Hands-on Vista SP1: Better but slower?
117207
The final version of Vista SP1 kills the Kill Switch, and adds many under-the-hood improvements -- but on at least one system, file copying is actually slower.
706230
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft released the beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to a private group of testers, taking one step closer to the anticipated official launch in the first quarter of next year. In late August, Microsoft for the first time offered a release schedule for the long-awaited SP1. At the time, the software giant said the beta would become available this month to between 10,000 and 15,000 testers. One beta tester, Brandon LeBlanc, author of the Windows Experience blog, has already written about his experience with SP1. In addition to a couple of minor user interface changes, he has noticed improvements to the overall responsiveness of his PC and laptop, which both got the beta software. He particularly noticed that resuming activity after the machines hibernate and copying files from one directory to another work faster. LeBlanc also reported improved battery life on his laptop. SP1 also appears to have solved some wireless networking issues he had, which caused his computer to lose connectivity often, especially after the laptop was hibernating. Since he installed SP1, that problem has gone away, he said. Microsoft had promised that SP1 would include a speedier resume function following hibernation. It also said the update would include improved performance of Internet Explorer 7, particularly for Web sites running AJAX. Microsoft will distribute SP1 via Windows Update, its automatic update service. Alternatively, corporate administrators can use a standalone version of SP1 in conjunction with other programs they may use to distribute software to computers. Also on Monday,Â Microsoft released the initial Release Candidate (RC0) of Windows Server 2008, code-named Longhorn. That means customers can download and try out the latest version of Windows Server 2008, including for the first time a preview of Viridian, Microsoftâs virtualization technology. The release of the RC0 means that development and testing are progressing and that the server code is entering the final stages of testing, Microsoft said. Last month, Microsoft pushed back its forecast for the release of Windows Server 2008 from this year to the first quarter of next year.
381865
Vista's first service pack addresses performance and reliability. Also on tap: a beta of the third and final service pack for Windows XP.
230366
Some users have gotten the massive Office 2007 SP1 update automatically, even though Microsoft said it would not use Windows' AU (Automatic Updates) to push out the large upgrade for several months, the company confirmed Thursday.Anyone running a preview copy of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), which was made available to all comers only Wednesday, will receive the Office 2007 upgrade automatically. Users of other in-beta Microsoft products, including Windows XP SP3, which is still in limited testing, will also be hit by the Office update, which weighs in at almost 220MB."As noted to beta customers, if [they] are running Vista SP1 beta software, as part of the beta program, Office 2007 SP1 on pre-release Windows Vista SP1 will automatically install as planned for this beta program," said Bobbie Harder, a senior program manager with the WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) group.Others, including Susan Bradley, a writer for the WindowsSecrets newsletter, noticed the automatic download and install of Office 2007 SP1. "I woke up on Wednesday morning to find a notification that a Vista machine had rebooted after being patched," Bradley said in Thursday's issue of the newsletter. "I found, to my surprise, that the new Service Pack 1 for Office 2007, which was released on Tuesday, had been auto-installed."Bradley also said that even if users of Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, or WSUS 3.0 SP3 manually installed Office 2007 SP1, AU later automatically installs -- actually re-installs -- the service pack.Earlier this week, when Microsoft unveiled the service pack, it said AU would not be used to deliver SP1 for at least three months and maybe as many as six months. In any case, it promised to give users 30 days' notice before it pushed it out using AU.While technically true -- Office 2007 SP1 is only shoved to users running a preview OS -- some Vista users have been confused by the appearance of the service pack in their Windows Update listings this week as they downloaded and applied numerous security patches.Harder explained what Vista users experience in a blog post Thursday. "On Vista in the Windows Update Control Panel Applet, the Office 2007 SP1 will appear as an available update to download and install, but it will not automatically download and install, regardless of the automatic settings," she said.That's true, countered Bradley, but because the service pack shows on the list and is checked by default, it's easy for users to overlook it, then get slammed with the massive download. "If you are a bit asleep and just blindly approve all of the patches, you get a very large wait while SP1 for Office 2007 is downloaded," she said.A Computerworld reader reported exactly that. "I received [Office 2007 SP1] last night Dec 11 as part of Windows Auto-update," said someone identified as 6monthVistaUser in a comment attached to a story about SP1. "Last night was the largest auto-update ever (230 MB download) filled with 11 updates. 1 was for IE v7, 6 were for Vista cumulative patches, 1 was the Office 2007 Service Pack 1, the other one was for Business Contacts Manager SP 1."Harder defended the process. "For customers who want the benefits of Office 2007 SP1 now, we have made it available," she said. She also noted that users could choose not to pull in the service pack. "Download and installation of the Office 2007 SP1 via the Vista Windows Update control panel applet requires explicit user interaction, just as with the Microsoft Update site," she said. "Once the list of available updates appears, they can de-select or uncheck the box next to Office 2007 SP1 and choose to download and install other updates, or just close the applet."The next time Windows Update runs, however, Office 2007 SP1 reappears, again checked by default. To strike it off the list, users must right-click the item in the list and choose "hide update."
