The Windows Vista launch date is about a week away and there is already talk about the first Service Pack (SP1) being made available as soon as this year. According to an email that Bink.nu received this is what the first Service Pack should include:
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) will be a standard service pack that will include security updates, hotfixes, as well as limited other changes focused on improving quality.
The Technology Adoption Program (TAP) is looking for customers and partners actively test and provide feedback on Windows Vista SP1 to help us prepare for its release in the second half of CY07. Customers must be willing to provide feedback and deploy pre-release builds into production environments.
It doesn’t sound like they have plans for releasing anything new in SP1, and instead the first Service Pack will cover security patches. In case you were wondering this was Windows XP’s release schedule:
- Initial release of Windows XP was on October 25, 2001
- Service Pack 1 (SP1) released on September 9, 2002 which is 319 days after the initial release.
- Service Pack 2 (SP2) released on August 6, 2004 which is 1016 days after the initial release.
- [future] Service Pack 3 (SP3) to be released the first half of 2008
If Microsoft keeps on a similar schedule the release date of Vista SP1 would be December 15, 2007 and Vista SP2 would be November 11, 2009. As you can see a release date of 2007 for Vista SP1 does not seem too unreasonable, so if you’re one of the many holding off until Vista hits that milestone you might be able to get it in time for the holidays…maybe Santa will bring it for you. 
There has also been some other interesting Vista news around the Web. The Boston Globe is saying that businesses will spend (on average) $9.33 on hardware, $5.35 on software, and $3.93 on service providers for every $1.00 they spend on Vista itself. That number seemed quite large, but after thinking about the need to update software and hardware it sounded about right. After all, a lot of the small businesses (or at least the ones I’ve worked with) haven’t upgraded PC’s and hardware since Windows XP was released…so they are due for an upgrade.
The one other thing that I saw today came from BusinessWire [via CrunchGear]. It looks as though CompUSA is going to offer a money-back guarantee if you’re not completely satisfied with Vista or Office 2007. To take advantage of this offer you will have to fork out $50 for their technicians to install the software on your PC at the CompUSA store, or $150 to have a technician come to your house to perform the installation:
Customers who bring their computer to a CompUSA store before 3:00 p.m. on January 29 will receive a free Windows Vista evaluation of their computer. Customers who receive the evaluation will be able to purchase the software installation for only $19.99 and pick up their computer as early as 12:01 a.m. on January 30. Beginning January 30, software installations will be available for $49.99 for in-store and $149.99 for in-home installations.
Should you decide that you’re not satisfied with Vista they will refund your money (well, probably not the $50 installation fee) and they’ll reinstall your previous operating system. They are really smart for offering this guarantee because Vista is the easiest operating system that I have ever installed. Almost anyone can understand how to go through the upgrade process, but knowing that you can get your money back if your not satisfied will probably appeal to a lot of people.
[vistasp1.net]
Website for all bugs in Vista up to date and updated with links to Microsoft website on these bugs
I’m sure this a big driver for getting SP1 out-the-door. Many businesses won’t upgrade until after SP1. So, it only makes sense to get it out there quickly. The question is, is it too early. With Windows 2000 SP1 fixed over 500 defects. Windows XP was about the same. Will a smaller number of defects corrected mean there are fewer bugs in Vista or that there wasn’t enough time between the two release dates to fixed all the bugs that were identified?
With that in mind, will an early release of SP1 be good for customers or a clever marketing campaign? I can see Bill saying now, “With other release of Windows, SP1 corrected hundreds of problems but with Vista only three bugs were fixed. How’s that for progress! Upgrade today!”
I think that is a handy site to have in my bookmarks.
I think they’ll have plenty of time to start rolling out bug fixes, and the site that wipeout140 points to shows that there are already 16 available. It may not seem like much considering two-months have passed by since RTM, but the bug reports will start rolling in once consumers get their hands on it. I’m sure a lot of the bug fixes take time to complete and test (Microsoft isn’t exactly known for speedy releases when it comes to patches) so a bulk of the fixes probably won’t emerge until 4 to 6 months after the consumer release.
This isn’t surprising, there will be a lot of bugs in brand new software, and compatibility fixes as well.
That’s my point exactly. By the time most of these bugs are reported it will be second-half of 2007. So how many bugs will be included?
It sounds to me like someone in management said, “Ship SP1 as soon as possible so we can sell more copies of Vista. It doesn’t matter if we have fixed enough of the bugs to make it worthy of calling the update a service pack.”
If they would release the updates as hot fixes as soon as they are available then they could wait until there were more of them to make the SP1 worth the time and planning corporations have to make for any SP.
I’m sure that’s what they are saying because one of the articles that I’ve read said that Vista’s sales should remain steady for about 12-months. If that’s when sales starts to dip a little then of course Microsoft will do what they can to pick it back up.
They only release patches for Windows and Internet Explorer once a month (unless something severely critical comes up), so I don’t understand why they can’t setup some sort of batch script that will aggregate all of the updates up to that point. That way when people install a fresh copy of Vista they would be able to download one file and the whole system will be up to date.
Oh Vista is so buggy… There will be hundreds updates in first months after January 30.
Folks! If your WinXP is slow, buggy, or infected with viruses, you need WinXP CLEAN (RE)INSTALL. Cheap offer from CompUSA – $50 only
That’s one way to look at it.