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.

Me'thinks

It's pretty clear now that Vista should not have even been released until Q1 of 2008.

Re:Me'thinks

I'm actually glad it was released early, because now Microsoft KNOWS this fact and also has learned that they cannot force people to use their new software as readily as they deem necessary.

Re:Me'thinks

...because now Microsoft KNOWS this fact and also has learned...

Historical data suggests this is probably not so.

Re:Me'thinks

I'm actually glad it was released early...

Vista was released early? Now that's rich!

Re:Me'thinks

Now how am I going to hold people off? My excuse has always been "not until SP1 comes out." I'm screwed.

Rule of three

Version 3 is the traditional version to buy with Microsoft products. The first release is a mess, the second one is a guess at improvements (as they typically haven't received good feedback from customers by then), but the third one is typically solid and well-received.

That rule of thumb has worked well with Windows 3.0, Word 3.0, SQL 7 (which was actually the third version after Microsoft bought Sybase), and so on. Service packs are a little trickier. SP2 could be considered the third "release" of an OS. With XP, it wasn't really until SP2 that it seemed secure and stable enough.

I think your excuse was just fine, but off by a digit.

Re:Rule of three

With XP, it wasn't really until SP2 that it seemed secure and stable enough.

Oh, really? I wish you could have put a 'YMMV' after that.

Re:Me'thinks

Now how am I going to hold people off? My excuse has always been "not until SP1 comes out."

Go with "Not until it's secure" or "Not until it runs on your legacy hardware."

Or just mention something about snowballs in that hot place where Billy G gets his ideas.

Re:Me'thinks

That's the problem with Vista though. It was released, it was buggy, and it was still pushed down our throats. It's hard to walk into most retailers and buy a computer isn't Vista. The only way I'm aware to get a windows machine without vista is to shop at Dell, and choose the Business category. It isn't so much the problem that they released it before it was ready, but the fact that the old version isn't on most store shelves anymore.

Re:Me'thinks

It's pretty clear now that Vista should not have even been released until Q1 of 2008.

Or Microsoft feels that by releasing a service Pack they will boost confidence in an OS that currently (rightly or wrongly) doesn't inspire confidence. There are quite a few people out there who are claiming that they are waiting until SP1/SP2 before jumping, not to mention that XP gained a huge amount of stability with SP1 and even more with SP2(after the initial release issues...).

Personally - I'll stick with Debian.

Windows XP SP3

Dammit, screw Vista, where's my SP3 for Windows XP?

Re:Windows XP SP3

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/service packs.mspx [microsoft.com]

It's planned for 1JHCKY 2008...

SP3 for Windows XP Professional is currently planned for 1H CY2008

Re:Windows XP SP3: Maybe

Notice no mention of Vista SP1 on that page
Therefore, this page is probably being ignored by MS.
IOW: Don't hold your breath for XP SP3

I wish...

The service pack is said to improve performance and stability, not to add features.

I hope it'll add a few bugs too. I don't want using this OS start feeling completely alien. :-/

yea.. thanks microsoft..

got a new vaio laptop with vista installed..

vista really chews the memory up, I hope they fix that first off..

with all the problems people are having with upgrades, installs and everything else perhaps they should have waited a little longer.
as with most things microsoft though, the computer comes pre-installed and nobody ever bothers changing anything (take IE for example and the fact that web developers in 2010 will STILL be writing sites to work-around two different browsers..

Memory

Hmm... Here we go again.....Vista doesn't chew memory upp, for crying out loud! . Vista is USING the memory that is unused. What do you pay for your memory for? To have it unused? If nobody is using it, Vista will just use it damn it!. Don't worry, if some application will need it, Vista's memory manager will give it back.

Re:Memory

Vista has some pretty serious issues with low-memory though... I run a development environment that has SQL Server 2005 and several copies of Visual Studio open, among other things. When memory gets tight, Visual studio, and other applications, just start misbehaving. Right-Click context menus refuse to pop up, or pop up in "incomplete" states (only a few of the selections on them that should be there), and other strange behavior occurs (windows not closing!, dialogs not opening).

I never had this experience under XP. I'd either get out of memory errors, or some other clear notification that something was amiss. In Vista, if you didn't KNOW you were low on memory, you'd wonder what the hell was going on, as there is no indication that any errors are occuring.

I hope this is one of the things they're fixing in Vista SP1.

Window Handles my friend.

That's because of window handles, I get the problem all the time in XP. As soon as all the window handles are used up you can no longer create any new windows, the problem is that closing windows doesn't seem to free them up and the only thing to do is reboot.

I would have thought they would have fixed this obvious problem that causes no end of grief to people where I work ages ago. Looks like I'll have to stick the X Windows.

