Microsoft releases a ton of details about Windows Vista SP1

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft releases a ton of details about Windows Vista SP1

by Brad Linder Dec 9th 2007

With the public release of the first release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 scheduled for this week, Microsoft is making a ton of documentation available explaining the ins and outs of the service pack.

In a nutshell, the update packs a ton of hardware compatibility, system reliability, performance and power consumption, and security improvements. The standalone installer will be 450MB, but if you download Service Pack 1 through Windows Update, it will probably only take up about 65MB. That's because you may have already downloaded many of the hotfixes, security updates and other features included in Service Pack 1.

Reading through the whole list of updates will probably make your eyes bleed, but here are a handful of features we're excited about:

Adds support for Direct3D® 10.1, an update to Direct3D 10 that extends the API to support new hardware features.
SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.
Adds support for exFAT, a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices.
Enhances support for high density drives by adding new icons and labels that will identify HD-DVD and Blu-ray Drives as high density drives.
Improves power consumption and battery life.
Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder.
Improves the speed of copying files, folders, and other media.
Improves startup and resume times when using ReadyBoost.
Users can control which volumes the disk defragmenter runs on.

[via iStartedSomething]

Tags: sp1, vista, windows-vista, windows-vista-sp1

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

brian said 11:38AM on 12-09-2007

Is it faster that Windows XP SP 3 yet?!!?!

Regrettedtoast said 12:18PM on 12-09-2007

I just hope it runs more games faster.

kojo87 said 1:53PM on 12-09-2007

im glad they are improving file transfer speed. sometimes it takes ridiculously long. and faster games would be nice too.

when will the final build be available?

AL said 8:17AM on 12-10-2007

WHERE ALL THE WINDOW VISTA NEGATIVE? SO CALLED EXPERT DON'T KNOW NOTHING, WINDOW VISTA ROCK.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters