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Microsoft has finally dropped SP1 on the masses. SP1 rolls together 23 security updates and 550 hotfixes into a 434.5MB download (726.5MB for the 64-bit version). Apart from improvements brought by individual updates that are now part of SP1, changes that SP1 brings by itself to Microsoft's flagship OS are numerousVista SP1 hit the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone in early February, but the good news was quickly buried. Microsoft disclosed an unexpected delay, saying that the company needed to work with certain hardware manufacturers to bring their problematic device drivers up to speed. Microsoft has said that SP1 will not become available for PCs with hardware or peripherals that have these drivers until they are updatedSignificant changes include: * File copying should no longer have an ETA of hundreds of years * UAC has been altered slightly, including fewer prompts in specific scenarios * DirectX has been updated to support not only DirectX 9 and 10 hardware, but the backwards-compatible 10.1 as well * WGA has been tweaked to address two of the most popular exploits *Further support has been added for third party search solutions Currently, the service pack is only available to users running English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish versions of Windows Vista, or Ultimate users that have only these language packs installed. Both x86 and x64 flavors are available via Windows Update (~65 MB) or from the Microsoft Download Center (434 MB). If they haven't already, Vista users need to first install three prerequisite updates before installing SP1, which makes Microsoft's latest client OS more aligned with its server offering.
Windows Vista customers have been complaining about problems with installing Microsoft’s first service pack for the unloved operating system.SP1 was made available as a manual download on the Windows Update site earlier this week, although the company also admitted that there were a staggering number of reasons why many users people won’t get their mitts on it until an unspecified date next month.In the meantime, Vista Ultimate customers with the language packs in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese are among the privileged few who can download the service pack today.But going by some angry posts on the official Vista team blog, as well as elsewhere on the interweb, plenty of frustrated customers are wrangling with the manual version of the service pack.One poster regretted installing SP1 after spotting its availability on the WU site. “In retrospect, not my finest decision,” said SeppDietrich. “What a disaster! It exiled all of my Nvidia drivers to the Bermuda Triangle... they're simply all GONE.”Microsoft has acknowledged that the service pack will not install on computers that use “incompatible” peripheral device drivers from the likes of Realtek and Intel. However, there’s no mention of known problems with Nvidia drivers on Microsoft’s rather long list.After failing to successfully install the service pack on his new PC because of the driver problems listed by the software giant, AkaJohnDoe concluded that: “I understand Microsoft's position on this issue, and have been a proponent of Vista for some time now.“However, from this day forth, Vista is functionally stabilized on my PC. There will be no further updates. My next OS will not be Windows.”Other complaints about the service pack included sluggish response times, random crashes, and one from a puzzled Aussie who was told his language wasn’t supported for his Vista Ultimate-loaded PC.
