Windows Vista SP2 is live, ready to download
By Thomas Ricker 
posted May 26th 2009 7:21AM
posted May 26th 2009 7:21AM
Face it: in between waiting for Windows 7 to launch and tweaking the XP build on your newly purchased netbook, there's this little thing called Windows Vista that needs to be maintained. Today, Microsoft did its part and released the standalone installers for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Service Pack 2 for Vista and Server 2008. Now it's all up to you. Hit the read links to patch the Wow with a little SP2 Meh.[Thanks, Justin W.]
Read -- 32-bit
Read -- 64-bit
Didn't see that one coming. At least not so soon.
Same here.
Anybody seeing performance boosts?
YES !
For people who is wondering what does it add (i'll list what matters to me)
Your wireless Signal wont be super slow after you wake up your laptop from "sleep mode" "i noticed it and always had to restart"
native Blu ray data Disc burn built in windows
New wireless option in control panel that let you connect to wireless networks faster and easier "Windows connect now"
New Bluettoth standard support
Windows Search Engine 4 (Much faster search for files within windows)
Your sidebar gadgets Wont eat ram/cpu like crazy (Now its fixed)
Boost your battery life by about 10% with better power management system
ExFAT format support for HDS
Better Error handling
And overall OS performance boost and better security of course
I did, been using it since the first part of the month. Technet FTW!
Most have only really noticed that the machine shuts down a lot faster in SP2 versus SP1. Other then that, nothing really worth writing home about other then the new features that you may or may not make use of.
Downloading, hope i see an improvement, not that vista is bad, yeah you heard me, vista is pretty good!
Thanks for that Dr House :) very simple.
I already have windows vista SP3 (windows 7). ;)
And I thought that Windows 7 was actually Vista Service Pack 2. I guess Windows 7 has now become Vista Service Pack 3.
The people that are currently using Vista are saying it's so good that I can't imagine why it needs a service pack at all. Well, I guess those users who shelled out good money for Vista ought to get something in return. They probably won't notice any difference, but it's always nice to get some sort of upgrade no matter how useless it is.
Wow, Engadget completely forgot to mention the updates (thanks DR House) and the fact that it requires SP1.
The SP1 requirement is a deal-breaker for me since it failed to install after 3 tries (two by standalone and one my Windows Updates) and almost a whole day added together. Good thing I only use Windows for games now.
I am happy about this update.
Although, it takes a lot more than one update to make an entire operating system not suck.
from a network perspective this update is glorious. I've never seen such speed on torrents now. Thanks for lifting the 10 tcp connection limit...it was stupid.
I've also noticed that just browsing my LAN is faster than before. They really reworked the networking guts.
They are still trying to get us to buy Vista and THEN want us to upgrade to 7. I am starting to get very disturbed by Microsoft's options on what it can allow the OS to run if it wants to.
This is why my main machine is my 8gb 64bit Linux Distro still.
Not feeling windows for the 'safety thing 'right now.
Still, 7 will run some nice games and photoshop can be faster.
LOL @ WOW SP2 MEH
Yeah, it's rich considering that Engadget can't even get the comments section of their site working.
@jakem
Hah... I wouldn't mind Engadget SP1.
I'd be happy for it to just come out of this extended beta. Let's wait and see what bugs we can find in version 1.0 before we call for a service pack.
I been testing Engadget SP1 for about a month now. Not good!...my mother's email started getting my comment confirmation.
Hopefully this fixes the CRAP Zone Alarm Extreme (64bit) Shutdown bug! Or Zone Alarm (a.k.a Check Point) could, you know, FIX IT!!
PS Disable ZAE on startup, Vista x64 shuts down fine. If ZAE is running, good luck with that 20min, then blue screen power driver error shutdown!
SWEET!! Downloading now!
Now installing. Super fast download!
Holy shit! Keep us updated!
Has the download finished?!
Dude update us faster!
:)
What are you wearing while you are doing this?
@BobTurbo
Probably a WoW t-shirt and a beard.
The last 4 replies ftw.
Have you started installing it yet?!?!
Even though the download was very fast, the install process must be taking too long. Perhaps his PC is not starting?
I just installed 32bit on my desktop and it BSOD'd during the install. I restarted and now it BSOD's when I start up. I would recomend not to install yet untill some of the install bugs are worked out.
I suppose it must have cause blueangel00100's pc to transform and kill him, otherwise we would've definitely heard from him.
Vista kills again... :'(
Meh, On Windows 7 RC ATM....
Same here, but I still don't see what the big deal is, or why people make such a fuss over Vista. They've both run equally as efficiently for me.
lucky you,
the rest of us are still having trouble with it.
Haha, you don't have a PSP!
ya, me too; I got the RC this weekend, updated from XP and never looked back. Vista? what's that...
