Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft
Microsoft releases a ton of details about Windows Vista SP1
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.

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
brian said 11:38AM on 12-09-2007
Is it faster that Windows XP SP 3 yet?!!?!
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Regrettedtoast said 12:18PM on 12-09-2007
I just hope it runs more games faster.
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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?
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AL said 8:17AM on 12-10-2007
WHERE ALL THE WINDOW VISTA NEGATIVE? SO CALLED EXPERT DON'T KNOW NOTHING, WINDOW VISTA ROCK.
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