Vista Sp1 -- Engadget

vista sp1 posts

Windows 7 edges out Vista in thorough gaming benchmarks

by Ross Miller posted Mar 25th 2009 at 10:41PM

Looking to find out what's the better gaming experience out there right now -- Windows 7 beta or Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 -- the folks at PC Perspective put both operating systems through the ringer with help from seven graphics cards running the gamut of price ranges. Overall, three ATI Radeon HD and four NVIDIA GeForce cards were pitted with six games and applications in one of the lengthiest benchmarking features we've ever read. AMD / ATI gets credit for being the first to release combined drivers that work on both OSs, and with one lone exception, performance on the Windows 7 machine was equal to or better than Vista. That said, the recomendations for each system is the same: ATI gets an advantage here for cards in the $120 to $130 range, but the competition is much closer as you start looking at more expensive models. Hit up the read link for technical details that you can shake an anti-aliased stick at.

Microsoft's Vista promo video just a "spoof"

by Darren Murph posted Apr 17th 2008 at 10:02AM

Turns out Microsoft's unfathomably horrendous Vista SP1 promo video that turned up yesterday was just one great big spoof -- a spoof Redmond apparently had no qualms spending a good bit of dough on rather than just re-dubbing some old video from yesteryear. Nevertheless, a company representative said to be "familiar with the reason behind the production" noted that "they thought folks internally would get a kick out of not taking themselves so seriously all the time, but some people thought that's exactly what they were being -- serious." He continues on to say that this "little piece of art" had "caused quite a few laughs in Microsoft's hallways." Um, yeah -- and here in the outside world we aren't laughing any quieter just knowing this masterpiece of comedy was indeed intended as a joke.

[Thanks, Rooshma]

Microsoft burns our eyes with Vista promo video

by Paul Miller posted Apr 16th 2008 at 1:25PM

It's official, Microsoft knows no shame. We used to think that the Zune tattoo guy was bad for publicity, but now it's clear that the video promo team needs zero outside help in dragging whatever shred of dignity this company has through the mud. Whoever thought up this Bruce Springsteen-defiling "Rockin' Our Sales" piece of garbage to promote the launch of Vista SP1 should be fired instantly and sued for defamation. It's just that good. Video is naturally after the break.

[Thanks, Jacob S.]

Continue reading Microsoft burns our eyes with Vista promo video

Some Vista SP1 early adopters reporting problems, how about you?

by Nilay Patel posted Mar 19th 2008 at 2:42PM

Alright folks, it's been a whole day with Vista SP1, and like any OS release, reaction is mixed -- although we're certain the people with problems are being more vocal than the rest. As you'd expect, major complaints seem to center around driver issues, that perpetual thorn in Vista's side -- sound cards seem to be the major problem, although there are also reports that NVIDIA drivers are being finicky. For what it's worth, Windows Update won't offer SP1 to anyone running what Microsoft calls "problematic drivers," until they're updated, but that includes several machines sold with Vista pre-installed, which is causing some confusion. In addition, older versions of security software like BitDefender AV and Zone Alarm are flat-out blocked from running on SP1, but updates are apparently available. Obviously that's a lot of chatter, so we figured we'd ask the experts -- how'd it go? Any speed-ups or slow-downs to report? All your drivers and apps still working? Let us know in comments!

[Via Pocket-lint]

Read - Official Windows Team Blog entry on getting SP1 to appear in Windows Update
Read - List of problematic drivers
Read - PC Pro article on Vista SP1 problems

Vista SP1 officially released

by Nilay Patel posted Mar 18th 2008 at 12:25PM

Looks like all those rumors yesterday were true -- Microsoft has just posted up the official standalone version of Vista SP1. Sure, you've been able to get it in one way or another for a while now, but if you're into silly things like "legit OS updates," the wow (SP1) is now.

Update: Here are the release notes -- as we've known for a while now, it's mostly bug fixes and performance tweaks, but the sheer volume of 'em is something to behold.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Vista SP1 officially coming tomorrow?

by Nilay Patel posted Mar 17th 2008 at 2:02PM

It's already got its own toilet paper in Japan, but the rest of us are still patiently waiting for Vista SP1 to officially hit -- but maybe not for much longer: DailyTech is reporting that SP1 will be available for download starting tomorrow, with boxed copies to follow on store shelves Wednesday. While Microsoft's PR team wouldn't confirm anything other than "on track for mid-March" to The Register, it seems the company has been a little more forthcoming with its pals at Amazon, which is also listing March 18th as the release date for SP1. That's some fishy fish, but there's only one way to find out for reals -- nap time, here we come.

Read - DailyTech
Read - El Reg
Read - Amazon

Microsoft lets loose Vista SP1 for x64-based systems

by Donald Melanson posted Feb 21st 2008 at 12:26PM

Not a whole lot to say here, but if you're running Vista on an x64-based system, you've probably already noticed a little surprise courtesy of Windows Update, which today started pushing out the x64 edition of Vista Service Pack 1. If you've been following things in SP1 land, you'll notice that's actually ahead of the neat and tidy Windows Update launch for non-x64 systems, but behind the unofficial options already available. On the upside, that should mean that all the bugs have been ironed out, but you can never be too careful, so take all your usual pre-update precautions and let us know how it all works out in the comments below.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Microsoft fixes Vista SP1 update problems, not soon enough for some

by Donald Melanson posted Feb 20th 2008 at 1:35PM

It looks like at least some of those that got their hands on the Vista SP1 update one way or another got a bit more than they bargained for, with DailyTech reporting that the update process wreaked some considerable havoc on some users' PCs. Specifically, the SP1 update process took it upon itself to automatically install a prerequisite Windows Update, which apparently caused some folks' PCs to dive into an "unbootable loop," the only solution to which is a complete system restore. For its part, Microsoft has now pulled the prerequisite update in question (which apparently means it wasn't much of a "prerequisite"), although that'll likely be of little consolation to those that have already seen their PC put through the ringer.

