PCTips Box

Like busses you wait ages for a Windows Service Pack, then two come along at once. Hard on the heels of Vista SP1, which mostly went without a hitch, we can now look forward to XP Service Pack 3, the last for the operating system, which is now heading towards retirement, probably next year.

If you were around when MS unleashed SP2 you are forgiven for a brief shudder of trepidation, but I think this one should go quite smoothly. Unlike XP SP2, which re-wrote a lot of the operating system’s code, this one focuses on rolling up all previous security updates since the release of SP2, and a reported 1074 fixes and upgrades. Most of them are anonymous behind the scenes things that you’ll be happier not knowing about (because they are mostly deathly dull…), but there are a few interesting bits and bobs. (more…)

How would you like to have two iPhones in one? NerveGas of iPhone Dev Team reveals that the team has been using dual-booting to jailbreak the iPhone for months. The team has decided to release the hack enabling iPhone users to boot multiple versions of the iPhone software/OS “from” the handset.

This should present iPhone users with quite an advantage once the 2.0 firmware is out, meaning they’ll be able to have a bootable jailbroken software version, as well as a non-jailbroken software version available at the same time on their device. Partition-making is involved: (more…)

The long awaited, highly anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) will finally be available by Microsoft. For many, SP1 is the promise land for fixing those annoying performance, compatibility and slow file copy problems that have plague Vista since it’s release.

Only time will tell.

Regardless of what happens, pre-cautions should be taken to ensure a successful upgrade to Vista SP1.

Below are five steps you should follow BEFORE installing SP1, that should help with achieving a successful upgrade and ensure no data is lost. (more…)