Latest Vista SP1 tweak open to everyone with a week to spare
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Install, spin three times, buy a monkey and wait Microsoft is now letting the common rabble get its mitts on the latest beta build of Windows Vista Service Pack 1.â¦
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In sharp contrast to last month&#39;s barrage of critical patches, Microsoft has offered up just one &quot;important&quot; fix for users to implement in its scheduled round of security updates for November.
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Microsoft plans to issue a service pack for Visual Studio on Friday, as well as a version of the update specifically aimed at fixing issues with the software for those running Windows Vista.
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A Desktop Pipeline reviewer invites readers to step into the SP2 waters, and offers some suggestions on how to do it as safely as possible.
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Microsoft released a refresh of its first service pack for Vista to beta testers on Thursday, indicating the final release might be near.On Thursday, beta users of SP1 received an e-mail from Microsoft alerting them that Vista SP1 refresh 2 is available for download. Microsoft released the latest build, which addressed a small number of bugs that testers encountered in the previous version, to around 15,000 beta users, the company said.Microsoft issued Vista SP1 Release Candidate in December&#160;and a refresh earlier this month. It has said that the&#160;final Vista SP1 will be available to the public during the first quarter of this year, with some reports suggesting that it might come out as soon as Feb. 15.The fact that Microsoft even has a beta of SP1 and has now issued two refreshes to it indicates that the company is trying to be very careful in testing the software and ensuring compatibility, said Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for consulting firm twentysix New York. &quot;They are working hard to under-promise/over-deliver,&quot; he said. &quot;Given the dynamics around the initial release of Vista, that is a prudent course to pursue.&quot;Because it&#39;s quite unusual to issue a beta and multiple refreshes, Microsoft is likely very close to issuing the final public version of SP1, Brust said.That will depend, however, on any problems that testers may find in the newest refresh. If something is broken, Microsoft will have to spend time fixing it, said Chris Swenson, an analyst at NPD Group. &quot;We&#39;re just in wait-and-see mode,&quot; he said.The release of a second refresh doesn&#39;t provide many more clues about when to expect the final version of SP1, agreed Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. &quot;The only thing is that we know they are making progress, but we don&#39;t know how close they are,&quot; he saidStill, the initial indication from people who have been testing SP1 is that it&#39;s pretty solid, so it&#39;s reasonable to think the final version might come out in a couple weeks, Swenson said.The final public release of SP1 could boost Vista sales, at least among enterprise users, since&#160;some companies have said they are waiting for the release of SP1&#160;before upgrading from XP to Vista. Consumers, however, don&#39;t appear to have decided to wait. Retail PC sales were up last year and less than 1 percent of all computers including Macs that sold in retail outlets last year had XP, Swenson said. &quot;It&#39;s more of an issue for businesses,&quot; he said.
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December's Patch Tuesday finds Vista in bad guys' sights. Plus: Get Office 2007 SP1, get your fix for Flash, and avoid an HP laptop disaster.
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When Steve Sinchak's new Intel network card became "really slow" after upgrading his Windows Vista PC with a pre-release version of Service Pack 1, he tried uninstalling its software driver and replacing it with a new one.But to his dismay, the Chicago-area technology author and blogger found himself "stuck in a loop" during the InstallShield-managed process -- unable to replace his sluggish older driver with a new, peppier one."It's messed up to the point where I may have to use brute force to uninstall the driver, or wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows Vista completely," he said.Sinchak's is an example, admittedly an extreme one, of the driver problems that forced Microsoft to take the unusual step of holding SP1's availability to users until March even while announcing its release to manufacturing (RTM) on Monday.Not even the hundreds of thousands of people who have already been testing Vista SP1, nor the many Windows developers accustomed to being able to download software on Microsoft's MSDN or TechNet Web sites immediately after RTM, will be able to get SP1 for another 6-8 weeks.And if you are one of the unlucky Vista users using a driver known to break and need reinstallation after the upgrade to SP1, Windows Update will quarantine you from getting SP1 until the driver is fixed."We want all of our customers to have the same good experience," said Microsoft senior product manager, David Zipkin, in an interview Monday. "That's why we're erring on the side of caution."Cancel or allow or shut up already?Service Pack 1 remains the milestone by which many companies and consumers judge when a Microsoft product is truly bug-free and mature enough to deploy. Any delay in SP1 could have an adverse effect on Vista uptake, which has been generally strong -- more than 100 million copies shipped -- despite a lukewarm market response.Zipkin points out that most drivers, once re-installed after the SP1 upgrade, should work properly.That was the experience of several Computerworld readers.Zipkin blames hardware vendors for failing to strictly follow Redmond's instructions on how drivers should be installed."The issue is that the drivers were not written per the spec we have on MSDN to ensure successful updates," he said, a spec that "has