Vista SP1 doesn't significantly boost performance, slows down certain tasks

by Nilay Patel posted Feb 13th 2008 at 6:06PM

We heard a lot of different performance claims about Vista SP1 in past few months, and now that it's finally (sort of) here, it's time to bust out the stopwatches and see what's what. According to CNET, early tests of SP1 indicate that while there are some performance enhancements to be had, they're mostly driver related -- so if you've been updating all along, you won't see much of an improvement. What's worse, certain tasks like copying files to USB 2.0 hard drives have gotten around 50 percent slower, a speed hit that overshadows the other filesystem improvements in SP1. All in all, though, it looks like SP1 is a worthwhile update -- just don't expect anything to get noticeably faster.

Nab Vista SP1 straight from the source... while it lasts

by Paul Miller posted Feb 12th 2008 at 11:13AM

Don't want to wait until March for Windows Vista SP1, but not feeling the whole torrent thing? Microsoft has posted a disc image to its OEM partner site with a full copy of SP1 on it, and the download is free -- if a bit slow at the moment, thanks to all y'all grabbing a copy. The 1.2GB disc image requires you run it as a clean installation, so you've gotta ask yourself it's just worth waiting a few more weeks for an easy peasy update courtesy of Windows Update. Decisions, decisions.

[Via Download Squad; read link is the disk image]

Vista SP1 still vulnerable to activation hacks

by Thomas Ricker posted Feb 11th 2008 at 7:25AM

Oops. One of Microsoft's big goals in releasing Vista SP1 is the closure of a pair of known Vista activation exploits. While the OEM BIOS hack and grace timer hacks are now indeed useless in the face of SP1, a third remains. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes over at ZDNet tracked down a hack that required "a few seconds in the command prompt" to trick Vista SP1 into thinking it was genuine. Now that SP1 is riding the torrents, we can't say we're surprised.

Official: Vista SP1 released to manufacturing -- headed your way... in March

by Thomas Ricker posted Feb 4th 2008 at 8:34AM

We've been hearing rumors all morning that Microsoft would release Vista SP1 this week. Now, according to Reuters, Microsoft has just sent Vista SP1 to manufacturing. In the same presentation to investors, Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft has released Windows Server 2008 to manufacturing as well. However, the server software won't formally launch until February 27th. Now we're just waiting for the SP1 download link and/or Windows Update package. Twiddle, twiddle... ah hell, we'll just update you when we get it -- this could take a few days.

Update: Hands off the F5 key kids, Microsoft says SP1 won't be available to customers until March, starting with Microsoft Volume Licensing customers. Server 2008 will be available for purchase on March 1st.

Vista SP1 due on February 15th?

by Nilay Patel posted Jan 23rd 2008 at 9:03PM

Vista SP1 has already been previewed, gone through a Release Candidate cycle, and had a changelog released -- so all that's left is for Microsoft to hit us with it, right? Not so fast, Sparky -- according to various sources, you're still going to have wait three more weeks to get your hands on that hot SP1 action: circle February 15th on your Ballmer / Gates pinup calendar and start counting the days. Of course, Microsoft isn't confirming anything one way or another other than Q108, so don't get too excited, but after all we've been through together, we can't imagine the Redmond crew not giving us a (late) Valentine's Day present -- we're like, totally serious, right?

Microsoft releases changelog for Vista SP1 RC

by Darren Murph posted Dec 8th 2007 at 2:01PM

Those of you clamoring for a public beta of Vista SP1 Release Candidate can spend your weekend brushing up on what all is going to change when that download finally goes live. Available now on Microsoft's website is a sizable document outlining "notable changes" in the forthcoming update, which includes improvements in application compatibility, hardware ecosystem support, reliability, performance / power consumption, security, desktop administration, support for new technologies / standards and interoperability. If we tried to even hit the highlights, all but the most vigilant would probably doze off before they could scroll down to the next post, so we'll just advise the curious to hit the links below and cancel every plan you had for the next 30 or so hours.

[Via I Started Something]

Vista SP1 kills the WGA kill switch

by Thomas Ricker posted Dec 4th 2007 at 5:32AM

Microsoft's anti-piracy system known (and loathed) as Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is set to lose its bite. When Vista SP1 launches in early 2008, WGA will still identify -- ad-nauseam -- what it thinks to be non-legal copies of Vista. However, it will lose its ability to disable said systems. The change was announced in a presentation by WGA senior product manger, Alex Kochis, who said, "Based on customer feedback, we will not reduce user functionality on systems determined to be non-genuine." That should bring a swift end to WGA customer complaints related to false-positives, spyware concerns, or server glitches. Score one point for law-abiding citizens everywhere.

[Via ZDNET, thanks Daniel S.]