Slashdot Mirror
Vista SP1 Release May Be Near
Tokonamu sends a note about the release to a private testing group of a new build of Windows Vista SP1, possibly presaging the imminent release of the long-awaited service pack. Speculation about a Feb. 15 release date has been fueled by a report out of Taiwan, according to the article. Microsoft also issued a new build of Windows XP SP3 this week, but it's getting next to no publicity out of Redmond, what with XP being the main competition for Vista and all.
At the moment installing SP1 RC's requires three seperate trips to Windows Update, and three reboots.
My guess is MS will push out the pre-requisite updates for SP1 this coming February Patch Tuesday, and SP1 a week or two later.
I heard a rumor that Vista SP1, in a spectacularly clever and devious bid to fix all Vista issues, silently installs XP in the background.
I always wonder why Microsoft gets so much publicity for point version upgrades. I mean, the other day I got an update from Ubuntu. So what?
If Microsoft have waited this long for a full update, then something is seriously screwed in Redmond. Something is even more screwed with the rest of us for finding the service pack upgrade so fascinating.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There was a story about the new linux kernel, and that was a point upgrade.
You also get patches/upgrades from MS outside service packs.
So this is in a way like a Linux distro that announces a new point release, which ARE reported on slashdot.
Hate vista or love it. Use it or leave it, but it is a news worthy item when it receives an upgrade. For better or worse this is going to affect a lot of people who read this site.
Oh and OSX has had nothing but point upgrades since it release back in the dark ages, each one of those point releases has been discussed to death.
I don't use vista yet, but am a PC gamer so sooner or later I might have to take the plunge, news on Vista therefor intrests me, if this SP1 is really good, it might hasten the move to Vista and make game companies more inclined to make directx10 only games. Or not, but I want to know when I should start to look into pirating Vista (Pay for MS software? What an odd concept.)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
For the first several months of Vista, it seemed there were a lot of people justifying its poor uptake by suggesting most IT people would wait until SP1 before adoption. After all, everybody knows it takes a bit of time to work out the kinks in a new OS. I'm pretty sceptical, but it'll be interesting to see if the apologists were right.
I was surprised when Microsoft announced that Windows 7 (successor to Vista) will probably be out in about 16 months. Seems like they're stealing their own whimpery thunder re Vista. The release of SP1 for Vista is surely a relief for those who already adopted it, but what about the masses who were waiting for SP1 --- the proverbial "We'll wait for the bugs to be worked out" crowd?
All those folks (including my own org) are now looking at VistaSP1 vs W7 and wondering about the wisdom of adopting Vista at all. If W7 comes out mid-next year, and there's a W7SP1 about a year later... That means right now that Vista offers barely more than a two-year period of stable operation for an entire platform change. With XP still chugging along merrily (with better stability and lower HW expense/requirements) I really don't see the value for any but the smallest organization.
I think not...(*poof*)
"He Who Dares Wins"
Vista SP1 is about to be released on the heels of the just released Linux kernel 2.6.24. Coincidence? I think not.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Redmond, Washington
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
I am running RC1 of SP1 and it has made significant improvements on my x64 laptop. One of the major fixes is the removal of occurances when Vista looks for a domain controller to update user information on a side panel of the window. That fix alone has increased the performance and useability of Vista.
For those of you looking to install RC1 be warned it takes about 2 hours to install and you must remove it prior to installing SP1.
Slashdot, not at least through posting Twitter-blogs, has informed us thoroughly how deep shit MS is in. Nobody wants their products anymore, everybody and their parents (literally) are switching to Mac or Linux (we can't really agree on which, but that doesn't matter). Vista is such a big P.O.S. and sales failure that we suspect it's not really running on any PC at all, people claiming otherwise being astroturfers. And MS are obviously well down the road to bankruptcy.
But surfing outside our informed group here, websites talk about recent fantastic record results and outlooks for Microsoft, among other things fueled by strong Windows growth. People talk about faster adoption rate and less problems with Vista than XP, over 100 million users, MS being rated as one of the most respected companies, and other shit like that.
Where are these people living, and where do they get there information from. Aren't they reading Slashdot??
the next Ubuntu release!
They can also call it Hasta La Vista to avoid lawsuits.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
It actually makes sense for iTunes to be that way on the Mac.
iTunes integrates with QuickTime, which deeply integrates with the graphics subsystem on Mac OS.
If the competition for Vista is XP, there would be some incentive for microsoft to break parts of XP with service pack 3. Perhaps we should approach SP3 with caution.
Don't hate me because I am beautiful, have lots of women under my control and use Vista!
