Related Sections: Microsoft Software
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 installed, tested, works better
You might have heard that Microsoft rolled out the first service pack for Windows Vista yesterday, claiming to fix lots of bugs, make the operating system more secure and, well, we hoped maybe it could even cure all known diseases. Maybe we were too optimistic. We took Service Pack 1 (SP1) for a spin, and didn’t notice a whole lot of difference. It’s a 434.5MB download for the entire stand-alone installation, or you can wait for it to automatically update your current Vista operating system by simply doing nothing but having auto updates enabled.
The install went flawlessly, taking about 30 minutes from start to finish with a couple of reboots. It was even kind enough to leave our dual-boot installation of Ubuntu 7.10 untouched. From the long list of bug fixes, we were most interested in the biggest flaw we saw in Vista compared with Windows XP: dog-slow file transfer speeds over a network. Microsoft says this new version of Vista can do those transfers 45% faster. Our test group of 57 files, totaling 847MB, took 1:36 to transfer with SP1, compared with 1:45 using the original Vista. That’s not a 40% speedup, but it is 9.4% faster. No diseases were cured, either — but any extra speed on our Vista PC is certainly welcome.
Our conclusion: Vista isn’t so bad as the Microsoft bashers say it is, especially if you disable all its nag screens. Now, with this service pack, it’s even more tolerable.
Windows Vista SP1 Update: Get it here
By GreenwoodKevin at 1:44 PM ON 03/19/08
"especially if you disable all its nag screens" Hold the phone. How do you do THAT????
By Riftpoint at 2:43 PM ON 03/19/08
Search your comp for User Account Control, its either part of defender or account settings (or both), and then turn UAC off. Simple and quick (though it might require a restart)!
By TheOriginalGiga at 10:23 AM ON 03/20/08
Vista is fine for those who like pretty lights and the feel of a mac. But for the gaming crowd, Vista won't be on the upgrade slate any time soon. When an OS uses enough recourses to make a 27FPS hit in a simple FPS compared to it's predecessor, there's something that wasn't taken into consideration.
I'm sorry, I know I sound like another Vista basher, but I was truly looking forward to a better operating system than XP for gaming and Vista failed.
By Riftpoint at 11:40 AM ON 03/20/08
Uhh... I do a fair amount of gaming, vista runs fine for me, only problem i ever had was trying to get the original tribes working. The nice thing about Vista is that when your game isn't running, it runs aero (taking up a chunk of memory) but once you start a game or other intensive program like that, it shuts aero down. I can run Crysis at a fairly nice setting with vista.
By Maan at 2:30 AM ON 03/23/08
Vista SP1 destroy Windows Sidebar Gadgets for other accounts in my computer keeping them ok in my account... I hope Microsoft will fix that soon.
By jetblack13 at 1:17 PM ON 06/08/08
Please, the Vista SP1 is the worst thing windows has ever done, it has effectively destroyed my computer. The OS will not run, SP1 will not install (several oxc errors), the computer will not start up, it has deleted all of my system restore points, except for the one point where sp1 was installed, which of course will not work. Safe mode has been disabled, and of course the vista tech support has more or less just told me they have no idea why its so messed up. (BTW, its a new computer with a compatible version of vista for the update, and yet it still thinks its a cancer and not an update)
By necronomicron at 2:38 PM ON 08/04/08
Let be honest, vista is the same thing that windows me, a really pretty os, but it was never as good as the predecessor. nice lites, nice sound, but a pretty bad os, if you have periferials 2 years or older none of those run, manufacturesr dont have driver, if a run a hd card pci e on vista, it will crash, it wont let me install my aplications i need to work, so in the end is to much hassle to have running, why to battle so bad, whe the last version was so good, if you buy a new os, is becauseis better, the beta testers bare the resposability to see its better, not better for the company if no for the user, for the consumer, any way the case of vista it makes a nice paper holder
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necronomicron:
Let be honest, vista is the same thing that windows me, a really pretty os, but it was never as good as the predece...More »