Now, if only someone in Microsoft would realise that forms in Word have been broken since the year . and actually fix them.

Re:Window Handles my friend.

Of course. Used to be you could only have 3 windows open, maybe 3.1 if it was using a child process (MDI type interface). Then the limit was upped to 95, then 98, then 2000 of 'em and then ....

Re:Window Handles my friend.

closing windows doesn't seem to free them up

You are right. Closing window doesn't free handle. Program must explicitly call CloseHandle. And take notice that closing window doesn't necessarily end the program. So poorly written program could end up chewing handles and resources. But at the moment process has ended all it's handles are released automatically.

But I wasn't aware of any global handle limit in Windows, only that it's limited to system resources mainly memory. There's a per process GDI handle limit (something between 256 and 65536, W2K defaults to 16384) which is a good thing or otherwise one thread could end up eating every resource from system. I tried to google around on this one but found nothing. Could you provide a link to a site that talks about global handle limit in Windows XP?

Re:Memory

I understand what you're trying to say, but from a purely performance-oriented view this seems a piss-poor way to do things. I installed extra RAM in my computer so I could run more applications and work with larger data sets more efficiently, not so the OS can sit on it "until I need it" - which takes time that could have been used by the application I actually want to be using. That, and given Window's historically bad memory management, means I don't want Windows occupying all my PC's resources.

So are you also upset if your CPU usage isn't near 100%? After all, what's the point of paying for that fast processor if you aren't going to use it's full potential?
=Smidge=

Re:Memory

BULLSHIT!

I'm running 8 gigs of ram and vista 64. I've rendered things in softimage XSI that required more than 4gigs of ram. The problem is.. VISTA has already decided to cache 4 gigs of ram (FOR GOD KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK)... and then XSI's renderer (mentalray) says "I need more ram" Then the whole system starts to swap like mad because i dont have any available ram.

THANKS TO VISTA 64 !!! and its fucking ridiculous memory management. Why does it need to cache 4 gigs of ram? What the fuck is the point of having 8 gigs, if Vista is going to cache 4 fucking gigs of it!? Might as well run XP32bit.

I dont think MS really has their memory management figured out at all. It may cache for intelligent reasons, but it doesnt work. It causes the system to use the swap file and come to a crawl because it gobbles up all of your memory.

I've litterally been in photoshop, and have seen windows say 0 free for ram because Vista has cached 4gigs out of my total 8. I NEED those gigs... and Vista doesnt release them. It eats up ram like a mother fucker.

I was just thinking of going to XP64.. but the driver support is non existant on that platform.

Think it is SuperFetch you're describing?

Unless you are saying you need more ram (which may be true), this is why Vista always has all of the memory utilized

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/features/details/superfetch.mspx [microsoft.com]

SuperFetch

Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP-based PCs.

When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks--including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans--run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP-based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

SuperFetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they'll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.

Re:yea.. thanks microsoft..

vista really chews the memory up, I hope they fix that first off..

Here's my unofficial mini-service pack for Vista. :-p

1. Type services.msc in the start menu search box and go there.
2. Open and set "Windows Search" to "Inactive" as its start mode and stop the service, unless you use Vista's search facilities and not a third party tool like Total Commander or Directory Opus, etc.
3. Open and disable "Superfetch" in the same way, unless you trust it to actually make things run faster and predict your usage behavior. Keep in mind that it'll keep caching data to RAM in its "prediction" process. Even data files, not just executables and DLL's. This can be especially nasty when it starts caching 100 MB-sized files you have downloaded with P2P apps because it think you'll run them soon, or something.
4. Try putting in a ReadyBoost-compatible (you probably won't know if it is until you've tried :-p) USB memory stick and have Vista manage it as extra RAM. It's not really RAM-fast or anything (but it doesn't seem to make things worse at least), but especially seeemed to cut a bit on hard drive access. I'm not sure, but it's possible it relocates some of its swap file to it as ReadyBoost kicks in.
5. If you haven't got these installed (you'll notice if it tells you they can't be installed on your OS), download and install these Vista hotfixes performance and reliability [microsoft.com] and compatibility and reliability [microsoft.com]. Among other things included is fixes to the Vista memory manager and many users have reported both cut memory usage directly after boot up, and better 3D benchmark scores. It also fixes the infamous "slow file copy" bug of Vista.

Now try use it for a day or so, and hopefully your hard drive access has been cut. As long as you don't use the Vista desktop search, no disabled services above really impact the ability of Vista to function as normal, and you can always enable them again if you notice no improvement. Something else that access your drive a lot at a few times is the System Restore feature that also runs as a service, but I don't recommend disabling that one since it'll also disable your ability to restore your OS state to an earlier date if, say, an application or driver install would go horribly wrong.