8797
Strip, shutdown, repeat Microsoft has published an article on speeding up Vista, aimed at general users.â¦
617776
Perhaps the most oft-asked question by consumers with regard to whether they should adopt Windows Vista is whether their six-month-old or older hardware is too obsolete for Vista to make good use of it. This morning, Microsoft released for free download the XP version of its Vista Hardware assessment tool, whose aim is to tell consumers what they may need to upgrade in order to put the best polish on those heavily anticipated exclamations.
613422
The Microsoft operating system is improved by the soon-to-arrive service pack, but Windows Vista still is missing some features we'd like to see.
537116
(InfoWorld) - Adoption of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system will happen at a faster pace than any previous operating system release, a software analyst predicted last week. Up to 15 percent of PC users will move to Vista within the first year that the operating system is available, said David Mitchell, the software practice leader at Ovum Ltd. "That would make it the fastest-moving operating system ever," he said. By comparison, between 12 to 14 percent of users switched to Windows XP during the first year of its release, Mitchell said. Vista will gain traction in the market from quick adoption by both corporate and consumer users. For example, companies that participate in Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing program will automatically get upgrades to Vista, Mitchell said. "On the consumer side, there has been a bit of pent-up demand. Just look at the beta adoption in the consumer space -- it's very high," he said. Windows Vista will be available to business customers from November 30, with the operating system available to consumers from January. For users who buy a new computer before Vista is released to consumers, Microsoft is now shipping Vista upgrade coupons with computers that are sold with Windows XP. The upgrade coupons mean that Microsoft will not be hurt financially by missing the year-end holiday shopping season -- a peak time for computer sales. While corporate and consumer users will quickly move to Vista, the adoption prospects forÂ Office 2007 -- which goes on sale at the same time -- are less clear. While many users may now see no need to upgrade, once Office 2007 starts to make its way into companies users may find themselves upgrading to keep pace, Mitchell said. Overall, the rate of adoption of Office 2007 will be lower than Vista during the first year, Mitchell said. "You don't get the OEM drag effect. If you buy a new PC, you get a copy of Vista. You don't necessarily get a copy of Office," he said. Â
324782
Released to manufacturing Microsoft this morning released Service Pack 1 for Vista and Windows Server 2008 to manufacturers.â¦
429232
DecemberÃ¢ÂÂs Patch Tuesday finds Vista in the bad guysÃ¢ÂÂ sights. Plus: Get Office 2007 SP1, get your fix for Flash, and avoid an HP laptop disaster.
641565
Updates pushed out last week by Microsoft to Windows Vista users to prep PCs for next month's release of Service Pack 1 have crippled some machines, according to messages posted to the company's support site.
761911
An early version of the first significant Vista update is released to about 12,000 testers. Meanwhile, a near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Server 2008 is set to be available for download within 24 hours.
92420
InfoWorld - Windows Vista&#160;isn&#39;t the only recently released Microsoft software that will give users headaches when they upgrade their systems. Corporate users, partners, and analysts said upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 from previous versions also may be a lengthy and painful process for companies, which may want to take a wait-and-see approach to the new software.
