When Windows XP reached our computers in 2001 it came with unanimous appraisals and everyone everywhere loved it immediately, no matter if you were a Microsoft lover or not you were joining in on the celebrations. Though not quite a solid replacement for corporations comfortable with Windows 2000, it was a major improvement in stability and reliability over the previous editions of the Windows Operating Systems. Despite excelling in areas such as digital media integration, supporting more than 130,000 devices at launch, and improving task-based user interfacing, Windows XP was obviously not free of faults and a significant security update, Service Pack 1 (SP1), was released in late 2002.

Even with the installation of the new security pack, Windows XP continued to experience security vulnerabilities and the dreaded blue screen was still ever present. This lead to the release of Service Pack 2 (SP2). SP2 further addressed critical security issues that had arisen since, or hadn’t been resolved with, the release of SP1. The security patch did not only tweak the system “under the hood”, but it provided added functionality to the OS by including a more advanced firewall, integrating a pop-up blocker for Internet Explorer, and increased wireless and Bluetooth support. SP2 for XP was of such magnitude that it was considered for release as a new version of XP.

To make a long story short, even though Windows XP arrived to the clamour of virtually everyone, it was still fundamentally flawed and only after the release of SP2, combined with a decent system configuration, did it become the well and truly stable workhorse everyone was expecting.

Then came Vista. Unfortunately Microsoft’s new OS promised to revolutionize the user’s computing and online experience once again, but it was ultimately received poorly on all fronts, Microsoft lovers and haters alike, so much so that it has been producing harrowing sales figures from day one. In fact, in its first month of release XP sold in excess of 400,000 copies while Vista merely was able to stumble upon the underwhelming 240,000 mark.

So, there are high hopes, from Microsoft and users alike, that SP1 will do for Vista what SP2 did for XP.
Though not comparable to the magnitude of SP2 for XP and though Vista seems to have fewer vulnerabilities than most operating systems, SP1 for Vista seems to be shaping up into a sturdy and mandatory update as it will not only introduce a variety of critical security fixes, but also redesigned versions of Vista applications, new functionalities, updated and extended list of supported device drivers and many other OS updates and improvements.

It could be said that an update of this magnitude could indeed introduce an entire new category of problems for the already shoddy operating system, but Microsoft has been using a batch of new services that retrieve important case study feedback directly from the users’ systems, so the development of SP1 for Vista is directly driven by feedback obtained from the built in Windows Error Reporting, Customer Experience Improvement Program and Online Crash Analysis tools (if you are a Vista user you may have encountered these before). These services and tools have been crucial in the release of the August 2007 Vista reliability and performance updates that seems to show Microsoft is on the right track.

 Quality Improvements

The quality improvements that will be introduced in the service release are geared toward optimizing the overall customer experience and providing a stable system, where Microsoft is addressing all the most commonly recognized problems that are cause of systems crashes and stalls.

Administrative Improvements

There are a large number of improvements, but the main entry in this category of improvements is that SP1 will address some of the requests that many system administrators had in relevance to making the tasks of managing Group Policies easier.

Hardware and Standards Improvements

Since the release of Windows Vista the industry has introduced and defined a wide range of technological and hardware innovations and standards that were simply not supported by Vista. Microsoft will include support to those standards which are expected to become the most prominent and important in the coming years.

SP1 for Vista will not provide any interface updates to the user, so the integration will be seamless, if perceived at all by the user, however it will provide a great deal of under the surface updates.

There is some skepticism, however, amongst influential personalities of the industry on the validity of Vista as a viable and sturdy substitute for XP, primarily due to the fact that Microsoft seems to be in the beta stages of SP3 as of July 2007, also that more and more customers are requesting XP as base installation in new PCs, and furthermore Microsoft has extended support for XP until 2014.

It’s good to know that we have an extra 7 years to decide whether or not we actually want to migrate to Vista.

---

Submit Bookmark To:

Write Comment

Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed. Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button. Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*