Microsoft News Tracker

Today, Microsoft’s Nick White took the wraps off Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista at the Vista team blog. In a nutshell, it is what you would expect from a service pack and a beta release will be available in a few weeks with final release tentatively scheduled in the first quarter of 2008. That release is aligned with Windows Server 2008 RTM which today was announced as slipping out of 2007 into 1Q2008. In more detail:

Vista SP1 includes:

• A of roll-up previous Vista fixes
• New Vista fixes
• Some enhanced administration features (.e.g BitLocker, Network Diagnostics tool)
• Support for new hardware and software standards (e.g. Direct3D 10.1)
• More details in the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta White Paper
• Not called out specifically: the promised remediation for the Google antitrust complaint. Update: A Microsoft spokesman says the promised search changes are there.

Dates:

• Currently a small group of preview testers
• SP1 beta release “in the next few weeks,” availability unclear
• Later pre-release of SP1 will be available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers
• Release to manufacturing targeted for 1Q2008 but obviously depends on quality and is also aligned with Windows Server 2008 RTM which has the same target after slipping out of calendar year 2007. The Windows Server 2008 launch event will still take place on February 27, 2008.

All of this is pretty much as expected except for the Windows Server 2008 slip which will undoubtedly lead to complaints, although that was clearly in the cards because of the shared code with Vista SP1. Also obvious was Microsoft’s plaintive hope that business customers would just get on with installing Vista and not worry about the service pack.