Windows Vista SP1 Public Beta to Be Next Week

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Wednesday Microsoft announced that they were releasing Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Vista SP1 to Microsoft Connect, and that tomorrow they would release the software to MSDN and Technet subscribers.

Additionally, Microsoft said they would release the software publicly (finally!) next week via the Microsoft Download Center. This is a great move, and though I would caution users against jumping into a non-released version of an operating system, many will likely try it out.

According to Microsoft, the beta trial so far has resulted in several changes, including:

• Size reduction of the standalone installers, as much as 50% for those (x64, x86) with all 36 languages, and 30% for packages consisting of just EFIGS (once again x64, x86).
• Disk space requirements for SP1 installation has decreased significantly, and now if more space is required to install SP1, an error message will now display exactly how much space is needed to complete the installation (instead of just letting you wonder, I suppose).
• Better cleanup of installation files.
• Improved installation reliability. However, the exact quote is “testing shows that these improvements have significantly increased the proportion of successful installations of the RC.” That makes me wonder what percentage is unsuccessful! I would image my system if I were trying this.

We Say: If you remember when XP SP1 came out, after complaints, Microsoft enabled IT administrators to block its installation. Microsoft already has taken this into account, and starting tomorrow, Microsoft will have info on a “blocker patch” here.

We’re getting close people. However, at least performance-wise, SP1 betas haven’t shown much.