Vista SP1

 

Microsoft on Tuesday said that it has reached the "release candidate" with the first service pack for Windows Vista, with plans to make the test software available publicly next week.

It is releasing the test code this week to the 15,000 or so people who have been beta testing SP1 already, and will also make it available on Thursday to those in the MSDN and TechNet developer programs.

"We feel really good and we look forward to receiving feedback from our larger set of testers," said David Zipkin, a senior product manager on the Windows Client team.

Microsoft also said on its Vista blog on Wednesday that it will make available a "blocker" that will allow customers who have Vista and use Windows Update to block SP1 upon its final release to allow for further testing. Microsoft offered a similar option with Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Service Pack 1 is mainly designed as a collection of bug fixes and performance improvements rather than an attempt to add new features. Among the changes that are more feature-related is the ability to use BitLocker encryption on multiple hard drive volumes as well as changes to the desktop search feature, which were made to satisfy antitrust concerns from Google.

Update

The release candidate of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 should then be available via Windows Update. It might be that you will have to download some prior updates before the Release Candidate becomes available. It should be noted that this is only working on English editions of Windows Vista unless you tweak the Registry on non-English Vista editions to make Vista believe that you are using an English Vista.

Download the file Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Hack and unpack it to your Vista system. Executing the file will remove the old Registry keys that are no longer needed and add the new ones.

Another option would be to open the file in a text editor and manually remove and add the keys to the registry. Restart your computer afterwards and visit Windows Update. You will most likely be prompted to install three minor updates before you will see the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in the list,