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Vista Service Pack 1 Is Out
superglaze writes "What's to say? After much prevaricating and slipping out then pulling back, the first service pack for Windows Vista has actually been released. It's available for download now via Microsoft's sites, with an auto-update rollout scheduled for next month, and it should hit Amazon's virtual shelves on Wednesday."
. . . and now he's mad.
Um. Seriously. I'm glad there's a service pack out. But I'm going to wait a few weeks and see if it causes USB drives to melt, or sends your life history to the Ministry of Total Information Awareness.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
...its a toss up.
OR
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
"After much prevaricating and slipping out then pulling back, the first service pack for Windows Vista....."
sounds like an awful lover.
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
I'm more interested to see how this affects the adoption rate ... or doesn't. It's been said businesses have been waiting for SP1 to make the move. The question is: was that all just talk or is it going to actually happen?
The Computations of AdamR
http://www.adamreyher.com
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=948343#method5
I use Vista at work because I'm going to need to know it eventually. Microsoft probably won't offer XP forever. Among many other problems that I eventually fixed before the service pack, I had a problem with my sound not working so I installed Service Pack 1. It fixed the sound problem, then broke my network adapter. After removing the service pack, the network came back but the sound broke again. And it's over an hour to install and another hour to uninstall.
I would wait at least a month to make sure any major holes weren't opened up or major compatibility issues introduced. That should probably be enough.
Don't forget the slew of jokes that Vista SP1 will just reinstall XP...
stuff |
I work in the IT field, use Vista 100% on my laptop and have several clients.
I snagged SP1, the latest pre release build and it has been fine.
Things seem 'faster', copying files, something that use to take weeks now takes as long as it should.
I still get the random spoolsv crashing for no reason but that was there before SP1.
None of my applications break although I don't use anything custom or home grown or vertical.
The install took a while - three stages with I believe a few stages each. I made a backup of my data prior just in case it went blue. No problems with the install/patch.
captch: robbed
I tried the (two) public betas on my Vista Ultimate 64 partition. They all failed to install at 19%. I reported it on the forums, tried to send my logs to an email address they said they'd set up, and even identified which file was supposedly "corrupt" (the one it was installing actually).
For my trouble, I've been ignored, and I'm now going to have to reinstall the ENTIRE OS because some small part of it is supposedly corrupt (systems works fine) and they won't let me just fix that. Lovely. My Ubuntu install is so much better, I wish I didn't need the vista one.
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
I grabbed the X64 update from Microsoft's OEM website a few weeks ago.
First off, SP1 is a massive improvement. It installs a lot of bugfixes (including ones not released publicly before)... and it improves other stuff quite a bit. Disk performance is much better- you could argue that copy and paste tasks should not be slowed down by the speed of the OS, but it's improvement.
Overall, my Vista install rarely runs into errors- maybe one or two non-system apps are hanging a week. UAC got less annoying (it wasn't that bad to begin with).
It took an hour to install on my PC, and I didn't run into any issues. I think it helps Vista a lot. Honestly, I prefer Vista on newer machines; it's RAM heavy requiring 2GB+ to run well but RAM is very cheap nowadays and the x64 version works quite well; I had no driver issues personally.
(I still recommend backing up though. I always back up before a major update, whether it's XP, Vista, OS X or Ubuntu).
Few people play Quake 4 today as it was released roughly 1.5 years before it was ready for retail, then Activision expected the public to become guinea pig beta testers for a half-assed product. Microsoft should take a lesson, as Vista has become the same laughing stock as a video game for the exact same reasons. In other words, software companies need to make this quip their gospel: An Old Bull and a Young Bull were standing at the top of a hill overlooking a large meadow full of cows. The Young Bull says excitedly, "Let's run down there and fuck us a cow!" "No, son", says the Old Bull, "let's WALK down there and fuck them all."
"To err is human, to mod Funny divine."
Do not start the update procedure unless you do not need your machine for a while. On stage 2 of 3 on a fairly beefy box(5.1 vista experience) and it has been chugging for about 15 min and shows 2% done.
At least my mac is up.
It's not the size of your stack that matters, it's how you push and pop
Wait until DNF is released.
