Vista SP1 Coming In Q1 2008

Many readers sent in word of Microsoft's announcement of the schedule for Vista SP1. The Beskerming blog has a good summary. Up to 15,000 people will get access to a beta of SP1 by the end of September; general release is targeted (not promised in stone) for early 2008. The service pack is said to improve performance and stability, not to add features.

Comments

Add stability?

[__NR_kill]

I thought Vista was their stable operating system..

Re:Windows XP SP3

[DarthVain]

Shhhhhhh! Don't tell anyone, but Vista IS SP3 for Windowns XP!

No compatibility improvements...

[BUL2294]

[from article]

PressPass Propaganda Machine: Will Windows Vista SP1 improve application compatibility?

DeVaan: [...] One of our top priorities for Windows Vista SP1 is to avoid causing regressions in application compatibility, as we know that's very important to our customers using Windows Vista today. Also, Windows Vista SP1 will provide some fixes for application compatibility, but by and large we are sticking with the promise we made of first delivering superior security to end users, and we won't make any changes in Windows Vista SP1 that compromise that for the sake of better compatibility.

Translation: We won't fix it because 1) we don't know how to fix it, 2) it costs us nothing to force application vendors to fix it. So, if it ran on Vista-RTM, it will run on Vista-SP1--but don't expect any compatibility improvements... If you have a 3rd party app that won't run on Vista (especially if it's from a vendor that no longer exists), then tough titty .

God, I miss the days when Micro$oft made app compatibility in Windows a priority... Think back to the amount of testing done for Windows 3.1, 95, 98. Think of Microsoft's attempts at an "application compatibility layer" in 2000 and XP.

I know about the con's, but what are the pro's of Vista?

Re:Me'thinks

[Martin Blank]

Only WinME sales seemed worse, on a basis of percentage of short term uptake, than Vista. Windows 2000 did will in its intended segment, and XP and the first three Win9x versions also did extremely well. Microsoft may well take some education from this, learning that WinME was not just a freak occurrence of poor sales or timing, but instead that Microsoft is capable of shipping products that even the drones will not flock to en masse.