Nab Vista SP1 straight from the source... while it lasts
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 12th 2008 11:13AM
posted Feb 12th 2008 11:13AM
[Via Download Squad; read link is the disk image]
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i'm looking forward to SP3 for XP. vista lasted only a week on my system
I'm looking forward to the day when a Vista article can be posted without somebody mentioning XP/Vista/OSX nine seconds after it goes up.
Chebwa:
I think theres a very high chance of somebody mentioning Vista in a post about Vista. This isn't a "My Little Ponies" forum, this is Engadget. Here, we talk about tech. Sorry to burst your bubble.
CRAP! I meant Linux. Shutty.
PS: There should be a My Little Ponies forum.
Chebwa:
There is. But you need to use Linux to be a member :P
dude everyone is over the whole horay im l337 for using xp...
everyone uses vista now
its just you man, just you.
Well said Tom. You are not 1337 because you use an outdated OS. You are technologically illiterate because you can't figure out how to make the newer (and better) OS work.
The only truly useful thing being thrown into SP3 is the uphcleaner.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582
or, if you hate microsoft checking to see if your copy is genuine:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4dzedm0mjbn
@fuzi
A week is hardly enough time to evaluate a next version of an operating system. Talk about preconceived notions ...
"Everyone uses Vista."
Thanks for the laugh, man!
Only a handfull of people are running Vista as it's the biggest rubbish MS has released. Only people working at MS use Vista and these are the people that post here. Most people that bought Vista or bought a new PC already downgraded to XP. So its just you folks at MS that use Vista. No one else does.
Actually I upgraded to Vista and it's running fine. Any problems I've had have been quickly fixed by windows update and everything is running nicely
Of course, if you self esteem is based on hating, then none of this will really matter to you anyway.
Me as well. I did a crack on Vista and liked it so much I actually bought it, and have been running it happily ever since. Only seena few BlueScreens, but, like Mike said, thanks to Windows Update, I've been having NO bluescreens. And of course I torrented down SP1 and my wireless network problems went away in a snap. I always liked how Microsoft humors me with "It may take several hours to install" and it took less than 1.
FlashGet, I choose you!
http://tasteofink.blogg.se/images/funny_cat_pictures_343_1184269274.jpg
one of the greatest posts ever.
*comments
firsttt
Sweet Jesus that's sad.
I laughed out loud when I saw how far down this post was.
What is it with retards always trying to have the first post only to write the words "first" on there. Get a life, nobody cares if your first. And look at you - you look like a complete jackass 1/2 way down the page.
It was a joke, relax.
XD
A Comment from Downloadsquad (the link) says it's not a full install of SP1, it's a disc with setup files for 32 and 64bit Vistas.
No, it says it's not a full version of Vista with SP1, just the SP1 files, which should be obvious to that guy.
I had high hopes for Vista & was really excited to get my new computer w/ Premium. However, I have to confess that it *does* crash frequently & isn't really that much faster for day to day stuff (encoding movies blows my XP system away but that's processor speed, not OS I imagine).
I look forward to SP1 as I'm tired of pulling the plug to reboot 2 or 3 times per day.
Something's obviously wrong with your Vista install. Without SP1 my Vista runs solid without being rebooted for a week.
I'll second Donato. I can't remember the last time I rebooted my Vista laptop. I always use hibernation, so in my mind it's never a true "cold start" when I hit the power button. Any problems/bugs that were present during my last session should (theoretically) still be present since it's coming out of a hibernation and not a full on reboot.
Ditto. My computer is rock solid & way more stable than the same system ever was with XP.
You probably suffer from Bloat-ware. I have an own build desktop which has never given me issues. My laptop fell over all the time, but installing a fresh version of Vista, not those rubbish OEM restores, and leaving off all the crap that came with the laptop it is fine. I did install one Acer app, but had to remove it 2 days later because it kept making the system hang, but 3 weeks later without the app this hasn't happened once.
I would try getting a fresh OS, preferably x64 Business or Ultimate, and never put anything on it that you don't want or need especially if it is made by Acer.
Oh yeah and I forgot to mention this is the exact same laptop that had XP on it before. Trust me it runs faster with Vista even in games (once Nvidia sorted all their drivers out).
