Microsoft has squashed rumors that a beta of SP1 for Vista would ship this month.  The company says that SP1 for Vista will be released at some point during this year in beta form but when that will be remains to be revealed.

Talk of a beta service pack being released started last week when various blogs began saying that ”sources close to the company” said Vista SP1 beta was just around the bend.  None of the blogs or “sources” ever mentioned a specific date but just about all of them insisted that SP1 beta would ship this week.  It’s almost the end of the week and with Microsoft coming out of the woodwork, it doesn’t look very likely that a beta version of SP1 will see the light of day this early.

Vista SP1 will included several talked about updates but the primary reason for it now is that Google wanted Microsoft to make changes to the built-in desktop search which would enable users to change it to use a tool of their choice, the Department of Justice agreed with Google and thus came the ruling that Microsoft would have to release a service pack for vista this year.  Perhaps not in final form but it will have to be available to the public at some point this year.

Chief financial officer at Microsoft, Chris Liddell said “Clearly there will be a SP1, but at this stage we’re not talking about exactly when that is.”  It doesn’t make any sense not to talk about it if you ask me.  With many enterprise and business level customers waiting for Vista SP1 to come out before upgrading, I think at least a tentative timeline is in order.

The company likes to downplay the importance of a service pack for Vista saying that Vista can stand on its own right but the truth is, in a business environment, it can’t.  There are still some issues with slow file copying and shutdown times that are slated to be fixed in the service pack.  Until it is released, Microsoft will at least see those customers holding off, tempt them they may but if I were representing one of their business partners, I would be holding off as well.

The beta service pack may still be released to a select few group of testers but will not be made public.

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Entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 4:05 am under Microsoft, Upgrading, Vista.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.