Microsoft: Vista SP1 due in Q1 2008, beta in September
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Microsoft Corp. has finally broken its silence on the timing of the release of the highly anticipated Windows V...
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(InfoWorld) - In the first year of its release, Microsoft Corp. is expecting businesses to adoptÂ Windows Vista twice as fast as any other version of Windows, with 10 times as many Vista business seats deployed at launch than any previous release of the OS. Despite this optimism, analysts still don't expect businesses to begin adopting Vista in earnest until late 2007 or even 2008, with many waiting for the first service pack version of Vista before they begin considering an upgrade. One reason Microsoft is expecting Vista to be so successful is that the company has made a concerted effort to give customers the tools and training they need to adopt Vista across their businesses, said Brad Goldberg, general manager of the Windows Client Business Group at Microsoft. The company also put test versions of the OS into as many people's hands as possible. For the previous Windows migration, to Windows XP, Microsoft didn't release important tools to help businesses upgrade -- such as a compatibility toolkit to ensure existing applications will work -- until Service Pack 2, which was released nine months after Windows XP shipped, he said. However, with Windows Vista, "we made the beta of the [compatibility] toolkit available with Windows Vista Beta 2," Goldberg said. Microsoft also has opened up test versions of the OS to a wide audience, making Release Candidate 1 (RC1) available to the public. Microsoft expects that at least 5 million users will have access to Vista RC1, all of whom the company has encouraged to provide feedback about the release so it can be as polished as possible before it goes out to business customers in November. Another reason Microsoft expects businesses to warm to Vista early is that the company is doing its share to educate customers on how much money they can save by adopting it, Goldberg said. Microsoft has worked with analysts to develop customer case studies to see how much money business customers can save per PC by upgrading to Vista from their current OS. Al Gillen, an analyst with research firm IDC, does not dispute Microsoftâs calculations for the return on investment (ROI) companies will make on Windows Vista, though he says that companies âdonât get the âRâ unless they put in the âIâ first.â âThe ROI story is exciting, but it requires that customers be mature and agile enough to do what they need to do afterwards,â Gillen said. And while Microsoft may meet its ambitious first-year goals for Vista, that momentum will likely peter out, once pent-up demand has been met, Gillen said. âEighteen months out, the adoption curve will look like any other Windows product,â Gillen said. âItâs hard to move corporate customers faster than they are willing to go.â Microsoftâs bullish projections donât appear to jibe with most current third-party customer surveys, such as one online survey of 314 IT professionals conducted by Computerworld in August. Just 17 percent of IT professionals say they are considering rolling out Windows Vista in the first year. Forty-one percent of respondents said they had no plans to roll out Vista, while 35 percent said they would begin testing Vista only after it ships. Of those who said they were considering rolling out Vista in the near or long-term, the largest group (29 percent) said the cost was the biggest determinant of if and when they would upgrade. That was followed by the hardware requirements (16 percent), the amount of employee training (6 percent) and the amount of IT staff retraining (4 percent). Even if Microsoft doesn't meet its goals for Vista, it's not likely to affect the company's revenue. According to one financial analyst firm, Microsoft stands to lose only about $400 million in revenue in fiscal 2008 if Vista business adoption does not go according to the company's plan, and $2 billion in fiscal 2009. In its most recent fiscal year ended June 30, Microsoft reported more than $44 billion in revenue. While the company is optimistic about adoption in its marketing, it is being far more conservative in its financial estimates, analysts said. This is obviously good news for Microsoft, but there is a downside. The longer Vista is available, the more it will cost the company if businesses continue to hold off on adopting the OS. And any negative press or analyst feedback on lackluster Vista adoption could drive Microsoft's stock price down, analysts said. (Eric Lai is a senior writer at Computerworld.)
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This morning, BetaNews FileForum was alerted to the availability of the latest release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1, just released from Microsoft.
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A number of changes and updates are coming to Vista by way of the upcoming Service Pack 1. We took a look through Microsoft's change log to see just what's new.
