Microsoft releases public test build of Vista SP1
Summary: The Release Candidate of Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 is live and available as a free download by anyone interested in checking out the near-final build.
The Release Candidate of Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 is live.
Anyone who is interested in checking out the near-final test build of Vista SP1 can get the bits for free from the Microsoft Download Center.
Microsoft has been releasing private test builds of Vista SP1 to various groups of testers for the past several months.
Microsoft officials have said the final version of Vista SP1 should hit in the first quarter of 2008.
(Thanks to Neowin for the pointer to the Vista SP1 RC download.)
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download is also avaible via Windows Update
64-bit version ...
... takes 50 minutes to install (i.e. longer than the full OS).
Now lets see if it works.
Tried SP1 - 5 BSOD's - will wait until Prod. release
No data lost but they still didn't fix the UAC nags. Why not have a "do not ask me again" with a table (of permissions) like ZoneAlarm? If I say I trust something once, that should be enough. UAC will stay turned off until the nags stop.
In the short time I used SP1 I noticed no observable deterioration of performance nor any increase. More RAM appeared to be used but not critical. Otherwise, everything worked as it should.
Uninstalled SP1 - went smoothly and without a hitch. So far all is well again. I'll wait for the production SP1 and if that isn't a major improvement, I'm going back to XP.
Not for home/SMB users
But...and this is a big BUT...
after spending a couple of days testing it on three of my own systems, and being pinged by essentially all my relatives/friends/clients who've been saddled with Vista-infested PCs this year...
I would take Microsoft at their literal word with respect to the warnings and cautions given about using this on systems people care about. I would NOT recommend casual users, small or midsize businesses, or *any* organization with any variation whatever in their "Vista-capable" PC fleet to touch this with a ten-mile pole until it goes into officially-supported production. There are just way too many things that *will*, not "may", go wrong...go wrong...go wrong....go wrong...
Ummm....paging Yul Brynner...
xp sp3 better that vista sp1 or th other way around...
RE: Microsoft releases public test build of Vista SP1