One of my computers doesn’t automatic update. Instead, it alerts me to an update. The other day, the alert came up and, being bored and not wanting to work, I clicked the annoying bubble. The update was Windows Vista SP1. I installed it. I survived.

Some folks downloaded the SP1 update early. They didn’t hit upon the Don’t Do This warning. There was much gnashing of teeth.

When I was greeted with the SP1 update notice I immediately panicked, but in a good way. I first backed up my stuff, both to the external hard drive and to an SD card. Then I installed the update.

The warning said that the update would take up to an hour, so I passed the time by working on an old single-stroke motor out in the Wambooli Space-Time-Robotics Labs. When I returned, the PC was prompting me to restart. I did.

Upon shutdown, the updates were installed. The scary warning said, “Do not unplug or turn off your PC during this process.” I wonder who would be fool enough to do that?

When the computer came up again I saw . . . nothing. I heard Windows start on the speakers, but saw nothing. The hard drive light was going nuts. I figured the update was still installing. The warning might have said something about that, I didn’t really remember.

After 15 minutes, the hard drive light stopped. There was nothing on the monitor. Actually, the computer has two monitors and there was nothing on either of them. Ugh.

I don’t believe the monitor problem was with Vista SP1. I’ve seen the problem before. For some reason on my PC, the video card goes silly after an update (which is why I manually do them on that computer). So I unplugged both monitors and tried each of them one at a time. That worked. I had to reset the monitors, their resolutions, and positions in the Display Properties dialog box. But other than that, I did survive the Windows Vista SP1 upgrade.

What You Get With the Upgrade. Nothing. The SP1 update doesn’t add any features, but addresses a number of issues. Sadly, one of them is not speed; Vista continues to not be a faster operating system than XP. (That’s okay: Mac OS X Leopard is not faster than it’s predecessor, OS X Tiger.)

Do I Recommend It? Sure, why not. Backup. Save your stuff. It will be okay. Heck, if you have automatic updates configured, the update may have happened already!

How Do I Know Vista Has Been Updated? Press Win+R to summon the Run dialog box. Type in winver and click OK. The About Windows dialog box appears. If it says “Service Pack 1” in there somewhere, then you have the update. Click OK.