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Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Ask DLS, Beta

Ask DLS: Vista SP2 Beta released: Does the public care?

While most people probably don't care what Microsoft does to patch or improve Windows Vista any more, Service Pack 2 is now available to Technet and MSDN subscribers and is slated for public release on December 4th.

Could SP2 actually take care of some of the irritations that have plagued other Vista users? Perhaps more importantly, does anyone really care? Vista has been taking such a beating in the media that it seems as though no one will. Prevailing sentiment seems to be that Vista should be ignored and left to die while development on Windows 7 continues.

While enhancements like Windows Search 4.0, native Blu-Ray media burning, improved wireless, and Bluetooth 2.1 support are great, I've yet to see any perception-altering features mentioned.

Personally, I've never hated Vista, and I've been able to work through or disable any of the annoyances I've encoutered (like UAC). I recently installed Ultimate x64 and I've been enjoying quite a bit. Photoshop CS4 runs like a dream, and Eset recently released a beta of my favorite internet security suite.

My Vista install is running just fine right now, but if SP2 can tweak my system's performance or squeeze a few more minutes of battery life out of my laptop, then I'm all for it.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Vista SP2 will do anything to really improve the OS, or does it stink of a last-ditch effort to "salvage" the experiment?

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Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

CiviballsI 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.

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