The real beginning of Vista

I'd bet the release of SP1 ends up being good for everyone. People that already have Vista will have (at least some of) their performance issues sorted out. Then, since Vista won't be as broken as it has been, more copies should sell, leading to better development for it. As much as people say they'll never move off of XP, people said that about 98. It's not that nobody upgrades to the new versions of Windows anymore; they're just (rightfully) a bit more cautious about it now.

Re:The real beginning of Vista

As much as people say they'll never move off of XP, people said that about 98.

and those people were 100% correct in their decision and did not move off 98 until there was an acceptable replacement. Windows ME was a giant pile of steaming Bovine Feces. I have never meat ONE person that though ME was useful for ANYTHING. Everyone waited for XP to come along to fix it. windows 2000 was for corporations and not for home use so you never really saw it at home. XP was the first time they merged the home and corperate OS lines.

Vista is looking very much like the steaming turd that ME was to many people.

Re:The real beginning of Vista

Bovine Feces
steaming turd

Descriptions from a man named 'Lumpy'.

Excellent news

Maybe SP1 will include support for component video!

it seems that the standalone image is going to be

... 1GB

*agog*

And you need 7GB of disk space? Are you sure this is just a service pack? Bloat!!

Re:it seems that the standalone image is going to

If the intention is to fix everything that's wrong with Vista, I'm impressed they got it all into only 1 GB.

performance and reliability fixes are already out

If you look around the web, you'll find that the main two fixes to be included in SP1 are already out, and have been since the beginning of August.

Ars Technica article about the packs [arstechnica.com]

Finally!

I look forward to this much-needed update being released in November 2011.

15,000 people will get the beta???

Isn't that more than are running Vista right now?

They should release SP2 quickly too

since many people said they won't upgrade to Vista till SP2.

I hate this forcing everyone to Vista. It's almost impossible to find a new notebook with preinstalled XP now in Moscow.

vista sp1

why even do a SP1? doesn't their update mechanism update the system automagically? what would sp1 include that couldn't be included in the monthly updates they roll? maybe its just a roll up and therefore a marketing thing for biz, you know, now that sp1 is rolled out, you mr. IT guy can safely update all your laptops (of course, then why wait until next year to do this). just doesn't make sense, maybe Microsoft just can't get out of old patterns...

Sammy / better with a MacBook [personafile.com]

Re:vista sp1

Yes, the monthly updates will get most of the service pack. That's one of the two reasons that the windows update version should only be around 50 megs for a fully patched computer vs. 1 gig for the standalone install: sp1 will rollup already released patches. The other big reason is that the 1 gig version has all of the language files included. You won't download the Japanese language versions of the files from windows update if all you need is English. The 1 gig file will let admins push out just one file to client computers, during a downtime period of course, and know that everything that's needed will be installed.

ehhh

Service Pack 1 won't exactly make Vista more desirable as an OS; but it is a psychological landmark that says "we worked most of the bugs out and we're finally done with it". Businesses may bite; but I'm not 100% convinced that Vista is better than XP quite yet.

This SP full of patches still probably won't prevent people from deleting their Recycle Bin [computerpe...ance.co.uk], end the UAC nazi tyranny [microsoft.com] and let admins do admin things with computers [west-wind.com]. Once MS figures-out a way to make Vista useful without all those annoyances and brick walls, then I may give it another look.

I know I'm going to -1 Flamebait hell for this; but if a Windows box has to be insecure in order to be useful, then so be it.

Re:ehhh

...if a Windows box has to be insecure in order to be useful, then so be it.

I have no modpoints (and I already posted in this thread), or you'd get your wish granted.

If any computer system, no matter what manufacturer, needs to be made insecure and/or instable to be useable, the system is broken and should get a serious redesign before being released onto the public. Simple as that.

It's not so much that Vista was insecure. More often than not, the user is the attack vector, not a security hole of the system. That won't change, no matter how tightly or troublesome you make the access controls. As long as there are users who can be tricked into clicking and installing, there is a security problem. As long as users don't understand why some "normal" software should NOT require administrator privileges to install (and if the system requires administrator privileges to install normal office software, see the paragraph above), and they simply click "allow" on even the most fundamentally obvious fishy request, there is no security.

As long as users are dumber than the computers they use, UAC is only a nuisance. Not a security feature.

A missed opportunity

I was looking forward to SP1 as a way of 'finishing' the obviously unfinished Vista... fixing issues of "old" dialogs mixed with new dialogs, inconsistent graphics, icons, and fonts, updating additional parts of the UI to the new look and feel, incorporation of all the new-look Vista controls into common dialogs and common controls, consistency improvements across the UI, etc.

Instead we get what is basically a "roll-up" of existing patches, along with a few "under the cover" performance and stability improvements. As welcome as those are, it isn't really "enough", imho, and this is a real lost opportunity for MS to drive acceptance of Vista, by actually completing it and polishing the UI and Usability of their flagship OS.