Sorry for your trouble, but yeah, I'd try re-installing sometime. I'm running Vista 64 bit, and it runs solid for over a month. This is faster than XP ever was, don't listen to all the FUD on the internet. Vista's a big improvement. But it is amazing how powerful the FUD machine is, isn't it? Sorry, your install is broken. 3 times a day rebooting sounds more like Windows ME (I shudder just typing the name), and vista is, in all reality, pretty damn good. I'll wait until SP1 is official 'cause mine runs ok right now..... and the link is down. :p
Thanks for all the replies. I'm not a MS hater (though I was upset that I couldn't run my wifi card as it didn't have drivers, but that's netgear's fault, not MS) so I'll consider what my options are. I hate to reformat so I'll probably live w/ it until March & then decide what to do.
i lol'd hard at one week uptime.
Here where i work, we have a BSD box that hasn't rebooted in 5 years.
My linux servers at home have been up for ... 2 hours shy of 74 days. I moved into this house 74 days ago.
Microsoft recommends rebooting servers every 30 days.
I reboot my XP workstation every day.
It's unacceptable that your operating system is so unstable. Stop adding things. Just stop. Be an operating system. Be fast. When i want functionality, i'll add an application.
Wow, so the Pro Microsoft Vote Squad (PMVS) is real... or someone has way too much time on their hands. (I'm going to vote the latter.)
It really perplexes me when people complain about things like, "Vista didn't last 12 minutes until my CPU exploded sending my case fan spiralling into my cat's face which caused it to throw up all over my MacBook!" I just have never had a problem with Vista. Running on a Dell Inspiron 9400.
That's one of the greatest things I've ever read.
These posts are so lame. Did you have a problem with XP?
this is not a full copy of vista + sp1. is a copy of sp1 in various languages.
I think it's down as of now. It was downloading at about 3 KB/s (took me back to dial-up days) with a time remaining of about 7 days. All of the sudden it stopped with a bad source error. Now I get a Service uUnavailable error. I'd say Microsoft wised up to the leak and pulled the plug.
Oh, I think I'll wait till the smoke clears (literally) from the early adoptees machines before rushing to get the SP1 before time...
Chances are pretty good that even so, SP1 won't be ready for primetime till the late summer anyway - at which point I may just do a full reinstall of the OS and then SP1 to avoid the inevitable crash and burns....
I hope SP1 will fix all the little things that bug me about vista, but I bet it won't, so I refuse to get my hopes up.
not bad spead! 120kb/s and rising.
Been running Vista on my HP laptop as well as on my 5 year old PC (with some upgrades), still have yet to have Vista crash on me. I don't see what the big deal is.
I just purchased a new laptop w/ Vista premium and i haven't had any issues. Granted, the whole "vista needs your permission to do yadda yadda" get's old but my bro @ the geek squad knows how to get rid of that trash lol.
We feel for you.
Control Panel -> User Accounts -> User Accounts -> Turn UAC on/off, choose off and reboot and all that damn crappiness is gone!
i didnt know how to get rid of that at first, so i sat on the computer talking to microsoft, for 20 minutes trying to convince them to tell me how to do that. and after they finally told me, i had to deal with 5 or 6 follow-up phone calls later. i appreciate the effort, but thats more like a stalker ex you cant get rid of.
You can easily turn that off in Control Panel.
You can easily turn that off in Control Panel.
This is one of the biggest reasons that Vista (or any product for that matter) gets a bad name.
It appears that you are unaware that you can turn that feature off. So you take the time to announce how awful it is that it asks you every time.
Then everyone else that doesn't know how to turn the feature off agrees and goes on to announce how awful it is.
Pretty soon, all you hear is how bad it is, when all you had to do in the first place is do a little research.
I do not have any problems with Vista which I use on four computers at home. I also have not had any problems with OS X which is on one.
I just sit quietly and read all these posts about how bad something is and shake my head feeling like I am in the silent majority. Obviously, I may be wrong, but.....
umm.. "problem loading page"
i think engadget broke the intarwebs
Only Digg has the power to do that.
Only Digg? You must be new to the Internet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdotted
this is not a full copy of vista + sp1. is a copy of sp1 in various languages.
