“Now is the time and the time is now.” This is the introduction Microsoft Product Manager Nick White tied to the company’s first initiative designed to make public details about the first service pack for Windows Vista.

Carrying somewhat of the weight of a slogan, the time reference is far away from the impulse built into the Wow. I don’t know if you still remember but “Wow is Now” was made synonymous with the launch of Vista in late January 2007. Quite a limp Wow, outperformed in the Vista delivery by the impact of Apple’s iPhone for example and a marketing campaign which failed to gain or even keep a healthy momentum. Seven months after the consumer launch of Windows Vista the Wow is referenced less and less having faded into the background, while the operating system is slowly grinding and eroding Windows XP from its dominant position on the operating system market instead of dislodging it as an obsolete and expired platform.

Wow Reloaded, No Sooner than Next Year
Microsoft’s second take at the Windows Vista Wow is scheduled for the first quarter of 2008. The company failed to put an accurate date on the release but just because it is not entirely up to Microsoft. “We’re targeting the first quarter of 2008, but the exact date really depends on feedback we receive from testers and the work we put into making sure we understand the feedback we receive,” explained Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Windows Core Operating System division at Microsoft. Of course that the Redmond company, in its long tradition of hinting (notice that I am not using the term leaking, and have opted for an euphemism) future development directions, revealed the 2008 release date for Vista SP1 since the Financial Analyst Meeting 2007 in July. Notice that in the chronological enumeration of client and server milestones for the 2008 fiscal year, Vista SP1 is placed well after Windows Server 2008, formerly codenamed Longhorn. Although since July Microsoft indeed postponed the release to manufacturing Windows Server 2008 until the first quarter of 2008, the launch date remains set at the end of February 2008.

So your best estimates are that, if Microsoft delivers Vista SP1 at the end of February, you still have to wait six months beginning now for the refresh. In other words Microsoft has made a decisive move to catalyze Vista adoption before the service pack drops. It remains to be seen if the decision will or will not prove a gambit for the Redmond company. And just in case that you are hopping for Vista SP1 before Windows Server 2008, don’t! The reason? Well the first service pack for Vista and Windows Server 2008 are intimately connected, via the 6.1 kernel.

“Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 have been built from the same fundamental source code base since the beginning. Many of the core files are identical between the two products, although each product has unique features, specific individual files and functional behaviors that are appropriate for the intended customer uses for the specific product. For example, Windows Media Center only appears in Windows Vista, while Active Directory or Windows Clustering only appear in Windows Server 2008. Examples of common files shared between the two operating systems are the kernel and core OS files, the networking stack, file sharing. In the past year since the Windows Vista public release, the common files in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 have been continually improved based on customer beta feedback, customer deployments, and Microsoft internal testing,” explained Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc.

Windows Server 2008 is currently in Beta 3 stage and Microsoft was planning to RTM its last 32-bit server operating system by the end of the year. This is no longer the case. And currently the company’s best estimates for Windows Server RTM are the first quarter of 2008. Coincidentally, the first quarter of the upcoming year is also the release date for Windows Vista SP1. Right… there is little coincidence here. At this point in time Microsoft plans to make the full beta of Vista SP1 available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers by the mid September. The company will also deliver a public testing build around the time it will move into the release candidate phase of the SP1. Indications point to later this year, but that is anyone’s guess right now.

Vista SP1 - The Dying Breed of the Service Pack
Vista SP1 will not be a vessel for new features. This just to know what not to expect from the service pack. In no manner is Vista SP1 a repeat of Windows XP Service Pack 2. As a matter of fact XP SP2 was an exception from the service pack course over at Microsoft and in this respect not even SP3 will bring anything new to the platform launched in 2001 and last updated in 2004. But this does not mean that Microsoft is not growing Windows Vista. In this regard the company downplayed service pack releases as only an accessory to its update infrastructure. Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), the Download Center are all applauded as viable alternatives to the traditional service pack. This does by no means imply that Microsoft will discontinue the practice of refreshing its software products through the release of service packs.

According to Microsoft nowhere is the continuous evolution of Windows Vista outside of service pack releases more evident than in the areas of application compatibility and device driver support. Programs featuring the Works with Windows Vista or certified for Windows Vista logo programs have increased steadily in volume from 254 in November 2006, the month the operating system was released to businesses, to 652 in January, to 1,709 in June and to 2,076 in July. As far as device drivers are concerned, at the end of July Vista included over 2.2 million items, up 700,000 from the 1.5 million drivers supported in November 2006.

source: news.softpedia.com