A couple of days ago Microsoft made the Vista Service Pack (SP1) available to us Regular Folk, and of course I rushed right out and grabbed myself a copy and installed it on a laptop running Vista Home Premium.
I feel it my Duty to trail-blaze for you, Dear Reader. And of course.. I wanted it, too. Which helps in situations like these.
Why might you want it: I have described what a Service Pack is here before, and what it does, and does not do (or, add). What it will do is rectify quite a few of Vista's bugz and glitchz and give you a more stable and reliable operating system. It will (modestly) improve your machine's performance ("speed") in some areas, which you may or may not notice.. but it's nice to have anyway. And for laptop owners, SP1 has resolved the "wake"/Hibernation issues completely.. at least, on my machine it did. And, it "rolls up" security Updates into one package.
What it will not do is perform a miracle. And it doesn't give you any new toys.. or add any new "features" or abilities.
It simply makes Vista smoother, peppier, and more secure. All "good things", right? Right.
Installing SP1: Vista Service Pack 1 is available on the Microsoft Website. You must go there and click on the "Download" button ( the download link is here). The download is 434.5 MB's and on my High-Speed DSL took just over 20 minutes to download (*Your mileage may vary). You can either Run the download directly, or Save it as a file-- and, as I always do with large downloads, I recommend doing the latter. Double-click the download to launch the Install wizard.
The installation is automated and you do not need to stand by while it's happening. Launch it and then go and do something else (constructive) for a while. In fact, you are specifically told not to touch anything during the install.. as it needs to reboot your machine (twice) during the process. Do not be alarmed if your computer turns off (twice).. it's supposed to.
The Service Pack is large (6 GB's) and does a lot of work. Microsoft advises that it takes almost an hour to complete, but mine didn't take near so long-- completing in under 40 minutes (*Your mileage may vary).
Conclusions: So far -- and admittedly this has only been a few days now -- I am very happy with the improvements to my machine (*Your mileage may vary). The whole process is much improved over what I experienced with the Beta-builds, and the results are better.
I am particularly pleased with the wake-from-low-powerstate fix.
Tip of the day: Go ahead and get the Vista SP1.. now that it's finally available to us.
Today's free link: If you enjoy reading Tech--for Everyone and appreciate the tips and free software links.. and such, you will also appreciate a direct competitor of mine's Website. Bill Mullins' Tech Thoughts is a daily read of mine, and the man knows what he's talking about. (I can say that because he and I agree on most things...)
Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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