The Windows Vista Team Blog just announced that Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate (RC) is available today on Microsoft Connect. Tomorrow it will open up to Technet and MDSN subscribers, and finally, next week, it will be available to the public through Microsoft’s Download Center. Availability for the final version of SP1 is still slated for the first quarter of 2008.

Among the information given about the release, the download is much slimmer than it was, presumably due to removal of debugging code. It also requires less space to install, and will properly notify you if you don’t have enough space. For administrators, there will be a ‘blocker’ available (information available tomorrow), to prevent the service pack from installing. Many of use made use of this when SP2 came out for Windows XP, allowing us extra time to test and plan deployment, without worrying that the pack would automatically be installed through Windows Update.

The RTM version (final release to manufacturing) will be available as a stand-alone installer for English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese, in both the 32 and 64-bit flavors. 8-12 weeks later, the remaining languages will be

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Who wouldn’t want to look at this Vista wallpaper everyday. This grey Lamborghini parked in front of a building with leaves around it will get peoples attention. I love how the yellow brake calliper matches the yellow leaves on the ground.
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Autumn may be coming to an end but it doesn’t have to on your desktop. This high quality Autumn Windows Vista theme is packed with vibrant colors and transparent toolbars. This theme will definitely go into my top 10 favorites.
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Today, one of my friends asked me how to get SP3 RC1 for Windows XP. Many of you know that this release available for Beta Testers, but Friend of mine is NOT beta tester. So, you can use a Hack that will allow you to download Windows XP SP3 RC1 directly from Microsoft. Windows XP SP3 will be the final service pack for really good Operating System from Microsoft. SP3 will bring a lot of bug fixes and some new features from Vista. Well, if you can't wait for official release, create a .bat file, let say xpsp3rc1.bat. Copy & Past toxpsp3rc1.bat following commands: Once you have created the file run the file by double clicking it. Wait for the Confirmation Message on screen. The Above file adds a few entries to the Windows Registry that makes Microsoft suppose that you are a part of the Private beta program Check for new updates on Windows Update. You will see...

Today Nick announced the availability of the release candidate for Windows Vista SP1. I had a chance to get the RC build of Windows Vista SP1 installed a few days ago. I decided to roll the RC out on all of my PCs which showcase a variety of device types and scenarios:

• My Main Desktop PC running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 - check.
• My Test/Work PC running Windows Vista Business - check.
• My Dell Vostro 1500 Laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate - check.
• My Samsung Q1 UMPC running Windows Vista Home Premium - check.
• My Digital CableCard PC running Windows Vista Home Premium - check.

In installing the RC on my PCs, I did a combination of using the standalone installer and Windows Update. Before proceeding to install the SP1 RC bits, I first needed to uninstall the SP1 beta bits first. Users looking to install the Windows Vista SP1 RC will need to uninstall any previous version of SP1 prior to the installation of the RC from either Windows Update or the standalone installer. With Windows Update, once SP1 was downloaded, a new series of screens telling me about SP1 appeared. The same series of dialog screens

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Today we’re making available the release candidate (RC) of Windows Vista SP1 via Microsoft Connect, and tomorrow subscribers to TechNet and MDSN will have access to those RC bits too.  In addition, the RC will be available to the public next week via Microsoft’s Download Center. The release candidate phase of beta software is typically the final phase before the RTM (release-to-manufacturing) of a product and indicates that the code has attained a significant level of performance and stability.

Let me call out several changes made since the Beta release of Service Pack 1 — many of which came about as a result of direct feedback from our Beta-testing community (thank you!):

• The size of the standalone installers have decreased significantly. For example, the standalone installer packages consisting of all 36 languages (x86 and x64 chip architectures) are smaller by over 50%. The standalone installer packages consisting of just the 5 languages (again, x86 and x64) slated for initial release are more than 30% smaller in size.
• The required amount of disc space for SP1 installation has also decreased significantly. Furthermore, with the RC, if more space is required to install SP1, an error message will now display exactly how much space is needed

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