Graphic source: Odd-Magne Kristoffersen.
Microsoft Corp. confirmed reports that the first service pack for Windows Vista will be out sometime in the first quarter next year.
The first major update to Vista will contain a number of tweaks to speed up the operating system and fix nagging reliability problems, according to David Zipkin, a senior product manager for Windows Vista.
The SP1 beta will be released by the end of September, though it will be limited to no more than 15,000 Microsoft partners and customers. Another beta or release candidate will be distributed to a larger pool of testers before SP1's final release, which is slated for sometime before March 31.
Beta copies of SP1 have already leaked to pirate sites.
The Microsoft message here is to wait for Vista if you haven't implemented it yet; and, XP is still viable because Microsoft will update a Version 3 of XP at the same time.
SP1 will include 19 major changes. Among the most important is to downplay what many find annoying, the User Account Control (UAC) security feature, to be less intrusive. Copying and unzipping files in Vista should be much faster as should the ability of Vista PCs to wake up from standby or hibernate modes. The Bitlocker drive encryption, which formerly could only encrypt the C: drive, can now be used to encrypt other partitions and hard drives.
As for XP SP3, the main new feature is Network Access Protection (NAP), now available only in Vista. NAP reports the security status of a PC to a Windows Server, which can quarantine the PC and block any network traffic to and from the computer if it appears compromised.
SP1 will come in the form of a 50MB .exe file.
This is a mid-level update, not too adventurous, not unnecessary.
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