Maybe time to upgrade from XP
Vista's very first Service Pack is ready to roll in release candidate form, generally the last beta stage before the product is deemed ready to release to manufacturing.
Available today via the Microsoft Connect website, Service Pack 1 RC will then become available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers as of tomorrow and to the general public next week.
Speaking on the official Windows Vista Blog, Nick White took the time to detail the following significant changes to the Service Pack since its last beta release:
- The size of the standalone installers have decreased significantly. For example, the standalone installer packages consisting of all 36 languages (x86 and x64 chip architectures) are smaller by over 50%. The standalone installer packages consisting of just the 5 languages (again, x86 and x64) slated for initial release are more than 30% smaller in size.
- The required amount of disc space for SP1 installation has also decreased significantly. Furthermore, with the RC, if more space is required to install SP1, an error message will now display exactly how much space is needed to complete the installation.
- Previous SP1 versions left behind a directory of files that wasn't needed after installation and occupied about 1GB of space; the RC includes automatic disk clean-up to remove this directory.
- Installation reliability has been improved based on bug reports and error codes reported from Windows Update (thanks, Beta testers!). Testing shows that these improvements have significantly increased the proportion of successful installations of the RC.
- We've improved the user experience of installing SP1 via Windows Update. During the Beta release, users installed without much guidance from Windows Update. The RC now contains a series of screens with detailed information on SP1.
System administrators and IT professionals have also been warned that the final release of Vista SP 1, currently scheduled for Q1 2008, will be automatically deployed soon after via Windows Update. Administrators managing Windows Vista PCs not wanting to upgrade to SP1 will need to install a "blocker patch" that will be detailed tomorrow.
Also sneaking through the door is Windows Server 2008 RC1 which is now available for all to download here.
Useful links
Source: Windows Vista Blog
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta White Paper