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Setting the stage for what it hopes will be a &quot;breakout year&quot; for its server operating systems, Microsoft this week announced it will ship the first Release Candidate of its Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows Server 2003 by year&#39;s end as well as a SDK
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Microsoft  plans to release the first Service Pack for Windows Vista on Feb. 4, according to reports from Tech ARP; meanwhile, Windows Server 2008 is also due out in the coming week.
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With Release Candidate 1 now out the door, Microsoft is putting what it calls the "fit-and-finish" on Windows Vista's user interface, and the company is looking for feedback from users testing out the beta release.
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The Microsoft operating system is improved by SP1, but Windows Vista still is missing some features we'd like to see.
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Although Microsoft Corp. may not have the first service pack for Windows Vista ready at the end of this year as some expected, financial analysts say that a delay should not have a negative effect on enterprise adoption of the OS.
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Multiple Microsoft sources have confirmed that the first beta test editions of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista were distributed to a select group of about 12,000 testers today. BetaNews learned these are indeed exclusive invitees, not merely a subset of the company's MSDN or TechNet subscriber base.
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The software maker erroneously posts a note on its developer site saying a "release candidate" version of the Vista service pack was being made available. Microsoft does plan one eventually, but it's not imminent.
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Microsoft confirmed Thursday that its invite-only group of about 15,000 testers has had the final version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for the past two weeks.Other Vista users, however, will have to wait until March to obtain a legal copy of the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version of Vista SP1, the company reiterated.According to a Microsoft spokeswoman, the build designated Vista SP1 RC Refresh 2, which was seeded to testers on Jan. 24, is identical to&#160;the code that company developers shipped&#160;out the door on Monday as RTM.&quot;In final stages of a product, Microsoft likes to get as much validation as possible before releasing,&quot; the spokeswoman said in an e-mail. &quot;The release candidate ended up being a high enough quality to be approved to release to manufacturing.&quot;The shift in nomenclature, but not bits, is common. Eventually, a vendor must approve a build as &quot;gold code,&quot; at which point that edition becomes the shipping version. Last November, for example, Apple Inc. issued a test build of Mac OS X 10.5.1 to developers one day, then called it good to go and posted it for download the next.However, users who weren&#39;t part of the SP1 testing group must wait until March to get their hands on the update, the spokeswoman repeated today. In five to six weeks -- mid-March according to Microsoft -- the service pack will be offered via Windows Update as a 65MB optional update and posted to Download Center as a 450MB stand-alone installer that supports five languages. A month later, in mid-April, Windows Update will automatically download and install SP1 on Vista-equipped PCs whose users have set Automatic Updates to do hands-off updating.Subscribers to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet will get a slight jump on the general public. &quot;In early March, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to get the &#39;Windows Vista with SP1&#39; full DVD,&quot; the same spokeswoman said in another e-mail. The updated operating system will be offered to MSDN and TechNet subscribers through their respective download centers.Microsoft is holding SP1 so that it can identify device drivers that won&#39;t reinstall -- as they must -- during the service pack update process. On Monday morning, Mike Nash, vice president of Windows product management, said that while SP1 had met the RTM criteria, it would not be available for several weeks because of the&#160;driver problems.That generated a firestorm of criticism from users, who vented by posting over 200 comments to Nash&#39;s announcement, calling the decision &quot;stupid&quot; and &quot;one of the all-time worst moves&quot; by Microsoft.Judging by the tone of nearly 120 comments left on Microsoft&#39;s official TechNet blog, IT professionals and developers are even angrier. The subscribers called the withholding of SP1 &quot;boneheaded&quot; and a &quot;slap in the face,&quot; or dubbed it &quot;the Vista SP1 RTM Debacle.&quot; Others questioned the value of their TechNet subscriptions, admitted that they had had to download a pirated copy using BitTorrent so that they could start testing, and said they would postpone Vista deployments for months because of the delay.Several wondered why reviewers in the press had the finished bits before they did.But a commenter identified only as Joe put it most succinctly: &quot;This is the lamest decision since Microsoft Bob. I get this the same time as my mom?&quot;The backlash may have gotten through to Microsoft. On Monday night, Kathy Dixon, the TechNet Plus team member who normally writes the blog, said that she was looking into the possibility of moving up the availability date of SP1. But as of Thursday night, she had no solution for users. &quot;I have escalated this and am continuing to push internally for a solution ASAP,&quot; Dixon wrote around 8 p.m. EST. &quot;Please hang in there, I should have something more specific soon.&quot;Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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A service pack should be out by summer next year, and a full upgrade is expected by the end of the year. By TechWeb.com. Labeling 2005 a &quot;breakout year&quot; for its server operating-system line, Microsoft has laid out a revised map for Windows Server 2003.
