Windows Vista News Updates

Here’s what to buy and install today to be ready for Windows Vista tomorrow.

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Microsoft has released a detailed roster of the contents of its forthcoming service pack for Windows Vista, and the list includes more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance.The list, recently posted on Microsoft’s Web site, can be downloaded as a 47-page document that the company says is not exhaustive. Microsoft plans to add more fixes and patches to Windows Vista SP1 before a final version is released to the public early next year.

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Makes good on 2006 deal, includes APIs for security vendors to circumvent PatchGuard

Microsoft Corp. has posted a detailed account of the changes to Windows Vista in the service pack it is scheduled to roll out as a public beta this week.

The 17-page Word document details what Microsoft called “notable changes” in Vista SP1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), the preview version that has been seeded to thousands of invitation-only testers in recent weeks and soon will be opened to all comers.

Microsoft touted scores of additions, improvements and enhancements to Vista in areas ranging from hardware support and reliability to security and synchronization with the also-upcoming Windows Server 2008.

The “performance and power consumption improvements” category, which sported the largest number of bullet-point items, promised that Vista would copy files locally 25% faster than before and copy files from a remote PC also running Vista SP1 50% faster. Vista SP1 will also read large images faster, and the bundled Internet Explorer 7 has been tweaked so that it renders JavaScript-intensive sites as fast as earlier versions of IE.

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While some customers are clamoring for Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, others aren’t going to rush out and install an update without testing it first.

As mentioned earlier this week, Microsoft is making available for download a service-pack blocker tool for Windows users who don’t want Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 pushed to users’ desktops without their IT administrator’s official OK.

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