Vista SP1 – Too Little, Too Late?

While Service Pack 1 had the potential to be the second coming for Windows Vista, Microsoft chose to sweep the refresh under the rug in order to focus both home and corporate customers on the RTM version of the operating system. With 88 million Vista copies shipped worldwide after the platform was released to manufacturing back in November 2006, the latest Windows client follows in the footsteps of the predecessor main cash cows from the Redmond company. Microsoft in fact applauded Vista for its record revenue in the 2006 Fiscal Year and in the first quarter of FY 2007. Still, the operating system fails to deliver a convincing performance, and speaking of performance, Service Pack 1 has already been crucified for delivering nothing on top of Vista RTM. The last time that Microsoft actually talked performance improvements for Vista SP1 was in the white paper for the September release of the
first Beta of the service pack.

"The following list describes some of the performance improvements that Windows Vista SP1 will include:

- Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
- Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
- Improves the performance of domain-joined PCs when operating off the domain; in the current release version of Windows Vista, users would experience long delays when opening the File dialog box.
- Improves performance of Windows Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista, reducing CPU utilization and speeding JavaScript parsing.
- Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain computers.
- Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.
- Addresses an issue in the current version of Windows Vista that makes browsing network file shares consume significant bandwidth and not perform as fast as expected," Microsoft revealed.

But while the company is not going public with the figures for Vista SP1 improvements, Mary Jo Foley got a hold of some internal data associated with the service pack. In this context, Microsoft plans to boost copying speeds between locations on the same Vista computer by 25%, and to speed up remote file transfers to Vista SP1 from a non-Vista Windows operating system by 45%. On top of this, Vista SP1 machines will be able to swap files for up to 50% faster than the RTM version of the operating system could. In addition, the periods of time Vista SP1 spends on standby resuming, image reading and user login will also be kicked up a notch. SP1 users will no longer be asphyxiated in User Account Control prompts when managing items in protected locations, third-party diagnostic programs will be better integrated following the release of the service pack and the sign in process will be complemented with the traditional password hint. Overall, it is obvious that Microsoft is doing nothing more than soften all the rough edges of Vista. It remains to be seen if it will not end up being a case of too little too late.