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Microsoft gives consumers a crack at Windows Vista

As reported by DailyTech yesterday, Windows Vista SP1 is now available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

The long-awaited service pack for Microsoft's latest consumer operating system is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The 32-bit download weighs in at 434.5 MB while the 64-bit download is a bit larger at 726.5 MB -- both versions include English (US), French, German, Japanese, and Spanish (Traditional) languages.

SP1 ushers in a number of updates for the Windows Vista operating system including the following:

  • Adds support for new UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) industry standard PC firmware for 64-bit systems with functional parity with legacy BIOS firmware, which allows Windows Vista SP1 to install to GPT format disks, boot and resume from hibernate using UEFI firmware.
  • Adds support for Direct3D® 10.1, an update to Direct3D 10 that extends the API to support new hardware features, enabling 3D application and game developers to make more complete and efficient use of the upcoming generations of graphics hardware.
  • Adds support for exFAT, a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices.
  • SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.
  • Improves the performance of browsing network file shares by consuming less bandwidth.
  • Improves power consumption when the display is not changing by allowing the processor to remain in its sleep state which consumes less energy.
  • Improves responsiveness when doing many kinds of file or media manipulations. For example, with Windows Vista today, copying files after deleting a different set of files can make the copy operation take longer than needed. In SP1, the file copy time is the same as if no files were initially deleted.
  • Improves the copy progress estimation when copying files within Windows Explorer to about two seconds.
  • Service Pack 1 includes supported APIs by which third-party security and malicious software detection applications can work alongside Kernel Patch Protection on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. These APIs have been designed to help security and non-security
  •  ISVs develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on 64-bit systems, in a documented and supported manner, and without disabling or weakening the protection offered by Kernel Patch Protection.

A full list of updates/fixes related to SP1 can be found on Microsoft's Windows Vista TechCenter.

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should I
By orphen193 on 3/18/2008 4:05:51 PM , Rating: 2
hmm been running vista just fine for the last 4 months should I update to SP1 yet or give it a bit more before..




RE: should I
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 3/18/2008 4:12:00 PM , Rating: 5
I've personally been running various iterations of beta and RC builds of SP1 since around August. I've never encountered any problems.

I'm currently running SP1 RTM on my desktop with no issues and installed it on my GF's new Toshiba laptop on Sunday -- again, no problems.

However, YMMV.


RE: should I
By cubdukat on 3/18/2008 6:48:10 PM , Rating: 2
For some bizarre reason, SP1 RC-whatever (whichever one became available late last year) works just fine on my laptop, but my home system is all but completely borked since I installed it.

Even after disabling Windows Search and Superfetch, the HD still churns away so much that I can barely watch anything in BeyondTV, and it also locks up my system occasionally.

I'm gonna try the official SP1 tonight, and if it doesn't improve things significantly within a week, it's gone.

It's times like this I wish all of my hardware had Linux drivers because Vista would be off my hard drive but quick. There's no excuse why coders getting paid crazy money can't create code that tight. And before the flaming starts, I'm not necessarily a Linux fanboy--just someone who hates paying crazy money for shit that should work the first time but doesn't. I just wanna plug it in and go; is that too much to ask?


RE: should I
By LatinMessiah on 3/18/2008 9:35:20 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
However, YMMV.


What the heck does this mean?


RE: should I
By hinchesk on 3/18/2008 10:00:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
However, YMMV.
What the heck does this mean?


It means you're broken the golden rule... ever hear of google? Hundreds of millions have tried it, loved it.


RE: should I
By LatinMessiah on 3/18/2008 10:09:48 PM , Rating: 5
What's a Golden rule?


RE: should I
By Rike on 3/19/2008 10:20:17 AM , Rating: 2
Who ever has the gold makes the rules.


RE: should I
By rupaniii on 3/18/2008 10:40:38 PM , Rating: 3
Your Mileage May Vary, likely picked up from browsing Slickdeals.net too much.


RE: should I
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/19/2008 8:07:10 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
likely picked up from browsing Slickdeals.net too much.

More like reading overclocking articles too much.


RE: should I
By BMFPitt on 3/18/2008 4:16:32 PM , Rating: 2
I'd feel better if WHS would let me back up my system, but I'm gonna install anyway...


RE: should I
By Souka on 3/18/08, Rating: -1
RE: should I
By BMFPitt on 3/18/2008 5:15:07 PM , Rating: 5
In case you were being serious:

- No, I can't backup my Vista64 system
- The bug doesn't affect backups


RE: should I
By OpaqueBubble on 3/18/2008 5:14:16 PM , Rating: 2
Why won't WHS back up your system?


