Shortly after the two prerequisites hit Windows Update last week, users began reporting problems on Microsoft’s support newsgroups.

Originally the Vista SP1 refresh was not available to the public but Microsoft has changed their mind. This should be a good thing for the consumer as Vista already has enough problems and a subpar SP1 final release wouldn’t help the public perception of Vista.

Just two days earlier, the new version, dubbed Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh, had been handed out to a group of about 15,000 testers who had been working with the service pack for several months. At the time, Microsoft said the refresh was “not available for public download.”

Friday, it changed its mind, and posted instructions on its Web site for downloading and installing the new code using the Windows Update service.

According to the “Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Refresh Public Availability Program,” users must uninstall Vista SP1 Release Candidate — the earlier version offered to the general public a month ago — before attempting to download and install the refresh.

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Vista SP1 refresh download instructions

Microsoft invited 15000 testers to download a new version of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 called Refresh which replaces the version of the Service Pack that was made publicly available. The new build number is 17128 and the usual process of uninstalling the old service pack before you install the new version of the service pack applies.

No news yet on what has been changed in this new release. A tester mentioned a few observations in the Neowin forum. The new Windows Vista SP1 seemed faster, detected 4GB of Ram correctly but used still only 3.32 GB, noticeably faster explorer tasks and no chattering hard drive after install.

Another user reported that the downloads are available on the official Windows download website. I have not tested these yet and the KB article referred to points to one from last year. If you still want to give it a try you can download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the latest Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

EDIT: Reports are that these are the previous RC1 versions and not the 17128 builds.

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It looks like our wish of a Vista SP1 release before Christmas may in fact be coming true. Microsoft’s Windows Vista Blog announced that the Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) release candidate (RC) is now available via Microsoft Connect and will be available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers tomorrow. Even better, this release will be made available to the public next week via Microsoft’s Download Center. Microsoft is still aiming at an early 2008 release (and the blog says they are on-track), but depending on the feedback fro the RC public release, we think we might see the final version out even faster.

As the blog states, a release candidate is typically the last phase in beta development before a product goes RTM (release-to-manufacturing), or “gold.” Some of the biggest changes with the RC, as compared with previous betas, are the reduction of both the installer size and the amount of diskspace required for the installer. Additionally, the RC will automatically clean-up any directories left behind from previous SP1 betas, which in the past left up to 1 GB of data, even after being uninstalled. They have also improved SP1’s integration with Windows Update. Microsoft has also provided an patch for IT Admins who may want to prevent users from installing any SP1 release before the final shipping version via Windows Update.

Please note, if you do install the RC update early, you will need to uninstall it before updating to the final SP1 release.

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Nick White, a program manager on the Vista team, announced the beta drop in a posting to a company blog. “Today we release the Beta of windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to a private group of Beta testers via connect.microsoft.com,” White said, referring to Microsoft’s beta test site.

Late last month, when Microsoft finally confirmed the beta and partially outlined its schedule, an executive promised that SP1’s first preview would be out before the end of September.

Microsoft has invited approximately 12,000 people to test SP1, Mike Nash, the head of Windows client operating system product management, said in a videotaped interview posted on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site. A later build during the release candidate period will be available to a larger group. Microsoft has said that MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to participate in that round of testing.

In his interview, Nash stressed that Vista SP1 would be very different from 2004’s Windows XP SP2, the last service pack Microsoft delivered. “The philosophy is very different,” Nash said, referring to Vista SP1 and repeating the message other executives delivered in August when the service pack was revealed. “In XP SP2, we were creating a lot of new functionality. [Vista] SP1 is just focused on addressing the issues we’ve heard about,” and it will not add new features or capability to the operating system, he said.

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