"Service Unavailable"
Question is, is the server overloaded, or was the file removed?
server overloaded, when downloading with downthemall it shows 'server error'
but you can still get to the download screen if you keep a clickin
Ok, this may sound to some as threadcrap, but is it possible that Vista is the transitioning product for Windows 7? Sure, every product is the transitioning for the following version. I got that. But, XP has been with us for quite a long time now and has lasted longer than Windows 98. So, considering that there's already talk about the new Windows version, I can't help to wonder. And, although Vista is pretty to look at, I just can't get myself to use it. I have 3 new PCs that came with Vista, and I removed it and installed XP on them instead. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that are having fun with Vista. But, I don't have time to experiment right now. So, I'm sticking with XP. Also, every time I think of Vista, I start thinking about Windows ME. It's one of those questions they ask you "I'd tell you a word, and you tell me what's the first thing that comes to your mind." Trigger word "Windows Vista", result "Windows ME."
i get where your coming from but ME wasnt pretty
ME didnt come with ( however bad ) windows media center
or much simpler internet connection sharing
or DX10
i know there are similarities but ME had NO improvements on 98 and we bagged 98 for being worse than 95...
make's you wonder
anyway, dont get too comfortable with the taskbar because windows 7 is planned to have a 'pie' menu
hate to be a fanboy but my god does microsoft play second fiddle to apple or what?!
That's because you haven't actually used Vista. I'm running Vista, clean install, not crap that came with my system, and my computer (homebuilt) is running better than it did with XP. So no, it isn't like ME, because ME could hardly even boot without a BSOD. You just need to uninstall that crapware that came installed, and then try to get used to it. "Experiment?" You do realize that it looks a lot like XP for a reason, right? So you don't need to experiment with it too much to get used to it. Just type in what you're looking for in the start menu. Works for everything once your disks are all indexed (leave it on overnight on time), and it's instant, easy to use and fast. Man, people love to complain. I don't get it.
my problems with vista are not stability .. i've had two copies of paid premium vista on two computers in my house .. one in the living room on the tv for media center duty and one as my work horse. Its funny they are basically the same. installed at the same time . one is an AMD machine one is an Intel. They both behave so differently it is amazing. i can have problem running a file on one machine go the other and it works fine. Wireless on one works flawlessly on the other quite shitty (this might be a hardware issue or driver). One machine when i plug anything into the USB it tries to find drivers and can't (for things like usb drives etc) the other they work fine. vista has potential but at times i wish i didnt waste the energy and money. I am a geek by nature but i'm old enough to know i need to focus on career and life and can't afford the time tinkering with OSes and such .. kinda sucks i've been waiting for the vista sp1 for about 4 months now ..hoping that a lot of issue go away ... we'll see i guess!
-sun
I had problems like that early on with my laptop. They were all solved with updated drivers. The worst was how often my Dell wireless N card didn't want to connect to my router. I found the newest Broadcom reference driver (since Dell took too long to update) and it works great now. All video problems were solved by switching to the Nvidia Reference drivers. Drivers are probably the reason your one vista machine runs great and the other doesn't. I agree your time shouldn't be wasted updating all this stuff, but the blame for your wasted time and aggravation needs to go to the hardware developers.
How do you explain the OS lookiing for drivers for a USB drive or a memory card? There are no drivers to be installed but the OS looks for them and won't load (some of them .. its not even consistent). While the same device on other machines XP and Vista load correctly without problem.
Not trying to be a jerk, please don't take it that way. I am just saying that Vista does have issues (in my case i guess) and i'm pretty well versed on computers in general (not just an average consumer). In any event. i'm learned to live with some things as again the time to work these issues out is too great. I remember having a week of MS phone calls with great representatives but not being able to solve the issue. I finally gave up.
A side note though: i have to say MS service reps are top notch in their efforts to resolve the issues. They basically scheduled calls every morning at my available time and even after I decided to drop the issue they called a few times to ask if I had resolved the issues etc. I dont think MS is a bad company by culture. I think the nature of the product is a difficult one to get a handle on.
-sun
put me down for never having 1 issue with vista on dell dimension e510 and also xps m1710. I even upgraded video cards, memory, all usb ports recognized on first boot, also treo 750 works great with mobile device center.
I need my machine to do my job and it's running Vista 64. I'm not gonna touch this thing until it's been GA for at least 2 months.
I don't hate Vista, but after the newness wore off, and using it for 11 months I find myself longing for XP. The added "good" in Vista does not outweigh the added "bad". Vista doesn't do anything for me that XP didn't do, except do it slower and make me look in a different place for the same thing. Not a basher, just my personal experience. I contemplate the billions of dollars Microsoft spent developing Vista and I can only conclude that the developers know what they are doing, but the product management team needs to be fired to the last individual.
That's one of the greatest things I've ever read.
