March 24, 2008

Windows Vista SP1

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

One of the original jokes about Windows Vista was that Windows Vista was a joke itself. No, not that one. The joke was that some pundit was asked whether he’d ever upgrade to Windows Vista. His answer was that he’d wait for the SP1. Well, it’s that time!

In computer jargon, SP is an acronym for Service Pack. It’s a collection of updates, fixes, and patches that are released all at once. This is opposed to the minor updates you might get from time to time when you have the Windows Update Service activated.

For Windows Vista, SP1 is the first service package distributed. It’s not automatically sent to your Windows Vista PC yet; automatic updates are set for April. But if you so desire, you can download the update from Microsoft’s web page, but what I find comic is the warning buried at the bottom of that page:

DO NOT CLICK DOWNLOAD IF YOU ARE UPDATING JUST ONE COMPUTER: A smaller, more appropriate download is available on Windows Update.

Now I have a test computer named Valentine. It’s my Windows Vista Guinea Pig. Valentine would normally be the target for this SP1 upgrade. But given that I actually use my test computer and coupled with the above warning, I declined to install SP1. I mean, I have work to do today and, unlike my pal Charles, I don’t want to spend the rest of the day and part of tomorrow reconstructing Valentine.

Relevant Links

Wither WiMAX? An Australian WiMAX pioneer came out recently to claim that the wide-area wireless networking standard is a miserable failure. Duh. Folks, things that take off really do take off. As far as I know, WiMAX has been pushed for years with mediocre results. Had they been spectacular, we’d all know it by now.

1 Comment

  1. We got our SP1 the other day (I logged off in the hopes that it would continue updating, but it stopped. We checked for updates later, set it about it’s business, and elft off at 86%, where it was before).

    The first couple of times we turned it on, it was much slooooower to start, But now, it’s back to normal speed.

    We’ve been happy with Vista, and I’ve had no problems whatsoever with it.

    Comment by Douglas — March 24, 2008 @ 7:19 pm

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