Microsoft beams out Vista SP1 to beta testers

Right on cue, Microsoft has made available the (long-awaited) Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista to a private group of beta testers. One lucky user actually goes on to describe the update and note a number of positive changes, some of which include a much snappier logon experience, a new option in the Disk Defragmenter "allowing you to choose which volumes you would like to defragment," improvements in responsiveness when resuming from Hibernation / Sleep modes, and interestingly enough, slightly improved battery life on a tested laptop. Furthermore, "select members of the community" are also getting to give five new "reliability packages" a whirl, which are all slated to be available to the public before SP1 is released en masse. Be sure and hit the read link for the full rundown.

[Thanks, Dhanik M.]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 24th 2007 11:07PM]

so let me get this straight, you want people to stop bashing on vista, because M$ releases it before it works... ok sorry works sometimes would be a better fit, and at the same time let you bash on non m$ OSs? wtf??!?!
btw while your at it, explain what makes vista such a great choice, please? I mean is it the fact they added a circular shape for the start button? maybe its the way you can see a thumbnail of your windows, just like thumbnails some of the search engines have had for years... maybe its the ability to to see all of your windows lined up in a row? meh prefer the cube style myself... or just maybe you love it for its price? well no couldnt be any of those reasons flavours of linux beat it in all those minor points, must really be the fact that manufactureres write drivers for m$ due to there business model being able to shove itself onto i dont know what percentage of computers before they leave a manufacturing site.....


well for whatever reason i really dont get how you can find it to be so great...

^^that was my oppinion i think maybe? eh maybe not no one will ever know, including myself...

[Bender Bending Rodriguez Posted Sep 25th 2007 5:35AM]

"vista is currently the best choice for the consumer who can afford modern hardware. (dual core/ 2gb ram)"

If you can afford modern HW then a Mac is your best choice. It's even cheaper than the comparable Vista Ultimate version because you aren't paying out your ass for the OS. Now if you are a gamer, a Mac probably isn't for you unless you play WoW but then you would still be using XP for gaming anyway.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 24th 2007 10:33PM]

Vista Schmista.

Mac OS X 10.4 & XP SP2 combination for the win. I can do _everything_ a Vista user can, and a whole lot more :)

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 24th 2007 10:57PM]

what more can you do, exactly? do tell.

ive never understood these claims. other than linux, which is beyond my comprehension, and i feel no need to understand it, all OSes are basically the same. sure, vista/osx may be prettier, but they both serve the same purpose.

now the software you run can be different, but rarely will the OS make much difference.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 24th 2007 11:01PM]

What about us that gave up on Vista after months of use?

Any word on when XP Service Pack 3 will be released and what will be included in it? Perhaps DirectX 10?

Nevermind, that would completely give us a reason to totally ditch Vista and stick with XP...

[nizzy1115 Posted Sep 24th 2007 11:15PM]

will this fix us who have laptops and when a usb device is disconnected before, during, or after going from ac to battery, that it will never be recognized again next time it is plugged in until a reboot?

[Acqua206 Posted Sep 25th 2007 2:11AM]

I hope they fix the wifi issue. Reliability is horrible, I have to hard reboot my system about 3x a day because my browser won't connect. Interestingly enough, Azureus will still work while the browser won't. I'm at my wits end with vista.

[8steve8 Posted Sep 25th 2007 4:40AM]

why does every single windows related post get polluted with some sorta crazy OS-WArS comment blitz.

u ever wanna have the option of runnning the latest game or best graphics tools avialable. then you have 1, maybe 2 options... vista and (depending on teh game) mac.


and yes linux does have performance issues on the desktop... there i said it again..

yes linux and freebsd can be great server and low end pc... but for a modern interactive desktop linux still is well behind vista. (if your pc has the horsepower)
... on the other hand if you are stuck on a single core with less than a gig of ram... and you don't mind spending loads of time getting stuff like webcam chat working, or if you simply will stick to a fixed usage spectrum, (web-browsing, printing, solitare, watching non-drm movies, non-apple mp3 player) then linux is nice and can run on low-end hardware.


linux is a nice hobby os and thats great. it doesn't compete with freebsd or vista in responsiveness, and photoshop, bioshock, starcraft2 (soon),... well theres realy not much competitiong...

we would all like there to be competition, but it's realy not there yet.

