Vista SP1: Slow Pack 1?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 10 February 2008 07:36

Opinion and Analysis

Our simple advice for Vista users is to do nothing. Don’t download SP1 from illegal bittorrent downloads, despite their availability, as malicious hackers could easily try to infect some of the pirate copies with viruses or other malware.

Microsoft have clearly delayed SP1’s release because it simply isn’t ready. If it was ready we’d all be able to download it. But the early reviews are mixed – some report faster speeds, others report slower speeds, while XP still seems to be the fastest, with XP SP3 promising to speed up XP even further still.

It’s also important to remember that much (but obviously not all) of Vista SP1 is already on many existing Vista machines, because of the Windows Update process that has been offering dozens of Vista updates over the past year.

So, just wait. Vista SP1 will be here soon enough, with the remaining driver issues hopefully sorted out before the vast majority of consumers will be able to download it.

In the meantime, my Vista system is running just fine, and I’m very happy with it, having purposefully stayed away from any SP1 betas so as not to get back to a situation of running a beta version of Vista again.

I just hope that when SP1 is finally loaded onto my computer, it’ll be Superfast Pack 1, and not Sloth Pack 1, although with all the conflicting reports I’ve read so far, to date the whole thing has been a very Sorry Pack 1 state of affairs.