Performance and stability are not features?

Microsoft doesn't consider performance and stability to be features?

I guess they think that if the software behaves abnormally, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Therefore, when you introduce performance and stability, they aren't features.

That totally makes sense.

Skype goes into panic mode

Up to 15,000 people will get access to a beta of SP1 by the end of September

To which the developers at Skype are yelling "HOPEFULLY NOT ALL AT THE EXACT SAME TIME, ASSHATS!" :)

EULA

SP1 for Vista also comes with an update to the EULA. All you Vista users are going to read it, right?

Right?

It might require you to hand over your first born to Microsoft to get unlocked high-def video to work, so I suggest reading it.

Yes Vista was Released too soon....

An interesting nugget of info for you all, seeing as no-one has mentioned this yet....

The update will bring the Vista kernel to version 6.1 [winsupersite.com]. Why is this significant? It's the same kernel version that Windows Server 2008 will be. That means folks, that Microsoft, in effect have used Vista pre-SP1 as a test-bed for their Windows server platform. Servers crashing cause more panic than workstations, and take a guess slashdotters....which market-share are Microsoft champing at the bit for most? I'll give you a clue.....they already own the desktop.

The Vista strategy was "release and fix while in production" and in fairness, 6 months down the line, a lot has been fixed and Vista is shaping up to be a solid platform, but build numbers don't lie.

There, I said it.

There's another story on news.com

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Vista+service+pack+c oming+in+08/2100-1016_3-6204980.html [com.com]

The thing to note from this article is this quote:

"Vista SP1 will be a large download: Roughly 1GB, based on current test versions. By way of comparison, Windows XP--the whole thing--shipped on a CD, which only holds about three quarters of a gigabyte. Installing the OS upgrade will require 7GB of free hard drive space, though much of that will be returned to the user once the megapatch is applied, Microsoft said."

That conflicts with this statement from TFA:

"DeVaan: It's true that at first glance it will look like a lot is changing, and it's true that there are thousands of files being changed to varying degrees in Windows Vista SP1. However, the first measure of "size" most people will encounter will likely be the download of Windows Vista SP1 through Windows Update or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), which we predict will be about 50 MB. The second measure of size will be the free disk space requirement for installing Windows Vista SP1, which is currently around 7 GB for the beta, although we will be working to bring this down for the final version as we optimize the servicing algorithms used."

So... which is it?

Yay!

So that's when the Wow starts!

The sp should make things much better

Because the Vista SP1 simply uninstalls Vista and installs XP.

I wonder

If this is related to the news that Windows server has been delayed [informationweek.com] to get more production testing of the kernal?

Wooot!

Just one more SP 'til the system's ready for release status!

The positive side of Vista frustrations.

I tried Windows Vista. My hardware, while not brand spanking new, is quite reasonable - Athlon X2 3800+ (socket 939) - 4 GB RAM - NVidia 6800 series And Asus says my motherboard is Vista Compatible, but my excursion into Vista failed... Miserably. First, a number of my applications did not work, or they started working and then closed. Next, I started experiencing "driver" related crashes (All my drivers are MS approved). Then, I stopped being able to manage files on my computer (copying between two hard drives at 500K/s...) I updated, I patched, I swapped components, I became frustrated, and I installed Ubuntu. For the months I had Vista, I couldn't run most of the applications I *had* to have, so it made the switch MUCH easier. Since installing Ubuntu, my computer has not crashed a single time. Their are only two things that make me miss Windows - Visual Studio 2005 (my work), and Roboform. I can use other IDE's, but they aren't quite as nice as VS2005. I can use other password managers, but they aren't as functional as Roboform. I miss nothing else from windows. For those who miss the eye candy Vista may or may not offer, depending on how much of your soul you are willing to trade, try beryl.

Can't wait for performance patch

I *just* got a Thinkpad X60 Tablet 1.5Ghz Code Duo, and I sprung for the 10k RPM HD, 2GB RAM, yadda-yadda, and Vista Business.

Woe is me. My graphics score for Aero is a paltry 2.0. SimCity 4.0 playability is pathetic, with the game halting and often freezing.

I have no reason to think there is anything other than Vista to blame.

I haven't even dared to do anything "serious" with the machine for fear of further disappointment.

No compatibility improvements...

[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?

The reason

The only reason Microsoft brings out SP1 so 'early' is because too many people say: we'll wait till SP1. They really want you to buy Vista for which sales are way lower than expected, so they push up SP1 so they can sell more.

Vista SP1 Release Notes

New features that SP1 provide include:

-....
-....
-Now you can play MP3s and use the Internet at the SAME time
-....
-...