[Andir Posted Sep 25th 2007 6:39AM]

Again, Linux runs just fine on my Core2Duo 6600 with 4G of RAM and 1.2TB of RAID 5 storage on my Areca RAID controller. Even better than Windows. I've compared copy speeds, multiple movies running at the same time, window switching, and everything else I can think of. Where is this lie cropping up about high end hardware performance and Linux? How does it make sense that something that will run on super old hardware mean that it performs horrible on new hardware? That's dumb.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2007 7:04AM]

not bad. it's finally comes.
actually i am quite interested in windows 7

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2007 8:29AM]

I don't know why we even need a service pack, Vista is perfection. It is sheer computing ecstasy. Every time I use it, it is akin to meeting Jesus. I actually get high as soon as the screen wakes from sleep. It is like not working at all. I am building a shrine dedicated to the brilliance & beauty that is Steve Balmer. I am not gay, but I would sleep with that man. The OS is so perfect, whne it starts, sometimes I think that it is the rapture. I have never been aroused by an OS before, but Vista has replaced Jenna Jameson in the dirty, dirty banks of my mind. It is like nothing ever before! It is as if Steve Balmer & Bill Gates had built a time machine, and went hundreds of years into the future to see what makes computers great, and then brought it all back to us in the present as a flawless, perfect product that we just don't even deserve as a species. My next child WILL be named Vista, and will Take my son's Lonhorn, place in my heart. (Longhorn & his sister Bob have been put up for adoption) One feature that is awe inspiring is the one that people here mistake for 'hanging' or 'freezing'
No, it isn't hanging or freezing, that happened because that is the time when you are to reflect in all the greatness you are witnessing. You'll be so much more relaxed & happy whne the 'meditation time' kicks on, and you actually meditate. Try it, you'll feel so enlightened, so privy to a special power, so special.
In that time, you should also be asking the higher power that is Microsoft to help to renounce evils such as Apple and Linux. You will see the way my friends, but I hope for you that it is not to late, the apocalypse is very near, and when the Vista rapture comes, you heathens & non believers will be
condemned to eternity with your inferior OSes on what will become a hell on earth.
Repent now, and accept Vista as your lord & savior.

[Andir Posted Sep 25th 2007 8:31AM]

Bravo!

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 18th 2007 11:43AM]

I don't know if you noticed, but your caps lock key seems to be stuck. However your inability to accept capitalization visual cues is dwarfed by your total lack of tact or ability to post a constructive comment.

After looking through just a handful of your posts they all tend to follow the same path of useless yammer or blatant trolling. While you may believe Engadget is biased, they provide us with information whereas you and your fanboi, trolling, rude and unsupportive posts are just plain unwelcome.

As for the previous comment, there are a lot of flaws in Vista and in the new laptop I purchased I rolled it back to XP till the SP1 comes out. At that point I'll give it another trial and see where it goes... I don't completely write off Vista yet, because even XP wasn't that good until SP2, 2000 definitely wasn't amazing at its first service pack, so this product may take time too.

Also, rolling a computer back to XP from Vista, I'm fairly certain costs a lot less money than buying a Macbook Pro. Although I do appreciate what a Mac can do for me, I don't think that my discontent with an operating system warrants the investment into an entire platform and hardware shift only to end up loading the operating system I didn't like in the first place to play a game.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2007 7:07PM]

What's wrong with Microsoft? A free service pack?!! I much prefer buying incremental improvements to my OS. It's even better if the dot release has a new name. Maybe, Horizon. I'd be willing to dish out $129 if they'd just rename it.

Screw it, I'm going out and buying a mac and paying an unlocking fee so that I can use 802.11n

[drkschmoog Posted Oct 19th 2007 8:45PM]

If you're thinking about trying SP1 beta, avoid it at all costs. Just wait until it comes out.
I read numerous comments of people having problems. Seeing as my install of Windows was quite fresh, I thought I'd be okay, and downloaded the update to try it out.

Everything was okay up until the point where it sits on the screen patching files (it patches 73889 files, and displays the progress on screen). Until eventually it stopped at 72609/72889 displaying
" !! 0xc0000034 !! ".
Windows didn't boot again...