Countdown to Vista Service Pack 1
Prepare for some fun and games in March when Microsoft releases the long awaited Service Pack 1. It’s all going to be a bit of a palaver with the main download (assuming that you have broadband) preceded by three ‘helper’ updates, two of which will determine which parts of SP1 your PC needs. The third one is only for users of Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions. If you have a slow Internet connection, or no connection, or a lot of machines to update then you’ll be able to get SP1 on DVD, or download an image copy of the DVD image file.
Microsoft claims it has learned lessons from XP Service Pack 2 and this one will go much more smoothly. Unlike SP2 there’s very little for most users to get excited about, there’s nothing to see and most of the updates are concerned with behind the scenes stuff, like improved compatibility for peripherals, it plugs some security loopholes and fixes a lot of faults. MS also say there may be some minor performance gains for some users but this remains to be seen. The SP1 update will probably take at least an hour (depending on your PC’s performance and broadband speed) and if it fouls things up it can be removed.
Tags:broadband, compatibility, Internet, Microsoft, minor performance, performance gains, service pack 1, service pack 2, slow internet connection, vista service pack, vista service pack 1, windows vista, xp service pack 2