I installed SP1 yesterday. Got it directly from Microsoft through the company I work for.
So far i see no difference or improvement with SP1 installed. Vista feels the same.
The option is right under control panel > User accounts > you disable UAC. I'm at work so I'm away from my Vista machine right now, but I'm pretty sure that's where the option is to turn it off. Remember though it's a great thing to leave on for people who are prone to spyware and trojans. So considering Microsoft makes it so easy to turn it off I don't know why so many reviewers faulted Microsoft for this option.
Somebody give me a good reason to switch to Vista, please. And just in case let me immediately shoot down the following:
Interface - yeah right!
DirectX 10 - eh, it'll be at least another year or so before we start seeing games that do DX10 properly
Security - don't make me laugh.
Revamped interface - see above.
4+GB of RAM - that's the only thing that comes even close to being a good reason but I'm not gonna upgrade just for that.
Is there anything I missed.
Please note that I'm not saying Vista sucks, I'm just saying I see no reason to upgrade.
Everyone should upgrade, it's a brand new kernel.
How bad is it on an operating system when you have to replace the kernel to make it work better.
SP1 should of been called:
Vista 2.0 Home Basic
Vista 2.0 Home Premium
Vista 2.0 Business
Vista 2.0 Ultimate
Vista 2.0 Enterprise
Vista 2.0 Downgrade
Vista 2.0 No Refund
Vista 2.0 The Version You Wish You Never Had But Were Afraid To Keep XP
While I agree with you on most of your points, I don't on the security issue. I have to say Vista has been the one OS that I haven't had to fix any spyware/trojan problems for. I'm talking about computers that are used by people that would contract viruses and trojans left and right too. Of course your advanced user like you and I probably had little problems on our XP installs.
4+ gb of ram is a matter of 32bit or 64bit OS not Vista or XP. So obviously you must have missed that you could have gotten 4gb+ of ram out of XP with the 64bit version.
I actually prefer the interface on Vista, but again that's a preference. I have noticed thought that many people that didn't use XP much actually like Vista's interface more, especially if they have to use XP's interface afterwards.
So since you're debunking alot of the features that people actually find as an upgrade I'll just mention stability and you'll probably end up laughing.
1 very good reason to upgrade to Vista
Vista Media center is very cool, is free with Home Premium, or Ultimate. With the prevelance of HDTVs, and XBox360s acting as Media Center Extenders, it suddenly becomes a very viable and graceful way for folks to access their computer based media in the living room. Combine that with the fact that MS has licensed Media Extender tech for Consumer Electronics manufacturers to integrate into Audio/Video Equipment (it is already working its way into the market with the HP MediaSmart LCD TVs) and pretty soon it will be a very common way to watch media. Of course it all depends on having Vista :)
Of course if media aint your thing, or if you don't care if it is super user friendly (a must for me as my Wife would not tolerate it, if it wasn't) then there are other options that don't require Vista.
I'm sorry, all I saw there was
Interface - vista sucks
DirectX 10 - vista sucks
Security - vista sucks
Revamped interface - vista sucks
4+GB of RAM - vista sucks
joking aside, how about these reasons
readyboot
64-bit
better hibernation/sleep mode & better tablet features (I could never go back to an XP tablet after my X60t)
photo gallery
individual program volume controls
& the little things (basically revamping the start menu making it that much faster and more convenient to run a program/search.
and that's just off the top of my head. PS I'm not the biggest fan of vista; it has wrecked my home PC into a sloth because its not dual core (for all those crappy security processes) and Vista has some serious compatibility issues. One of my biggest gripes is that my Audigy 2 ZS live drive doesn't work anymore, but maybe I could fix it if I had the time (any of you guys know a solution? dont be a wise guy and say 'upgrade' to xp..).
But, then again, everyone's been saying Microsoft made serious errors before with the way they went around things and just had to start fresh like apple did. So with Microsoft, why is it always ****ed if u do ****ed if u dont?
ok thanks for freaking me the fuck out that something on your site just popped a dialog up asking me to download an image file
People actually use Vista?
People actually read your comment? :P Just messin' :)
Its funny how many people blame Vista for their inability to learn a new OS, and it really isn't that different from XP in the first place.
Vista has been reasonably good for me so far, It's generally drivers that are the problem especially display drivers, Nvidia fixed theirs just after I bought an ATI card, sadly they have been even worse, Although you can buy reasonably new AGP cards ATI no longer seems to support them in Vista properly.