been around since the XP days."Zipkin declined to elaborate or comment on Sinchak's case. And neither Intel nor Macrovision, maker of the InstallShield software, immediately responded to requests for comment.But some experts think that the problem must be related to under-the-hood changes in Vista SP1, especially those concerning security and user privileges, which can directly affect how applications and drivers are installed."Microsoft looks like they are monkeying around with a lot of lower-level stuff," said Paul Morris, a project manager at QualityLogic, a Moorpark, Calif. software and driver testing firm. "In my mind, you've got to treat SP1 as an entirely new OS."Vista's overhauled security model had two major changes. First, local users who were formerly granted administrator access by default are granted standard access in Vista. Second, a new feature called User Account Control, or UAC, prompts users to verify whenever a new application or driver is about to be installed.Both moves help to prevent viruses and malware from taking hold. But UAC has been criticized by some users for its overzealousness, though UAC pop-ups decrease dramatically after the first month, according to Redmond.Moreover, moving users to standard rather than administrator accounts wreaked havoc on many applications and drivers that depended on full administrator access to install or run properly.If SP1 makes even small changes to Vista's security model, that could cause drivers to break again, according to Ian Lao, an analyst at In-Stat. Why? For one, most vendors took the easier, less rigorous option of patching and modifying their drivers to make them Vista compatible, rather than "rewriting them from the ground-up," said Lao. That makes them more fragile.Moreover, many drivers, unlike applications, can't be completely shut down during an installation process. The upgraded software -- in this case Vista -- may not be able to properly update the drivers, he said. Thus, permissions may be lost during the SP1 upgrade, or resources moved to different locations.Of drivers and ass-kickingsDrivers were a major bane to Vista in its early months last year.Despite Microsoft's claim that more than 1.6 million peripherals worked with Vista at its launch, there were numerous complaints from early adopters, gamers and other power users about non-working devices."It definitely wasn't just a vocal minority that had a problem with drivers at Vista's launch," said Robert McLaws, a blogger who also tested SP1 but didn't face any driver issues.Indeed, driver issues had been on the wane. At its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) conference last May, Microsoft said that 1.9 million devices supported Vista.Microsoft has not updated that number since then. But it says that over 78,000 hardware products are now supported by Windows Update, up from 34,000 at launch.And 17,000 peripherals and devices (see list, IE 6+ required) have passed one of Microsoft's two rigorous certification programs: Certified for Windows Vista, which requires successful testing by a third party such as QualityLogic, and the more self-reported Works with Windows Vista program, which is more reliant on self-reporting."A lot of OEMs did not take the Vista launch seriously," McLaws said. "So Microsoft took their problem reports to vendors and kicked some ass."In a PowerPoint presentation distributed to media last month, Microsoft was confident enough to state "Many device and software problems behind us: Nearly all Windows Vista PCs have drivers for every single device installed, available on WU [Windows Update] or from vendor websites."But Microsoft may have relaxed too soon. Morris says none of vendors that came to QualityLogic for certification of their Vista drivers have returned seeking the same service for SP1."They may be hammering on them tooth and nail internally, but they're not asking us to touch it," he said.The result? Monday's delay.Gregg Keizer contributed to this story.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ could pull the trigger on putting out a beta of the first service pack for Windows Vista any day with a final release by November, sources close to the company said. Microsoft has been mum about exactly what will be included in Windows Vista Service Pack 1, a rollup of updates for the OS, many of which are pushed out automatically through its Web-based update services. The company also has not said when the software will be in final release --Â the latest from the company revealed only that a beta will be out sometime before the end of the year. The WinBeta.org blog reported Tuesday in a post that Microsoft 's WDK (Windows Driver Kit) team sent out an e-mail to beta testers that a new build of the WDK was being released to them to coincide "with the recent OS beta release for Vista SP1 Preview," hinting that SP1 beta is soon to be sent to testers. Others speculate Microsoft might release the SP1 beta Thursday, the day it will report the company's fiscal 2007 fourth quarter and year-end financial results. In an interview Wednesday, one source close to the company said he had been told by insiders that a beta of SP1 would be out by now, so an imminent release is highly likely. And another source said that beta testers report SP1 will definitely be out this week with a final release coming in November or December. At Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver two weeks ago, Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of the Windows business group at Microsoft, toed the party line on Vista SP1 and said little about when it would be released or what would be in it and hinted that Microsoft's own plans for the service pack are still in flux. Sievert also downplayed the software's role in when some Windows users will upgrade to Vista, though it's widely known many users -- especially business and enterprise customers -- are waiting for SP1 before replacing Windows XP with Vista. "Most companies are still in the evaluation phase," he said in an interview. "Service pack or no service pack, they're still looking at what they will deploy."
