We're excited about the progress we've made with Windows Vista Service Pack 1.  On March 18th, Windows Vista SP1 was made available for customers who chose to manually download and install it from the Microsoft Download Center or Windows Update in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.  Last week, we made the remaining languages available - giving WU users the ability to download and install Windows Vista Service Pack in any of 36 supported languages.  Today, we're happy to announce that we are beginning automatic distribution of SP1 in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. 

So what does this mean? Over the next few months Microsoft will automatically distribute Windows Vista SP1 to PCs that have automatic updates turned on (Learn how to turn on automatic updating) and running English, French, German, Spanish, or Japanese via Windows Update. Automatic distribution will only occur, according to user settings, on PCs ready for SP1. After Windows Vista SP1 downloads, WU will let you know that "new updates are available." You'll then be asked to make a few clicks before the installation of SP1 will begin. 

While we're beginning automatic distribution today, you might not see it right away since

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We have made available updated Language Packs for users using Windows Vista SP1 as well as those running Windows Vista RTM. For those running SP1, the Language Packs should be showing up for you under Windows Update. The specific language packs which are being released are as follows:

• German
• English
• Spanish
• French
• Japanese
• Korean
• Bulgarian
• Czech
• Danish
• Greek
• Estonian
• Finnish
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Lithuanian
• Latvian
• Norwegian
• Dutch
• Polish
• Portuguese (Portugal)
• Romanian
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Swedish
• Arabic
• Hebrew
• Croatian
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Serbian (Latin)
• Thai
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Russian

For more information on the Language Packs, click here.

Today, you can now download Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update.  For those of you eager to receive the benefits of Windows Vista SP1, you can now do so.  We've seen quite a bit of questions in our comments so we want to communicate as much as possible surrounding Windows Vista SP1 and today's release to Windows Update as we can.

For those of you happy to wait, sit tight because SP1 will start downloading to PCs automatically beginning in mid-April (remember, this happens only if you have your Windows Update configured to automatically download updates and SP1 will automatically download but not automatically install).  But if you want to get the benefit of a year's worth of improvements right now, go check Windows Update today (hit the Start Menu, All Programs, and select Windows Update).

If in running Windows Update you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed, there are a number of good reasons for this (eight, in fact -- see the whole list).  Below are a few of the most common reasons why you might not see SP1 on Windows Update:

• You have not yet installed all the prerequisite packages you need for Windows Vista SP1. 

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We have some information we'd like to share in regards to Windows Vista SP1 and folks running Language Packs. Some of you may have noticed that after installing Windows Vista SP1 on Windows Vista Ultimate - the Language Packs fail to appear on Windows Update (KB947875).

We will be releasing Windows Vista SP1 in two "waves". The first wave will only provide Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista Ultimate PCs running the following 5 Languages: English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. The second wave will follow shortly after - supporting all 36 languages.

For Windows Update, PCs running the 5 initial languages from the first wave only will be provided with Windows Vista SP1. PCs running Windows Vista Ultimate with any of the other Language Packs installed will not be offered Windows Vista SP1 through Windows Update until they are released. Once the Language Packs are released, Windows Vista SP1 will then be offered for installation.

When installing Windows Vista SP1 from the standalone installer, the standalone installer will only install on Windows Vista Ultimate running any of the 5 languages from the first wave. When installing Windows Vista SP1 on Windows Vista Ultimate with a Language Pack that

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Hello IT Pros!

February 27 is a big day.  Windows Server 2008 will be officially launching in Los Angeles with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, kicking off in just a few hours. 

In support of this very important technology milestone as well as the Windows Vista SP1 release, the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team has just released the third-generation of the agent-less infrastructure assessment platform called Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator 3.0 (or simply MAP).  Through the use of remote WMI calls and secure inventory engines, the MAP tool enables you to quickly inventory a wide variety of networks (AD-managed, IP ranges, and workgroups), securely assess IT environments of servers, desktops, applications and devices, and auto-generate specific and actionable reports and proposal documents in a matter of hours.

 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE BLOG POST...

GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD MICROSOFT ASSESSMENT AND PLANNING (RTM BITS)

Thank you,

Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Assessment and Planning)

No problems.

Unlike the service packs for Windows XP, Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is an AUTOMATIC install. That means if you have Windows Update set to perform updates automatically, SP1 will be installed whether you choose it or not. That almost happened to me today, but I was able to delay it until I could do a disk-image backup. See a previous post “RAID Backup” about that process.


Then I allowed the update to proceed. This computer is a medium-high-end system with dual 2.7 GHz processors, RAID 1 SATA disks, 4 Gb of memory, and Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The update took 27 minutes, from start until I was logged on again. It rebooted once during the install.

I have so far discovered no problems at all. I’ve tried lots of applications, including IE, Word, WordPerfect, Windows Media Center, anti-virus, graphics editors, and many more. SP1 has been running for only a few hours, but so far so good.

Here are some possible improvements:

• Microsoft says it’s a little faster, and it does seem a little more lively, though this computer was pretty

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