Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 15 February 2008 20:29
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Of course, the driver re-installation problems didn’t cause issues for all SP1 testers – for some the process resulted in a smooth installation, while others simply required some drivers to be manually re-installed afterwards.
So, despite SP1 being finished, Microsoft wisely decided to hold off a bit longer, in an attempt to nail down the problem and issue some
pre-SP1 updates to Vista users so hopefully no-one, going forward, would enter driver re-installation hell.
A
blog post from the MSDN service has delivered the news that Vista SP1 is finally available for developers and tech professionals signed up to either the MSDN or TechNet service, saying to all those feeling slighted that: "
We heard you".
Originally aimed for release ‘by the end of the week’, Microsoft instead beat their deadline slightly by offering the download from the US time zone’s date of February 14 from both the
MSDN and
TechNet sites – with both of these links taking properly subscribed users to the relevant download pages.
Of course, anyone can click on these links, but as Microsoft says, you will need to sign in first before the download is initiated, so unless you’re a paid subscriber there’s no point in clicking.
The MSDN blog post notes that “slipstream versions [of Vista SP1] will be provided in the future”, but the blog post author notes that they are “not sure of the exact date [these slipstreamed versions will be released]”.
So, what should general consumers do about downloading SP1? Please read onto page 3 for our advice.
