Vista SP2 - Are You Ready Vista News Discuss Vista SP2 - Are You Ready in the Windows Vista forums; Vista SP1 – Microsoft Could Not Have Given Less – Vista SP2 Anyone? <|> Microsoft had the chance to position the first service pack for Windows Vista as a ...

[Snuffy]

Vista SP1 – Microsoft Could Not Have Given Less – Vista SP2 Anyone?
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Microsoft had the chance to position the first service pack for Windows Vista as a panacea for the operating system, giving the platform nothing less than a fresh start and another take at the Wow.
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Instead, Vista SP1 will deliver close to nothing. Users should expect little, because they will get it in full, and because Microsoft could not have given anything less with the refresh. And if you believe that the company didn't try, then you are sadly mistaken. Microsoft in fact stripped Vista SP1 down to the bare bones, leaving only the essential architecture that would qualify as a service pack. All strictly non-essential features, capabilities, features and improvements were killed from the status of concept, none of them making it to the embryonic stage.

A member of the Windows Installer Team explained why they had to pull references for Windows Installer 4.1, designed especially for Windows Vista SP1, from MSDN and to cancel version 4.1 altogether. "What changed was that the new guard in Windows had a very different bar for the Vista SP than had been in practice for previous releases (at least in my memory). Generally there is lip service to no large feature work in a SP but this time folks listened. Big feature adds were heavily scrutinized. The items we wanted to fix in the SP, UAC tweaks, were big feature by the new bar. When the UAC tweaks were rejected for Vista SP1, the justification for 4.1 faded as there were no new features in the Windows Installer in Vista SP1," the Windows Installer Team member stated.

The new guard at Microsoft is formed by Kevin Johnson, President, Platforms & Services Division; Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President, Windows Core Operating System Division and Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group...although the last executive might be more familiar to you as Steven codename Translucency Sinofsky, the source of the Windows Omerta. By comparison, the old guard involved Jim Allchin, (Former) Co-President, Platforms & Services Division; Brian Valentine (former) senior vice president of the Windows Division and Chris Jones, Corporate Vice President, Windows Live Experience Program Management.

Johnson, DeVaan and Sinofsky lowered the standard as much as possible on the features that would end up in Vista SP1. In this context, the service pack will be comprised of regular Windows Vista updates, application compatibility improvements, device driver improvements, enhancements to performance, reliability and security and a few tweaks to the default desktop search mechanism. Vista SP1 will be nothing more than a standard service pack, planned for the first quarter of 2008. However, the generalized consumer perception, and the continuous user preference focused on Windows XP seem to point to the fact that Vista would actually need a SP2 that will be a repeat of the second service pack for XP.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Vista...ne-67571.shtml

[Snuffy]

The motto for the first service pack for Windows Vista should be if you wait for very little, or even nothing at all, then you won't be disappointed. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft underlined that Vista users should not expect any new features out of the refresh. The Redmond company only went on a limb and revealed that some of the existing features across the operating system will be enhanced. But that is as far as Microsoft is willing to go and to commit to. It is company traditional that service packs are not used as vehicles to deliver new features, with the sole exception of Windows XP SP2 back in 2004. But Vista SP1 will not be a repeat of XP SP2, not even in the least.

"Windows Vista SP1 will contain changes focused on addressing feedback from our customers across a number of areas. In addition to all the fixes delivered via other channels like Windows Update, Windows Vista SP1 will address specific reliability and performance issues that have been discussed on many self-help forums, such as copying files and shutdown time. It will support new types of hardware and emerging standards, like EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) and ExFat (a new file format that will be used in flash memory storage and consumer devices)," stated Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Windows Core Operating System division at Microsoft

"SP1’s purpose is not primarily as a feature-delivery vehicle but as a way to improve the user experience and enhance it in some areas. In terms of the importance of what’s included in SP1, it really depends on what matters to the particular user. If you’re a mainstream consumer user with a laptop, you’re likely to be most interested in the performance improvements included in SP1. Some of these include: optimization to improve power consumption when the display is not changing by managing the processor so it consumes less energy; single sign-on (SSO) for authenticated wired networks; and improvements in the method used to determine which network interface to use (e.g., should a laptop use wireless or wired networking when both are available)," stated Nick White, Microsoft product Manager, as cited by Geek.

Additionally Microsoft informed that Vista SP1 will introduce BitLocker Drive Encryption support for encrypting multiple volumes on the same machine, in addition to the partition where the operating system is installed. The refresh will bring to the table streamlined printer management, allowing for a simpler printing process. The company also promised that the service pack would introduce to the operating system the ability to identify and resolve file-sharing issues via Network Diagnosis. And of course, in the big picture, Vista SP1 will improve management, compatibility, support, deployment, reliability, in a word, will soften all the rough edges of the platform. But in terms of actual, visible additions to the architecture of the operating system you simply should avoid getting your hopes up. Microsoft will center its efforts exclusively on the under the hood infrastructure.

by Snuffy - Normal Autoupdates will give you SP1 the easy way....