Windows Vista SP 1 (Beta) coming mid July 2007

Finally, its been announced...Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista is coming!

Just when Microsoft had everyone, including it's customers, partners and competitors all believing that the release of SP1 was going to be delayed till at least year end — the company is set to deliver Beta 1 of Vista SP1 in mid-July 2007.

The final version is expected to be released around November. In interesting observation is that should Microsoft release Vista SP1 in November, it will have been in beta for an unusually short period of time — four months. In the past, Windows service packs could be in beta stages for a year or longer!

So what can you expect from Redmond's latest service pack?

Microsoft is expected to emphasize that SP1 is more about fixes than new features. Most of the elements of SP1 are expected to enhance or supplement features already a part of Vista. Here’s a list of other fixes likely to make it in:

* Performance tweaks reducing the amount of time it takes to copy files and shut down Vista.

* Improved data transfer performance and decreased CPU
utilization via support for SD Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA).

* Support for ExFat, the Windows file format for flash memory storage and other
consumer devices.

* Improvements to BitLocker Drive Encryption to allow not just encryption of the whole Vista volume, but also locally created data volumes.

* The ability to boot Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) on an x64 machine.

* Improved success rate for firewalled MeetingSpace and Remote Assistance connections.

Of course there may be more in Vista SP1 than what’s on this list. This is all the information available at this time.


Suggested Reading
- A list of useful Windows commands and tools
- Bill Gates slips to No. 2 on the World's Richest List
- The 10 most common passwords
- How to fix "BOOTMGR is missing" in Windows Vista
- How to disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista

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