@ superhobo
So why dont you you blame Sony's inability to write a proper driver for Vista?
Do ppl blame Apple when peripherals dont work? hell no - but when a Vista driver was badly written by... say... "creative" (soundblaster).... it's an all about feasting about how horrible vista is.
ppl buy the cheapest computers with crap hardware and no-name components and blame microsoft because the drivers (written by hardware/software company) suck balls.
Im getting tired of people's ignorance regarding this issue.......
Phenoum hit the nail on the head. As a long-time Linux user, I hear the same crap all the time. Linux doesn't suck for lacking some drivers (though shockingly few these days). Hardware manufacturers suck for feeding the OS duopoly with their drivers. Hell, there are thousands of people ready to write drivers for free if hardware makers would simply provide specs, but that's another story.
Other than that, I never had any real issues with Vista, even though the laptop that I had running it only had 1gig of ram (though Ubuntu and Fedora both ran way better...not that I'm biased).
I get tired of people not reading and just going straight to personal attacks.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the PSP comment referred to the poster's name PS360WiiDsPCGamer with the fact that they do not have a PSP. So quick to judge! How's the weather up there on your high horse?
heh - totally missed that one - but my comment still stands on a broader scale. Nothing personal about it.
What
Does
PSP
have to do
with
Vista
.
.
.
?
I would both love and hate to see Microsoft create computers the way Apple does by making both the hardware (though Apple doesn't actually MAKE it) and the software.
If Microsoft can create an OS as stable as it is with all these hardware manufacturers writing crappy drivers and making cheap hardware for it, they obviously are good at what they do. I would like to see Apple create an OS that can do the same, they would fail instantly. Hell they can't even always get their own to work right.
However, I would never want to see Microsoft start doing business this way. It's way too much of a monopoly. I prefer my freedom of choice, I just wish everybody knew how to perform simple tasks to keep their computers running well and not just go OOHHH CLICKY CLICKTY CLICK CLICK CLICK on every freaking link on the Internet and then complain that Windows and Microsoft suck.
Big deal.
Changelog?
Vista + SP2 = ... Windows 6.4?
I've had SP2 running for a while (a few pre-release builds and then the RTM) and all of them have caused me to have issues with Media Center. I finally said screw it and uninstalled. I couldn't tell any improvements over SP1, only things broken. That's not to say it's a bad SP, just for my setup, it wasn't worth it.
I've been running the RTM SP2 on my HTPC for the last month and haven't had any problems. If anything it's made the whole thing a bit snappier.
Got WMC issues too, it intermittently just stops responding. Is yours the same? Please let me know if and how you fixed it.
Googling this problem only comes up with your comment.
I got a case open with MS right now but getting nowhere so I'd appreciate you letting me know.
@Chris3567367: Unfortunately, the only resolution I've had is to uninstall SP2. As soon as I did, the problem was fixed. I know it's not just a bad install I have, because I was running SP1, upgraded to the SP2 RC (which had the same issues as RTM). I reformatted my machine at one point and had SP1 running again. This time, I waited 'til RTM to upgrade to SP2, which, as posted earlier, caused issues for me. I said screw it, I'd rather have Media Center working than have SP2, so I uninstalled and decided I'll wait until Windows 7 comes out this Fall.
people who have installed this, can you please give a feedback about system optimization compared to sp1? how about superfetch?
Currently using Windows 7 on my notebook because vista was a headache using it on this.. not as smooth as Windows 7. and my manufacturer doesnt support operating systems before vista for this device. Unfortunately...
hope to read comments here about the specs or maybe fresh installs with vista sp2
Be a real Windows users and find drivers from places other than your manufacturer's website.
ARRRR
I already installed XP on it once or twice.. even slipstreamed new images for the internal sata drives of my notebook..
and forcing unsupported drivers.. but the system isnt supported for that so yeah I wonder about vista and later on Windows 7!!
thats what this topic is about obviously and that was my stated question not about xp or linux or whatever u think.. no interest in xp anymore
cheers
Windows 7 is live?!!?
LOL THIS IS SO ORIGINAL
But true...
When Win 7 arrives we'll be seeing Vista doing a very quiet, very hasty disappearing act.
Why is that?
I have both a MAC and Vista and prefer the latter. Have not had a single issue with 64-bit vista. Running it for two years now.
Mostly because if the black eye MS gave themselves over Vista.
They've got something good here and want a fresher, more positive outlook.
I have 3 MACs - One on my wired NIC, one on my wireless and then one for bluetooth - I tried using them instead of vista once, wasn't much fun.
@Dan because simply 7 > Vista.
Yet large busineses and governments are all starting to move to Vista now.... I think Vista will be around for quite some time.
And hopefully XP too.