All in all Vista has been much more stable than XP, Media center has been running all my music, dvds and TV for a year with very few problems.
Remember people if you don't really understand technical problems don't start passing uninformed judgements on stuff.
I work as a home IT engineer and SUNZ your problems are obviously hardware/driver problems OTHERWISE BOTH SYSTEMS WOULD SHOW THE SAME FAULT ! (was that hard ?)
Where the hell are all the geeks ?
Is engadget now completely populated by uninformed luddites passing their lack of wisdom on to the wider world ?
Oh, thank God nobody's started a dogfight... I don't think I could stand to watch another bout of Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux vs. whatever unfold. Thanks for being mature citizens, y'all! :)
Eww, it's going at 19kb/s. Why hasn't M$ used bt?
By now I though everybody knew it's the FASTEST and most efficient way of delivering large amounts of data to a large number of downloaders.
Waiting for the full release befor I bother with this. Will be going 64bit for the first time. Yay!
I installed SP1 and havent noticed one difference.
Errrrng, wrong a answer. This is not SP1 clean install. This is an image that has multiple languages, and x64 and x86, sorry, thanks for playing.
Ahhhh! Why does everyone turn off UAC? User Account Control is great. Yeah okay so you have to hear a little "beep-beep" sound and hit a few buttons whenever you're doing something that wants Administrative rights, but come on now. If you're not installing, uninstalling, or playing hopscotch with your system files, how often is that going to bother you? Meanwhile, your system is more secure. UAC FTW.
I use XP simply because Vista leaves me unimpressed. The feature-versus-footprint tradeoff doesn't do it for me. Vista SP1 is a nice step, but test it out first--it's probably going to break everything, just like XP SP1 did. Remember your history. ^_^
UAC is actually good if every apps available doesn't use their own folder to write data/settings and use global registry key to write settings
Thanks for the discussion: some of my issues as i state shouldn't be a driver issue at all since the devices dont require anything more than generic windows drivers.
Alas, i do apologize for insulting your sensibilites and for being a luddite.. (umm as i noted i am using the OS so not sure how exactly i'm opposed to change).
I hope that you as an IT person learn a little bit about dealing with people (online or in person). Not everyone knows what you know and trust me there are people who know things you have no clue about. Humility still remains a very valuable trait for successful professionals.
Regards.
"Service Unavailable" ?
Does the link still work?
Vista users are so desperate for stability that they're turning to torrent for an upgrade?
Wow. I'll stick with XP on my second partition, thanks.
When this upgrade drops for real, please let us know if Vista is worth buying THEN, because I'm certainly not dropping the cheddar on it as it is now.
*sigh*
Just because it's an article about Vista, doesn't mean you should be preaching the word of Mac/XP/Linux.
no thanks.......
I'll wait for windows update.......
Haven't disabled UAC here, but have turned off the nags - at least, that's the premise behind the freeware TweakUAC, which I use.
It keeps the 'sandbox' in IE 7 active (as if I use that) and otherwise assumes that I, as primary user, know I am about to open a new download, a previously installed program or any number of Vista-installed maintenance programs.
If wanted a nag each time I try to install something, I'd be running Mac.
OK, remember when people came to you with a Windows ME install and the first thing you said was "the problem is not the machine its the OS need to go back to Win 98".....so is it just me or is it Deja Vu all over again?
Error 403 Forbidden @ 5:45pm CST
403 Forbidden here too
Service Unavailable for me --> 5:40 PST
I too had and got rid of Vista pretty quickly and went back to XP. This may sound stupid to most people, but the main reason is the lack of password-protected identities in Outlook Exchange (Windows Mail). To me, this is a must and I also haven't found any mail client that does this.
I got tired of bashing Vista for more than two years now and decided to give it another try when I got my Asus G1S notebook with Vista pre-installed.
After all the updates where done (and bundled bloatware removed), I installed my usual stuff (productivity and leisure programs) and now with SP1, all I can say is that Vista SP1 is a really nice and stable product.
I can really now say that Microsoft have fixed whatever was wrong with the first incarnation of Vista.
I even went ahead and installed a spare hard disk on my Notebook and installed Windows XP and performed some benchmark comparisons (including 3DMark06) and Vista blew XP out of the water.
Of course you will have problems with old computers if you try to upgrade them to Vista SP1, but if you own a new computer with at least 2gb of ram, I'm sure you'll be more than satisfied with the Vista experience.