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has finally broken its silence on the timing of the release of theÂ highly anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1, saying the software updates should be in final release in the first quarter of next year with the company shipping off a beta next month to 10,000 to 15,000 testers. The company stressed that SP1, "is not a delivery vehicle for new features," said David Zipkin, senior product manager for Microsoft. SP1 will include OS updates strictly to fix bugs and enhance the performance, reliability, and application compatibility of Vista, he said. Zipkin acknowledged that Microsoft has "a reputation of sneaking fixes into service packs in the past." For example, Windows XP SP 2 included a host of new security features after XP was exploited by the Blaster worm and other serious attacks. However, the service pack also was incompatible with many applications running on XP, which caused massive headaches for a lot of users. Vista SP1 will not break any applications already running on the OS. "Anything that works on Vista is going to keep on working on SP1," he said. Vista SP1 will include the 20 updates for the OS already released over Microsoft's automatic update services as well as ones that are new to the update. In all, thousands of Vista files will be changed as part of the release, Zipkin said. However, Vista SP1 will be a significantly smaller download than Windows XP SP2 was, he said. XP SP2 was more than 100MB in size, while Vista SP1 will be about 50MB, he said. Microsoft will deliver SP1 over its automatic update services to consumers running Windows Vista. Business customers can use this service as well or roll out a stand-alone version of SP1, which has a bigger footprint, through whatever software a company uses for pushing updates to desktops, Zipkin said. The stand-alone version of SP1 will be bigger than the one automatically pushed out through Windows update services for several reasons, one of which is it contains all of the 36 language updates, Zipkin said. The SP1 pushed out over the Web can detect what language a PC is running and only install that update. Specifically, SP1 will fix performance features, such as allowing for the computer to resume functionality after being in the Hibernate or Standby state, and also reduce the time it takes between a user hitting CTRL/ALT/DELETE to get the log-in prompt so they can log on to Windows, Zipkin said. Microsoft also in SP1 will improve the performance of Internet Explorer 7 to speed Javascript processing and reduce CPU utilization so sites running AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) can run faster, he said. On the reliability side, the update will reduce the likelihood of Vista crashing from a vague "search protocol handler" error message that users have reported happens frequently, Zipkin said. The company also fixed other common crashes users have reported through Microsoft's automatic reporting service. Many businesses have held off on updating to Vista until the arrival of SP1. Zipkin said that while Microsoft supports their decision, the company is recommending they test applications with Vista now so that they are ready to deploy immediately when SP1 is available. For consumers that may be waiting, Microsoft recommends they go ahead and install Vista or purchase a Vista machine now, and they will receive SP1 via automatic updates. To date, Microsoft reports that about 60 million consumer licenses for Vista have been sold, and 42 million licenses have been sold to businesses through its volume licensing program.
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Bowing to demand from customers, Microsoft will make the first major Vista update available to businesses on Friday and to developers later this month. The general public will still have to wait until next month.
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Early version of first significant Vista update released to testers. Also, near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Server 2008 to be available within 24 hours.
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Microsoft will releaseWindows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)&#160;on Monday, Feb. 4, according to reports Friday from Tech ARP.com, a Malaysian Web site.Vista SP1 will make RTM on Monday, said Tech ARP, with computer makers receiving media later in the week to install the updated operating system on new laptops and desktops. Bits will also be posted for download on Monday, the site claimed.&quot;Microsoft will be deploying SP1 in two &#39;waves,&#39;&quot; said Tech ARP. The first, on Monday, will include just five of the 36 available language packs -- English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. The second wave, slated for one to two weeks later, will include all 36 language packs.Previously, Microsoft has said it would break SP1 into two stand-alone installers for businesses: a 450MB package that includes the five packs and a 550MB installer that offers three-dozen languages. Both are expected to be available for download from Microsoft&#39;s Web site.SP1 will also be offered to users through Windows Update, Microsoft Update and presumably Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). That update will weigh in at around 65MB. Microsoft explained the smaller size in a change log posted to its support site: &quot;Windows Update ... utilizes an efficient transfer mechanism to download only the actual bytes changed.&quot;Microsoft last issued an SP1 build on Jan. 24, when it updated the code offered to an invite-only group of approximately 15,000 testers. That build, along with one the week before, gave credence to accounts that SP1&#39;s pace had quickened, and that the service pack&#39;s release was imminent. At that time, a report out of Taiwan pegged SP1&#39;s RTM as Feb. 15.Microsoft repeated Saturday what it has said all along: Vista SP1 would go final in the first quarter of 2008, which ends March 31.&quot;We are targeting to deliver SP1 RTM in Q1 CY08,&quot; a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. Representatives of the Windows Server team, however, were not available for comment. The company has previously announced plans to launch Windows Server 2008 on Feb. 27 at an event in Los Angeles.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Vista's first service pack addresses performance and reliability. Also on tap: a beta of the third and final service pack for Windows XP.
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Remaining users of the beta or Release Candidate versions of Windows Vista have until Friday to update to a final version.
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Tuesday, in the computing community, is now known as patch Tuesday. That&#39;s because Microsoft has taken to releasing operating system and browser fixes on Tuesdays.
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Velocity Micro is first system builder to offer Vista SP1
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Released to manufacturing Microsoft this morning released Service Pack 1 for Vista and Windows Server 2008 to manufacturers.â¦