RE: should I
By OpaqueBubble on 3/18/2008 5:26:36 PM , Rating: 2
OK - i understand - Vista 64


RE: should I
By chizow on 3/18/2008 4:47:33 PM , Rating: 2
Most of the hot fixes in SP1 were rolled out previously, so there's not that much new stuff in SP1. There are some entirely new/tweaked features though that aren't in any hot fix and only in SP1, like UAC changes and some file transfer fixes. I've been running SP1 Beta since January and didn't have any problems with it. One semi-surprising experience was uninstalling SP1 Beta actually worked and didn't cause any problems or flakiness. Installing SP1 RTM right now as I type this.

As for performance relative to XP, it still falls short in some areas, most notably graphics/games and file and network transfer/copy speeds. This SP and a few prior hot fixes did a lot to improve transfer/copy speeds to close the gap with XP considerably, but chances are Vista will never fully catch up to XP in DX9 games. For me Vista 64 more than makes up for the shortcomings with improved memory performance and features.


RE: should I
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/18/2008 5:01:57 PM , Rating: 5
Vista 32 is kind of like taking a step back. Frankly I would have prefered if they made Vista 64 only, but at least this is a "transition" to get 64-bit windows front and center for all the software/hardware suppliers. I'm hoping Windows 7 will be 64-bit only but I have been hearing that it will also have 32-bit flavors.


RE: should I
By inighthawki on 3/18/2008 8:08:21 PM , Rating: 2
I agree completely. Many people constantly complain about the lack of 64-bit drivers as well, yet from experience, there are actually very few things without vista-64 compliant drivers, and all of the hardware with drivers appear to work fine. The only devices I have not seen 64-bit drivers for yet is unsupported hardware.

I think vista-64 has done an excellent job transitioning from 32 to 64-bit, and windows 7 could complete the process. Vista has done a great job preparing the market with 64-bit drivers, and i don't think it would really be that bad for a 64-bit only OS.


RE: should I
By Targon on 3/19/2008 7:04:30 AM , Rating: 2
Wouldn't the lack of drivers automatically make those devices unsupported? Sorry for being a smart-ass, but if there WERE drivers for those devices, they would be in the supported list.


RE: should I
By just4U on 3/19/2008 10:48:19 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
Vista 32 is kind of like taking a step back. Frankly I would have prefered if they made Vista 64 only,


You know, after reading some of what people had to say on that subject here at DT ( thru their forum posts) I decided to try Vista64. I was really leary about it as I'd heard horror stories about 64bit support in xp, and to a lesser extent vista..

But you know, after using it now for over 6 weeks I have to say for anyone out there that's moving to Vista.. just go 64bit. You won't regret it in the end. It plays all the games and programs I normally use and does it quite well. While I haven't noticed huge performance leaps in games I find my programs are much more snappy on start up and the responsiveness of the system in general has improved by a noticable margin. Yep, I like it and I recommend it!


RE: should I
By gochichi on 3/19/2008 5:17:16 PM , Rating: 2
I agree about Vista, and Vista 64-bit. Vista has gotten beat up too much, it's a fine OS. It's a transition that always happens, lesser hardware will do best on the older platform but the newest (actually new tech not just "new") systems are really starting to benefit. I have friends that complain about Vista and they have literally never used it. They just say "I heard"... it's just way too popular to bash it. Mac OS X was in a complete slumber when it came out. It was only until 10.3 that people started saying "oh yeah, this is cool actually"... but that's years later. Steve Jobs put it best about OS transitions... and sadly for him the transition to Vista is way smoother than the one from OS 9 to OS X (by leaps and bounds!) I think the transition to Vista is over. Microsoft has a nice way of keeping SO MUCH backwards compatibility... it's one of my favorite things about MS, but it's also what keeps them from making awesome strides.

I had my issues about Vista 32-bit existing, but now I have come to grips with it. It's just a transitional product, and a product that is going to sell a lot of computers in the future years. Why? Becuase pre-packaged boxes invariably come with 32-bit Vista... or as I like to put it: An outdated OS. This is fine for laptops, but it is really bugging me out about desktops. Quad-Core desktop and 32-bit OS, 3.5GB memory ceiling... this is NOT OK.

I think that "64-BIT" is going to be prominent in future advertisements and this will sell computers. The deal is, the market needs a transitional product b/c Vista is installed on computers that will definitely not benefit from 64-bit. The bulk of the eMachine crowd won't even go through the trouble of upgrading 128MB to 512MB which actually makes a huge difference, why would anyone expect them to move up from 2GB just because the hardware can? 4GB is a ceiling that advertised computers are running into all of the time now. 4,5,6 GB of RAM is a gray area where you don't gain that much from 64-bit. It's really only after you install 8GB that you solidly start to feel the benefits of going 64-bits. And 8GB is a lot more memory than most of us are willing to buy.

I like the sound of 64-bits... past the transition. After the leap between 3GB to 8GB (literally, that is the required jump) it's going to be cool to see 8GB, 12GB, 16GB configurations and so on. The OS is there, the hardware is there (for 8GB that is) but I don't think the consumer is there AT ALL.