Wait until it shows up in auto-update in a month would be my advice. That should give plenty of time for the tech rags to post glowing reviews of how it revolutionizes computing, solves world hunger, and cures male pattern baldness. Likewise, it will give Slashdot plenty of time to report that it makes computers crash, steals peoples' wallets, has sex with their dogs, and sets their house on fire.
You know, the usual Microsoft software update cycle.
went smooth as silk, even on the more complicated Vista Ultimate.
why do I mention it? well. this thread will be full of nasty, snarky lies. maybe i can balance things out a bit and thank the windows team for an update well done.
now if they could just turn their attention to the fail that is 'windows ultimate extras', that would be perfect.
God Hates Us All.
Vista Service Pack 1 rolls up 551 bug fixes which are broken down by category in that link. Many of these fixes were not available before even through more advanced sites such as MSDN or TechNet. So, now that SP1 is out the trend to watch for is if it actually spures adoption or just passes by unnoticed. I for one welcome..., err, did buy Vista because SP1 was imminent for it as my primary purchasing reason. SP1 incrementally improves Vista and through the simple realities of OEM distribution like it or not within a few years Vista will probably be at least 40%+ market share.
Shh.
I've been running it for a couple of weeks now, and yes, shock horror it does work just fine.
The system feels more responsive, and stuff happens as it should. This is the Vista that should've shipped, but where Vista has suffered Windows Server 2008 has gained; all the initial frustrations have been fixed in SP1 for Vista and Windows Server 2008, so consider Vista RTM a beta kernel for Win2k8. It is after all, the server market Windows isn't 95% prevalent in after all.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Where does the GP say "stellar performance" and who is "everyone else"?
SP1 installed very easily for me. Everything the GP says agrees with my own experience, except for the spoolsv crashing. The only issue I had at all was having to change the screen resolution back. As an added bonus, Bioshock now runs without crashing every 5-10 minutes.
"Things seem 'faster', copying files, something that use to take weeks now takes as long as it should."
Does Internet Explorer feel 'snappier'?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
To hell with 'seem' - post benchmarks.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
SP1 RTM has been available for quite some time from the technet site. We've been using it for quite awhile now. BTW, the spoolsv issue is with an HP Print driver, generally from a print server. You need to get an updated hpbmini.dll - minor rev 16 and greater will work. Older versions don't understand an OS that starts with version "6" and just crash the spooler. You can delete the driver using printmanagement.msc.
If your reason for installing is only for performance, Vista SP1 will probably disappoint you. On the other hand I have installed it on 2 laptops and one desktop and the only problem I had was with an HP Printer driver that stopped working. All I had to do was to go to Control Panel, remove the printer, then add the printer back again and that fixed the problem.
Honestly, I did not find any major improvement performance-wise nor stability-wise as my machines were already running relatively smoothly pre-SP1. There appears to be minor improvements in boot times, shutdown times (though I do this maybe once a week per PC/laptop on average); plus getting in and out of sleep, especially for the laptops, appears to go smoother.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Stellar performance, and totally against what everyone else says."
You mean the 9 out of 10 people that don't actually use Vista but happily parrot every sensationalist headline they run across?
But the beta process is there to eliminate the brave earlier adopter problems
No, see, that's what an alpha release is for. Beta releases are supposed to be damned near final, what in these days of release grade inflation is now called a "release candidate". This is why "/.'ers like to discount MS's beta process as a bunch of rubbish"; because for those of us that remember, it is.
"And traditionally it has worked as an alpha process"
There, fixed that for you.
-- Alastair
I read all those Win2008 makes a better desktop than Vista, and on a x64 system, so I gave it a try.
Compared to Vista x64 with SP1, Win 2008 ran all my software, was full x64, and the drivers worked for vista. Sound, Video. Codecs worked. Boots quicker, file system ran smoother, files copied at normal speeds.
Even vista after sp1 is still a dog... And god, I hate the new file explorer, I've had to revert back to Directory Opus..