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Microsoft has finalized the code for the&#160;first service pack for Windows Vista,&#160;but won&#39;t release the code via its update services to customers until mid-March, the company said Monday. Moreover, some devices may not work with the initial version of the software because of driver issues that continue to plague the OS.According to&#160;a post&#160;on the Windows Vista blog by Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows product management, Microsoft will release Vista Service Pack 1 in English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese to Windows Update and to the download center on Microsoft&#39;s Web site beginning in mid-March. In mid-April, the software will be available in those languages to anyone who has chosen not to download it. Microsoft will follow with the remaining language releases of Vista SP1 in April.In the post, Nash said Microsoft is holding off on immediately releasing the code for SP1 until hardware vendors have delivered PCs with Windows Vista SP1 installed to retail stores to give those vendors time to correct problems with some device drivers that beta testers discovered during the software&#39;s evaluation process.When installing SP1, some device drivers did not correctly follow the automatic instructions, so devices associated with them did not work correctly, according to the post. Microsoft expects hardware vendors to correct these issues before releasing PCs with the service pack installed. The company will not let customers install SP1 via automatic update if their PCs won&#39;t install the drivers correctly. However, customers can go to Microsoft&#39;s download center to obtain the software if they want to.In his post, Nash said that most Vista users will not be affected by the device driver issue, but Microsoft is being cautious about the release of SP1 to &quot;improve the experience for all customers.&quot;However, some comments about Nash&#39;s blog entry show that some Windows users are eager to get their hands on the software, so are none too thrilled with the delay in SP1&#39;s release to manufacturing and release to customers.&quot;So it&#39;s done ... but we won&#39;t be able to actually get it for another six weeks? That [is] incredibly frustrating,&quot; wrote one user called &quot;freibooter.&quot;Another Windows user called &quot;Hurricane Andrew&quot; said the release of SP1 to manufacturing was &quot;great news,&quot; but also expressed displeasure at the delay.&quot;Just wish we could get our hands on it earlier, &quot; he said. &quot;Patience has never been one of my strong points.&quot;There were hints that Microsoft was nearing the final code for SP1 in the last several weeks, as the company offered two refreshes for the first release candidate, a sign that the software was nearing completion. Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among business customers that have been awaiting the service pack&#39;s release before updating employee desktops.The combination of SP1 and Windows Server 2008 is expected to bode well for Vista adoption in the enterprise and medium-sized business sectors. Microsoft said Monday that it also has released Windows Server 2008 to manufacturing. That product and the release of Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 will be featured in an official launch event in Los Angeles at the end of the month; however, while the new version of Visual Studio is available, SQL Server will not ship until the third quarter.&#160;
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Released to manufacturing Microsoft this morning released Service Pack 1 for Vista and Windows Server 2008 to manufacturers.â¦
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Get a closer look at some of the new features in Vista Service Pack 1.
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On the same day that Microsoft announced that the first service pack for Windows Vista would come out later than some had expected, it also quietly announced that the release of Windows Server 2008 has been pushed back to the first quarter of next year.