Windows Vista SP1 RC Released
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Just a couple hours ago, I exclaimed: "It's raining release candidates!" I say it again, because Microsoft has released another, Vista SP1, which will be publicly available next week. |
Vista SP1 is the second release candidate of the day and third of the week. This morning, Microsoft announced public availability of Windows Server 2008 RC1. Windows XP SP3 RC1 posted on Monday.
Microsoft made the new Vista release candidate available to Connect beta testers today. Tomorrow, the company plans to release the update to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Next week, the important software update test build will be made available to the public. The timing makes sense. As I said on Monday, Windows client and server software development tend to occur in lockstep, with Windows Server progress leading the way.
That said, unlike the Windows Server and Windows XP release candidates, there is no numeral for Vista. Microsoft is calling the beta update "release candidate" rather than Release Candidate 1. That says something about the development progress. Based on Microsoft's past RC behavior, Vista SP1 isn't nearly as far along as the release candidate designation might suggest.
I predict: Windows XP SP3 will overshadow Vista SP1 and likely will be a bump in the road for Vista testing and deployments. After all, XP is what most organizations run in most places anyway. IT organizations have a helluva lot more incentive to test and deploy the Windows XP update before worrying about switching to something new.
Release of two Windows client service packs is really unprecedented, and many IT organizations should hope that it's no precedent. Microsoft is asking a whole lot of IT organizations by making these two updates available so closely together.
More importantly, SP3 brings too much parity between the two operating systems. Microsoft does want IT organizations to deploy Vista, right? The differences between Vista and XP will be actually less with SP3. Vista's advantages, such as improved security, ubiquitous search, drive encryption, and improved deployment and management tools, also present challenges, particularly architectural changes related to security. Those challenges, coupled with the update for tried-and-true XP, will give some IT organizations even less incentive to deploy Vista.
I don't mean to diss Vista SP1. I'm one of the few Vista fans, it seems. But realistically, I don't see how two major service packs placed so closely together will help Vista adoption when so many businesses use XP.
That said, two things: There is something customer-first about Microsoft's approach, and maybe the company has great confidence in Vista compared to XP. Too much confidence, perhaps?
Related Posts:
- Windows Server 2008 RC1 Reaches the Masses, Microsoft Watch, Dec 5, 2007
- There Is a Good Reason to Get Vista SP1, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 4, 2007
- Windows XP Closes In on SP3, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 4, 2007
- A Mac-to-Vista Switcher Story in Pink, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 4, 2007
- Exchange 2007 SP1 Readies for the 'Big Bang', Nov. 29, 2007
- Thirty-Six Updates Later—and Counting, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 27, 2007
- What Is the Vista Experience?, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 14, 2007
- Vista's Consumer Rocket Ride to the Enterprise, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 8, 2007
- Windows Vista Ultimate: Plus or Minus, Microsoft Watch, Sept. 26, 2007
- What Windows Vista Does for Me, Microsoft Watch, Sept. 14, 2007
- Windows Updates' Perception Problem, Microsoft Watch, Sept. 13, 2007
- Vista SP1: To Wait, Or Not?, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 29, 2007
- Yes, Virginia, There is a Vista SP1, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 29, 2007
- Don't Have a WOW, Man, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 28, 2007
- Broken Windows, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 9, 2007
- Microsoft: No Rush to Vista SP1, Microsoft Watch, July 19, 2007
- Uh-Oh! No Vista SP1 This Year?, Microsoft Watch, June 20, 2007
- The 'Big Bang' is When?, Microsoft Watch, April 26, 2007
Comments (4)
Either, people stay on XP because of SP3 or move to Vista because of SP1, doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, Microsoft gets paid and Windows marketshare increases. Poor Leopard & Linux
Posted by mailbox01 | December 5, 2007 5:52 PM
Neil, better late than never.
Here Portuno Diamo is responding to a poster by the name of vcsy_stock_scam(by the name he chose, can you see what he wants the readers to believe?)
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12004&tid=1320879&mid=1320879&tof=3&frt=1
So let's examine vcsy_stock_scam (the guy who says VCSY is a stock scam) says there's no way Microsoft would settle with VCSY because it would open the flood gates for "every other failed criminal business owner"...
Now, like I have said, vcsy_stock_scam believes VCSY is a scam and he is telling the reader the VCSY CEO is "failed" and "criminal" and that's why he's suing MSFT.
He wants you to believe Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro ignorantly took this case on the word of the VCSY CEO without having vetted the credentials of the intellectual property and Microsoft's historical use of these claims.
Then he wants you to believe that Microsoft can "crush" VCSY. How? Who knows. Maybe vcsy_stock_scam has knowledge of other efforts Microsoft may be taking to ensure VCSY is put out of the way. I suppose VCSY lawyers will have to investigate that and perhaps find out what vcsy_stock_scam may know to claim such things so confidently.
And he says VCSY is "trying to sucker MSFT into buying an otherwise worthless company". So he has so little information on VCSY that he wants the reader to think VCSY would be for sale to Microsoft. LOL
But, watch this carefully. Adobe is testing a technology that can be plotted in parallel to VCSY patent 521. The inference is that Adobe (which has had Apollo out as beta for a significant period of time) is using VCSY technology on evaluation basis.
And vcsy_stock_scam wants you to believe Microsoft is stupid enough to give away the future of MSFT on the web to Adobe because... MSFT can't settle or it would be a "bad example".
Yeah. Like the bad example where MSFT settled with Burst for video streaming technology that ended up in Silverlight. And a bad example like where MSFT settled with Eolas for video automation technology the day before issuing Silverlight 1.0.
Yeah. Microsoft is going to cut its own throat to give up the opportunity to compete with Adobe by gaining permission to use 521 to power Silverlight 2.0 with a silverlight client-side application package for .Net... just like Feedsync has been touted without a functional client. Plumbing. Plain and simple. Until then it might as well be called Feedstink.
vcsy_stock_scam is the scam. And reader, you need to watch out for people like vcsy_stock_scam who will say anything to make you think what he wants you to think.
Posted by I-Man | December 5, 2007 6:17 PM
That said, two things: There is something customer-first about Microsoft's approach, and maybe the company has great confidence in Vista compared to XP. Too much confidence, perhaps?
Neither, only time for windows 7
Posted by Marco | December 5, 2007 7:19 PM
what I-Man aka portuno diamo isn't telling anyone is vcsy.ob doesn't HAVE any technology. they have a patent for an overly broad, prior art idea that IMHO won't pass the new legal standards the Supreme Court put out in KSR v. Teleflex.
also what I-Man aka portuno diamo won't tell you, is he's running the most incompetent pump & dump scam on the internet. Any forum with a message board & he'll be right there touting vcsy & it's patents.
hopefully the SEC & FBI have taken careful note of this guy.
Posted by john_carlton04 | December 14, 2007 7:07 AM