Windows Vista SP1 Hands-On Details

babyshiori writes "Users of Microsoft Windows Vista can rejoice in the fact that Microsoft just released a preview of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate! The build is the lead-up to the actual service pack, which will be made available to even more testers at a later date. 'In our early tests with the beta, we saw some small improvements in boot time on an HP Compaq 8710p Core 2 Duo notebook. Before SP1, the laptop took 1 minute, 51 seconds to boot. After the update, that figure dropped by almost 20 seconds. Microsoft is also touting improvements in "the speed of copying and extracting files," so we tested a few of those scenarios. We noted a slight increase in the time required to copy 562 JPEG images totaling 1.9GB from an SD Card to the hard drive of the aforementioned HP Compaq notebook.'"

Comments

Times

[SnoopJeDi]

Don't trust the times this article points out too solidly, they certainly don't sound like they were derived using proper statistics. More likely, they probably just booted it up once before installing the SP, timed it, and then booted it up after, and timed it.

Could be wrong, but whatever, let's party, SP1 is near!

Re:Times

[RobertM1968]

Could be wrong, but whatever, let's party, SP1 is near!

Not to sound too much like a troll or anything, but until it is downloadable, I for one will not consider it "near".

SP1 was scheduled for release this past summer (from MS announcements shortly after Vista Consumer release).

SP1 was then delayed to "by the end of the year" (from comments made a month ago)

SP1 (from MS's latest comments which you can find here: http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2218/071115vistaskip/ ) is now scheduled for release in Q1 2008.

I guess "near" is a subjective thing... but as of right now, it seems they really have no real release strategy... until it is done, I am not betting on "near" or even "sometime soon"

What really interests me is that they are quite well aware of the need to address these issues quickly if they want to see a greater adoption of Vista by businesses and/or home users considering upgrading - yet the release date, for a Service Pack that only addresses some of the issues, keeps slipping.

Yes, I agree it is a good thing that they don't release the SP till it's ready - but it kinda scares me that they need to put in so much time to fix the issues that they are addressing - and scarier still, that in trying to do so, their release date keeps slipping... it kind of makes me think that when they looked at the issues and underlying code, they collectively said "Wow, this is really a mess... we need a LOT more time than we thought if we are gonna fix this" (well, I think doubling the release time is a LOT more time... though considering their recent OS release schedule, they may disagree).

It makes me seriously wonder how severely wrong some of their programming decisions (or "push it out the door, ready-or-not" decision) with Vista really were - and how adequately a Service Pack can really address those issues. (is this gonna be just another band-aid?)

Typical OS timeline

[binaryspiral]

This is really nothing new, Windows 9x, 2k, and XP were all turds when they were first released. Driver maturity, application refinements, hardware improvements, and service packs all make the experience more tolerable.

But I'm sick of the status quo and expected a much better OS when Vista was first released. If it took 9 months of driver development and OS improvements - then it shouldn't have been released 9 months early.

Epic Disaster

[aldheorte]

Vista is a not an epic disaster because of:

1. Performance.
2. Security.
3. Anything that early technical adopters care about.

It it is an epic disaster because of:

1. Lack of backward compatibility (software and hardware).
2. Non-technical people being aware of (1).

Therefore, testing whether files copy 2% faster is like exhaustively examining a bolt in a tanker that has run aground and split in half.

Re:Epic Disaster

[JebusIsLord]

They actually tried to fix a perfectly broken API, full of gaping security holes left over from the innocent, pre-internet days of the early 90s. This work started with XP SP2, which you may recall also broke a lot of software.

Re:40 second boot time an improvement?

[Znork]

Yes, well, one would think so, but it turns out that the ability to extract revenue and spend billions isnt what drives progress or encourages development.

It turns out competition is.

So much for granting monopoly rights to 'promote the progress of science and useful arts'.

Re:40 second boot time an improvement?

[gEvil (beta)]

40 seconds? I wish. Where did you get that number from? The article talks about how the startup time has been cut down from 1:50 to 1:30. Also, I seem to recall Bill Gates talking a few years ago about how they were going to get the startup time to like 30 seconds or so. Now we're "impressed" when it only takes 3 times that...

Windows XP SP3 please

[chowells]

Personally I'd much rather they get around to releasing XP SP3.

Vista isn't on my personal radar, nor of my employers. But installing a fresh XP and having to install 80 odd updates is a PITA.

Re:SP or New OS?

[Pieroxy]

It is not a joke. It is a preview. Not even a beta. Whining on the HDD requirements at that stage seems a bit stupid, really.

what is the case for running Vista? I forget

[victorvodka]

I know it's new and it's got some user interface changes, but for the stuff I do with a computer, is there a reason I should be running Vista, or that I shouldn't uninstall Vista from my next computer and upgrade to the light, fast, relatively DRM-free OS known as Windows XP? So far no one has presented a compelling case for using a OS that runs slower and requires twice the memory of XP. It could be I'm missing something really really super important here. Is it that we're just supposed to run whatever is newest? Because by that logic we should vote for whatever presidential candidate is youngest.

But what can it do that XP can't...?

[Joce640k]

The big question isn't whether or not Vista is acceptably good, it's that it doesn't do a single thing that XP can't. In many cases it does things worse/slower.

So is there a reason to upgrade from XP? I don't see one.

If you hadn't got the Premium version for free would you have paid $400 for it?