Microsoft starts rolling out Vista Service Pack1

According to a blog by Mike Nash from the Windows Product Management group at Microsoft, the company has released Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista to manufacturing (RTM) for our first set of languages (English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese).

Nash said in his blog that Service Pack 1 addresses many of the key issues that customers have identified with Windows Vista over the last year, both directly and through programs like the Customer Experience Improvement Program.

“With Service Pack 1, we have made great progress in performance, reliability and compatibility. One of the great things about my job is that I get to play with the latest builds of our products - I've personally been running Windows Vista SP1 pretty exclusively for a few months and I've noticed that my systems run faster and more reliably than they did with the "Gold" release of Windows Vista,” he stated.

According to Nash, there were many customers who had great experiences of Vista. However, there were some that had trouble finding applications that worked well on Windows Vista and others encountered problems identifying the right device drivers for certain hardware when it was first launched last year.

The reason for these issues is that in order to improve the reliability and security of Windows Vista, important architectural changes were made to the system. While this caused complications in the short term, in the long term these investments will improve both the reliability and security of the customer experience, said Nash.

“Service Pack 1 brings new improvements that are based on feedback we heard from our customers. The information we collect thanks to tools like the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Online Crash Analysis, and Windows Error Reporting help us learn about where and when customers are having issues with Windows Vista and the applications that run on it.

"Since these issues have a direct impact on our customers' experiences, we've invested time and energy to make this better. While Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is an important milestone, we will continue to invest in the continuous improvement process,” explained Nash.

Here's the timing for SP1 availability for current Windows Vista users: in mid-March Microsot will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download centre on microsoft.com. Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1.

"In mid-April, we will begin delivering Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista customers who have chosen to have updates downloaded automatically. The remaining languages will RTM in April," said Nash.

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