737244
Windows update doesn't play well with all applications, even Redmond's. Also: CNET Reviews on security work still to be done.
359698
For a lot of users, the cost of upgrading to Windows Vista could be the first of many outlays needed to bring their system up to date. You've also got to update all those programs -- and a lot of vendors may not offer free compatibility updates.
407223
A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista, saying the heft of Microsoft's biggest desktop operating system is just too big to believe."Who can justify a 15GB operating system?" asked Dino Nuhagic, a fifth-year student from Split, a Croatian city on the Adriatic. Not Nuhagic, or the uncounted users who have turned to his creation, vLite.The free program lets users pick and choose which Vista components, hot fixes, drivers, and even language packs are installed, then builds a disk image that can be burned to a DVD for unattended installation of the operating system."Why did I do it? Well, it's performance and work environment," Nuhagic said when asked why he came up with vLite. "Performance, that's easy to explain. The less things running, the more responsive the OS. But the environment part is where it gets down to personal preference."Those preferences include options for leaving out virtually every component of Windows Vista, from the minor -- such as the bundled screensavers -- to the major, such as the firewall or Universal Plug and Play.Some vLite users, in fact, have made it a contest of sorts to come up with the puniest-possible installation package for the operating system. While Microsoft recommends that users set aside 15GB of hard-disk space to install its pride and joy, Nuhagic's fans boast of squeezing it into an image file as small as 515MB that takes up just 1.4GB on the hard drive.One user reported condensing Windows Vista Home Basic into a 526MB .iso file and installing it in a virtual machine that used just 1.3GB of drive space. "It worked well inside the virtual machine and since I have 1GB of RAM on the host I guess the little Vista would work well," said amocanu.Nuhagic didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that he -- like more critical users and pundits -- thought Vista was bloated and could use some reducing. "To be frank, I don't need 90 percent of Windows. But that 10 percent, which guarantees that you can run [the] majority of games out there, is what is worth isolating."Crafting vLite wasn't easy, he said. But the time Nuhagic spent on its predecessor, nLite, which similarly squeezes Windows 2000 and Windows XP, paid off in spades. "Since I had four years of experience with tampering [with] older Windows, it was a lot easier than nLite," Nuhagic said of the development of vLite. "Also, it was easier than in XP because Vista does not have the old-style installation. It doesn't install components one by one, but simply extracts the image. Where XP would fail during install because a certain file was missing, that issue is not present in Vista."Even though vLite features a simple graphical interface that lets users remove a component with a click, Nuhagic warned that the utility isn't designed for the average user: "Because of certain possible compatibility issues with the programs out there [that] expect full Windows, I'd recommend [it] only to users [that] want exactly that kind of tool. In other words, I would not recommend it to someone who installs their OS once every few years. But if you do it every few months, then it's a must."Nuhagic couldn't say how many people use vLite, or even the number of times it's been downloaded from his Web site. "I don't have counters installed because the FTP mirrors were donated, and I would have to upgrade my hosting for some extra script processing," he said of his shoestring operation. It shouldn't be a surprise, however, that nLite, the Windows XP miniaturizer, remains four to five times more popular than vLite, based on the number of visitors to the different nLite and vLite Web sites.Microsoft knows of the tools -- Nuhagic said the company has contacted him in the past about possible employment -- but it's done little to quash the condensing. When asked whether it had any thoughts on vLite, a company spokeswoman e-mailed a lukewarm warning."Microsoft does not recommend using any tool to strip out applications from Windows Vista prior to installing it on your system, as it may affect your ability to download future Windows Updates and Service Packs, and may cause your system to become unstable," she said.But vLite's users praised Nuhagic's efforts with blunter language. "Thanks for spending your time making our OS less bloated," said one.VLite 1.1 can be downloaded from Nuhagic's Web site.
157007
'But you should upgrade now' A less-annoying version of Windows Vista is still several months away.â¦