Windows Vista SP1 available now

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Windows Vista SP1 available now

by Brad Linder Mar 18th 2008

No more betas, release candidates, or other test builds for Windows Vista SP1. Microsoft is pushing the final version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 out the door. You can download standalone installers for X86 and X64 systems from Microsoft starting today.

Microsoft has also released a series of documents detailing the changes in Service Pack 1. But we'll save you the trouble. For the most part, you won't notice any major differences. Service Pack 1 looks and operates a lot like the original version of Windows Vista. Almost all of the tweaks are under the hood, and what you will hopefully notice is that your computer is more reliable (meaning it crashes less often) and works better with all of your peripheral hardware devices and third party software. Microsoft also snuck a bunch of security updates in as well.

The standalone installers weigh in at 450 to 550MB, depending on how many languages are included in the version you download. If you upgrade using Windows Update, you'll only have to download about 65MB.

If you're running a pre-release version of Windows Vista SP1, you'll need to uninstall it before installing the newest version. In fact, if you're running Vista SP1 RC, you won't even see Vista SP1 in Windows Update until you uninstall your release candidate and then check for new updates, install the prerequisites, and reboot a few times.

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

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

James said 8:42PM on 3-18-2008

Haven't checked out any of the RCs for SP1 but am still unable to snag it through Windows Update. Thank goodness for the standalone.

Jeebus said 8:47PM on 3-18-2008

121.5 MB for the x64 update.

Avoli said 8:49PM on 3-18-2008

Just finished installing it, took maybe a little over 30 minutes. Can't say I see a difference, but maybe that's a good thing. Never had a single issue with Vista beforehand, hopefully this ensures that.

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