Microsoft is NOT planning to release Windows 7 in 2009 ! Contrary to all that is being said on the net, it clearly looks like Microsoft is NOT planning to release Windows 7 in 2009. Q. What is the expected timeline for the availability of Windows 7? A. We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and expect it will take approximately 3 more years to develop. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release. All this smoke of Windows 7, being released next year, may have led to confusion in the minds of the Windows Vista user. http://www.winvistaclub.com/i7.html
Actually, you can remove iTunes and Quicktime from your Apple OS without impacting on the running state of the OS in any way... unless you wanted to use those programs, so it isn't like IE at all.
Jonathanjk.com
Actually, you can remove the Quicktime and iTunes applications but you can't remove the Quicktime framework because Aqua depends on the quicktime framework
So, will this be a "real" service pack, or is it aimed at all the companies that said they wouldn't switch to Vista until SP1 came out?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The vast majority of of people walk in to Staples or Best Buy and buy a computer. That computer includes Vista. They use it.
They don't "upgrade" to Vista, they don't decide to buy a Mac, they sure don't try out Ubuntu, they use Vista because that's what came on their new laptop.
Microsoft doesn't need exponential sales of Vista, they don't need the whole world to change overnight. All that they need is to wait as millions of people eventually upgrade their systems. As long as Dell or Best Buy will sell them a laptop for $599 (compared to Apple, whose offerings start at about $1000) that's what people will buy, and Microsoft can watch the adoption continue apace. Widespread use of Vista is pretty much inevitable.
My PC is still running Windows 2000. Its fine, mostly, except for some apps that actually insist on XP. Still, I have conceded that at some point I will upgrade and have "acquired" a copy of XP from one of the usual sources. I don't need it today, but acknowledge that one day soon I'll take a day or two off and upgrade.
In fact my first experience with Vista was in the last month, helping a girlfriend set up her new HP laptop. Based on the problems that we ran into I'd be wary of encouraging people to buy Vista yet, but I also accepted that if she was buying a system that's what she would get so I was prepared for a steep learning curve. If anything Vista reminds me a lot of OS X - very pretty but very frustrating if you don't want to do exactly what Redmond or Cupertino want you to do.
Three Squirrels
Well, with the iTunes update, it updates the iPodDriver.kext kernel extension, QuickTime also gets updated and it requires a reboot because the whole graphical system is dependent on the QuickTime libraries. Now, the reboot after the iPod driver isn't strictly needed, but Apple takes a "play-it-safe" attitude with kernel extensions and requiring a reboot to get all caches and autoloading information updated. Sure, some of Apple's apps are a bit ingrained into the operating system, but they don't do it in any exceedingly strange ways, and there is rhyme and reason for their reboots.
My point is that IE is a part of windows in such that if you removed it, you lose elements of windows explorer, if you remove itunes and quicktime, the OS isn't affected, you don't lose functionality. It's nothing like IE, get a clue please.
It's exactly like IE. If you remove ALL of Quicktime from OSX, you *will* break things.
I already have XP. Isn't that the Vista update?
paintball
You dense idiot. That's his point for goodness sake.
You can delete the IE icon on Windows which won't break anything, because the plumbing is all still there. Equivalently you can drag the Quicktime icon into the trash on OS X which won't break anything, because the plumbing is all still there.
On Windows you can massacre your system to remove all the IE plumbing and afterwards your system will most likely be hosed. On OS X you can massacre your system to remove all of the Quicktime plumbing and afterwards your system your system will most likely be hosed.
See the similarity? Good.
Can you confirm actual performance improvements?
Vista is dog-fucking-slow on my C2D Conroe 2.66GHz machine w/ 2GB of RAM, 7200RPM SATA HDD and a GF7950 compared to Ubuntu.
+++ATH0
Huh? What about the technical downsides? Flaws, security holes, performance? Because we all know IE has had hundreds of security issues, and Quicktime has had none, oh, wait... Then again, this is Apple, and Apple can do no wrong.
So if I choose not to use IE I am still vulnerable to IE flaws, because other apps can still invoke IE library calls, etc. Right, gotcha. If I choose not to use QT, I have "none of those problems" because, apparently, through the power of telepathy, any other application that might use QT library calls, from Final Cut Pro to After Effects (I seem to recall AE being borked by changes in QT just last week), knows that I've "chosen not to use QT" and its associated library calls, ergo Microsoft is horrible and evil and represents all that is soulless in the world, whilst Apple's genius never ceases to amaze us.
Do you actually believe what you wrote? Because if you were to re-read it, reversing the words QT and IE, or substituting third party libraries, would you still believe it?
Apparently, according to you, you're vulnerable because IE libraries and hooks are used throughout the system - sure, like the help system, etc. Which is why many MS security patches note that "this flaw can still affect you even if you do not use Internet Explorer", and yet Quicktime flaws, well, you don't need to update and fix them, you just "choose not to use them" and magically every other application and OS call on your system is protected?
The RDF field is strong in this one.