Here's the source code: /*
// printf("Welcome to Windows 2000); // printf("Welcome to Windows XP");
TOP SECRET Microsoft(c) Project:Longhorn(TM) SP1
Estimated release date:2008
*/
#include "win95.h"
#include "win98.h"
#include "leopard.h"
char chew_up_some_ram[10000000];
void main () {
while (!CRASHED) {
if (first_time_install) {
make_10_gigabyte_swapfile();
do_nothing_loop();
search_and_destroy(FIREFOX | OPENOFFICEORG | ANYTHING_GOOGLE);
hang_system();
}
if (still_not_crashed) {
basically_run_windows_xp();
do_nothing_loop();
}
}
if (!DX10GPU()) {
set_graphics(aero, very_slow);
set_mouse(reaction, sometimes);
}
printf("Welcome to Windows Vista");
while (something) {
sleep(10);
get_user_input();
sleep(10);
act_on_user_input();
sleep(10);
flicker_led_promisingly(hard_disk);
}
creat_general_protection_fault();
}
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
I find it interesting that operating systems are more and more being treated like applications. Traditionally the OS was responsible for managing resources (Disk, Memory, etc.), controlling security, and coordinating activities (queues, jobs, etc.) Today the Windows OS is responsible for browsing the web, playing music, recording TV, and plotting world domination (OK, I added that last one...) Why should these things be included in the "operating system" mix? I would argue that even a windowing system is borderline (see X).
}#q NO CARRIER
I had the exact same experience. Posting under my own account, because frankly I don't give a flying fuck what the dogmatically Anti-MS moderators (priests) think.
Jeremy
On second thought, from context it seems that you meant Duke-Nuke'em Forever.
Then again, maybe the two meanings of DNF aren't that different.
Benchmark? I'd imagine it's a fairly long ordeal to really and accurately benchmark file copying, unless you want "It took about 3 seconds to..." Plus, you'd have to have a non-SP1 computer that has exactly the same hard drive fragmentation and everything... it's not like you're benchmarking a game with GameSpot and have x amount of computers to spare for exactly that purpose...
No, it is not "that bad."
Could it be better? Yes.
Should it have been tested longer before release? Yes.
Is it as bad as people say on boards like this one? No.
I just bought a brand-new HP dv6768se laptop from Best Buy, upgraded the Vista Home to Vista Ultimate, and am sincerely happy with the system. My HP 8020n has been running flawlessly for many months. Both systems were built for Vista, came with Vista, and have run nothing else.
Oh, Vista has its problems -- the annoying slowness of file copies and deletes being chief among them. But I can sit down and make a bitch-list for my Gentoo and Ubuntu systems as well; my friends with Macs have their own pet peeves with OS X. I love my Linux systems; I love my Vista machines. As with everything in life, nothing is perfect, and whether or not you like something or someone is largely based on your desire to be annoyed.
All about me
Ya know, just a few years ago it was such a pain in the tukas to deal with Linux upgrades ... dependency hell ... "why can't Linux installs just *work* like my Windows installs do?". That wasn't that long ago, ya know.
... forget it!
Now it's just the opposite. Installing Microsoft stuff is such a royal pain in the bazonga compared to Linux that I just stopped dealing with it. I'm sick of worrying about what "patches" and "service packs" I've applied and which I haven't, what impossible-to-remember-URL I'm supposed to go to for the patches, whether this service pack breaks this while it fixes that
Perhaps digg was down?
at work, on heavily locked down pcs... the dolts in my IT heard that you can seal data with USB drives.... they epoxied the usb connectors, and got all new mice. i kidd you not. its amazes me the idots up top. side note, you want to have fun with your local secuitry personal, bring in a laptop with linux. then when they "must" run a virus scanner, let them run it it wine. its quite funny :-). more so when its IT security :-D haha good times.
bored? try this http://jadmadi.net/blog/2005/01/27/linux-wine-how-to-running-windows-viruses-with-wine/
Luckily today was a slow day at work so I did various benchmark tests both before and after installing SP1. This was all done on my Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop, Core 2 Duo 2Ghz CPU, 2GB RAM, and a freshly defragmented 200GB 7200RPM Seagate HD. Not a mobile Lan Party screamer, but it gets the job done well enough.
Boot times dropped, both with and without ReadyBoost enabled (using a 4GB 150x SD card) by about 10 seconds, ending up with 1:56 clean and 1:45 with ReadyBoost.
ATTO Disk Benchmark showed a .
Copying 1GB of JPG files from one partition to another dropped from 1:31 to 1:09, and to the network from 1:35 to 1:06.
3DMark06 scores very slightly increased, PCBench05 scores slightly decreased.
The graphics test in CoH OF went from 59.7/28.8/7.9 up to 59.7/28.9/9.2
So no huge improvements, but overall things are just a bit more snappy.