I got 7 running on a 4yr old lenovo laptop I enjoy finding all the little things that make it easier to use for me =]
But with Vista I never ever had any issues with it like everyone said. As for the games side of things it worked perfectly so meh to hatin =]
I have Win 7 on a 7 year old compaq presario laptop and it works fine
I have windows 7 on a 10 yr old laptop that was top of the market when I got it but is now trash. But is runs with just a 1G of ram. The system will freeze when doing some things with graphics but there is no driver for the old integrated video on the laptop so it is using a generic driver so I can live with the issue.
How have you got it working when it's not out yet and the beta has expired? Are/will you also get the updates aswell when they start coming down the pipes?
RC1 is expiring in 2010.
hey can anyone point me to the all language pack of the ps2 release...thanks site gives an error
Don't think it's out yet, usually takes a bit longer for Microsoft to release those.
Microsoft = XBox
Sony = PS2
This is a Microsoft post... and not even a videogame one at that, why bother bringing in sony into it!
@y3k.nik: Obviously he meant SP2, not PS2, since the was asking for the "all languages" version, and the link is for a "five languages" version.
Unless you're using sarcasm and it's just lost on me...
He just made a typo, why didn't you read the article and realize the letters SP2 are used? (instead of PS2 if you didn't realize that either)
does anyone know if this is going to stop crashing programs on my computer? or at least for some of them (64bit)
Considering that we don't know what programs you are running, how the hell should we know if they'll stop crashing?
does anyone know if this SP will magically replace smaa's crap hardware with top-of-the line components?
Will it also invade the computer and re-write the crappy code from whatever software manufacturer has screwed up their programs?
let me know - thx
I use OS X, XP tweaked to near-infinity, and Win 7 Ultimate. I totally bypassed Vista. I think Ubuntu is gonna go on my spare PC.
Same here. OS X on my MacBook Pro and XP dualbooted with Win7 RC on my gaming rig. Xubuntu running on an old Celeron laptop and virtualized on a couple year old laptop as a C++ development environment for my brother.
I hope you'll enjoy restarting W7 RC every 2 hours come June 1.
That goes into effect next March...
Yeah, the Win7 shutdown limit is for the Beta version; the one you should have already replaced with the RC anyway.
SP2... hmm well might be good... but i dont see the point of leaving the win7 rc :P which i am running as main os on both my stationary and my netbook
Cool. I'll check it out... and all this bitching about Vista, ALL of my problems went away when I upgraded to 4 gigs of ram... and it cost me what? $50 tops for 4 gigs of Crucial DDR2800?
Yawn... Windows 7 is basically here.
And Vista is installed on 80% of machines bought in the last 2 years.
Carry the 2... that's a lot of Vista machines.
Considering that Vista only has less than 25% of the market, it is not as much as it should be.
>> "Considering that Vista only has less than 25% of the market, it is not as much as it should be."
Right. But considering that most people buy computers on a 5 year cycle... and XP has been around for the last 8 years... of course there are more XP machines than Vista.
If you bought a new computer since 2007... it came with Vista. If you didn't buy a new machine lately... it's still got XP.
SP2 has been out on MSDN for at least a month. This is not new!
And everybody has access to that. STUPID POST.
Downloading NOW!
Superexcited....
Saw the RC a few weeks ago - decided to wait for release... Really don't care that much - Vista's only issues with me are: resource management and networking speed. Network speed has been critical for me.
I'm rebuilding my main workstation soon (my first water cooling rig too) and will be installing Win7 x64 RC. Ever since I loaded Win 7 on EVERY render-node on my facility I have had amazing reliability and perfromance. Win 7 on my Netbook just works and works well.
I hope SP2 fixes my networking issues - otherwise, I really don't care.
I just installed SP2..............it......it just feeeeeels better!!!!!!
Try these new pills... they are called Placebos. They are amazing!
jk
Downloading SP2 now... hope everything works!
Downloading now.
Vista is not that bad, it works fine with me, I wonder why many people "can't use Vista", it's easy to use. I am using Ultimate 64-bit
The same reason why Macs never crash or get viruses or trojans and can read your thoughts and make your computing a piece of cake.
So is this link the RC or the final release?
So is this link the RC or the final release?
Sorry for the double post. Firefox hung on me. Lovely spinning Microsoft circle. Maybe SP2 will fix that as well.
nope - SP@ doesnt have access to AOL's crap software code.....
It's not coming up in my Windows Update. Any ideas as to why that might be? I checked my logs and didn't get it in my nightly updates. I have 64bit but I doubt that matters.
For now it is a manual download. It will be added to the Automatic Updates in a few weeks.
It showed up on my Windows Update, in Vista 64bit. Of course, I had to click "check for updates", but it should be there.