Vista SP1 passingly says hi and waves goodbye February 7th, 2008
Initially, I am aware that this news is two days old, but words never get older
, hence, I decided to write about this issue.
The day before yesterday, or on the 5th of February to be more exact, our screed for Microsofts actual operating system, positively Windows Vista Service Pack 1 expectancy should have been vanished. In the other side Vista users would be happy by now for the arrival of SP1, however, for funny reasons also this time as many other times Microsoft makes a jump on time. Although we are used to Microsoft delays and not holding of the promises very much lately, the withdrawal or better to say postponement of SP1 after the official announcement of release and it’s delay for ‘a month or so‘ is more than absurd.
Why absurd you ask, well pretty simple, considering the fact that Microsoft developers team should have finished fixing existing Vista vulnerabilities, wherefore, collecting them in one place should not take that much time. Against all criticism and comments apparently to Microsoft bosses it doesn’t play any serious role about this delays, their trend is the same, simply, they don’t disturb their comfort eventhough they are planting a disappointment in their customers. Defacto, they do get away with it very fine theoretically, sadness and nervousness from this cases incur only to the poor customer.
Redmond has a very strong back, they are very well aware that users don’t have where to buzz off, I say this because of the fact that we are sunken into their monopoly and only cycling in it, although there are plenty other alternatives but seems like those don’t just satisfy our needs that much.
When meeting with Vista users, they ask ‘hey, when is SP1 going to be released?‘, ‘isn’t it ready yet?‘, plus in many HelixTECH episodes I’ve mentioned its release date in front of the public, for when SP1 is going to be unleashed, even I quoted February as the final date for SP1 final release. Imagine this situation of mine, I kinda feel embarrassed for my words, I wonder if Microsoft does care at all for braking their promises, so often? I do really like to know the answer to that.
There may be many different reasons though, luckily some are known already. Very popular is the file copying over network issue that nestles in Vista. To my opinion this should have been fixed until now, shouldn’t it? Almost 1 year and a month has passed since the launch of Vista to the public use. What has really been done until now isn’t even worth to be mentioned, practically not that much. Recall a previous post of mine where I exhibited about the slow file copying from my laptop to the external hard disk, but I can assure you I’m not the only one who experienced this bad luck, out there you can find many more Vista user complains. I don’t want to jump into conclusions but, lets say loudly and proudly: file copying process in Vista sucks, that is why Windows Product Management team should have taken this into much more serious consideration, and definitively with the release of SP1 for Vista this problem was ought to become history.
Well it didn’t happen that way! The same defect still remains alive, SP1 didn’t bring that much impact on Vista systems, file copying through network is no different than it was, see for your self and notice the terrific results.
Shocked!!! 30 days and 20 hours for 534.MB? Yes my dear, you’re absolutely right about that. So no, thank you very much SP1, and especially thank you so much Microsoft, but for the disappointment of course.
Why SP1 then, should we expect anything worth waiting for, what changes can be noticed?
Well, according to Mike Nash from the Windows Product Management group at Microsoft, who really is excited to announce the release of SP1 to manufacturing,
Service Pack 1 is a very important milestone because it addresses many of the key issues that our customers have identified with Windows Vista over the last year both, directly and through programs like the Customer Experience Improvement Program. With Service Pack 1, we have made great progress in performance, reliability and compatibility.
Fair enough Mike, is there any prove for all that
I’ve personally been running Windows Vista SP1 pretty exclusively for a few months and I’ve noticed that my systems run faster and more reliably than they did with the “Gold” release of Windows Vista.
Pretty exclusively a few months ago SP1 was released as Beta, later RC and you appended the term Refresh to the later releases, correct me if I’m wrong but are you trying to say that earlier releases of SP1, beta releases to be more exact work better than the RTM one? If the answer is NO, why postpone SP1 RTM for March then? And why different Vista releases, you mention Vista Gold, now there is Vista Red, when Vista Shred is going to be released, no worries, you can email me about this.
Service Pack 1 brings new improvements that are based on feedback we heard from our customers. It further improves the reliability and performance of Windows Vista. The information we collect thanks to tools like the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Online Crash Analysis, and Windows Error Reporting help us learn about where and when customers are having issues with Windows Vista and the applications that run on it. Since these issues have a direct impact on our customers’ experiences, we’ve invested time and energy to make this better. While Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is an important milestone, we will continue to invest in the continuous improvement process.
You like to repeat yourself a lot, I can tell, what isn’t letting my curiosity appease is you mentioning the customer, do you really care about them? But hey, guess what, you don’t have to answer that question 
SP1 also includes changes focused on improving the performance of Windows Vista in areas that impact the customer experience the most. For instance, with SP1, copying or moving files around your PC, your home network or your corporate network should now be much faster — up to 50% faster in some scenarios (according to our internal tests). In addition, on many kinds of hardware, resuming a Windows Vista-based PC from sleep is faster on Service Pack 1.
That’s amazing, hilarious, at last some notable change, I can’t wait to get it although I can not now, but Mr. Nash I think I have something for you, ta-da, Long Zheng got you there, he found the real reason why SP1 was not released on Monday. See, I wasn’t speaking all in vain up there
With all due respect Mike, why you throw the blame to other hardware vendors for not supplying the customer with proper drivers as if you were the innocent and/or like they are the real burden, no one’s here to blame for you are the first to mess things up, let’s be honest. Whatsoever, I’d like to pretend like I didn’t see anything, but you can’t so simply cover the sin, me and other Vista fans, enthusiasts and users will wait until March, even mid-April, but up to then, please, we don’t want to expect the unexpected.
Eventually, I myself am a Microsoft products user, and Vista user in particular, the install of SP1 would be very welcomed, while I more recommend service packs rather than Automatic Updates, hence, I could take the responsibility to encourage others install SP1, once it’s available certainly, but with the highest sincerity this kind of piffles are pissing me off.
Update: while looking back to the astonishing image I found out this
Image 1: Mark this line: Copying 5 items (534.MB)
Image 2: Compare to this: Copying 70 items (140 MB)
Why’s there a . (dot) between the numerical size and the size value, for some sort of concatenation sake or something? I’d assume it’s a floating point number but Items remaining: line says 340.55 MB, thus that is a decimal but the remaining size couldn’t be bigger, so false assumption.
Images credits to istartedsomething.com
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Vista SP1 passingly says hi and waves goodbye, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
It expresses generally my inner rancor if you read it more detailedly
there certainly are a lot of information out there, which necessarily will fulfill the gaps.